StaggShire

Sober Expectations

It is interesting to me that in the second line of his speech, Martin Diamond references Abraham Lincoln’s words, which include the phrase “devotion to principle”. In reading the Just and Holy Principles book, the prophets and apostles talk a LOT about principles, as does Dr. Holzapfel. Martin Diamond says that the Revolution was only really half a revolution because the makers of the American Revolution did not think themselves in possession of complete truth ready to be immediately used in government. As part of their sober expectations, they claimed possession of only half the truth, which was the truth about equal freedom being the foundation of all political society. Bluntly and casually said, it was so smart of them to recognize their limitations and to “limit the dangerous passions of the revolution” only to the destruction of the British government, and to leave the building up of the entirely new government to a later time when they could further peruse literature and ponder at more of a leisurely pace. It took eleven years, from 1776 to 1787, to construct a government.

I really admire the Founding Fathers, for it seems they thought of everything. I try hard to be prepared and to think of everything, and like it sounds, it’s not easy. Especially when “everything” consists of creating an entirely new government in an infant land. They knew the founding of a nation was not to be rushed, not to be a show for feverish colonists, not to be a quick parade of cleverness before Britain. Their sober expectations built the foundation and government of America strong and sure. As Diamond points out, a full revolution would have been “revolving” that is, a transfer of power from one to another, but the Declaration of Independence instead pledged the power of the new nation to an abstract principle, freedom. As no other society before had had such sober expectations, no other government turned out like ours.

Although devotion to an abstract principle may not at first sound like a good idea, as tyrannical societies have also been focused in their revolutions on abstract principles, liberty is a principle that can actually very possibly be achieved, whereas utopian equality and fraternity are impossible dreams. This reinforces to me the idea of the importance involved in setting realistic but magnificent goals, not only in politics and government, but in our own personal lives as well. After all, it’s all about principles, and the principles that were used to set up the American democracy, in their unadulterated form, seem to me to also be helpful in our own personal lives. Harking back to Just and Holy Principles, I don’t think such men of God would have admonished and advised us so many times to read and know and love the principles of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence if they weren’t for some use to us as individuals.

A point that Diamond made that I thought was very gripping was this: “Contrary to our too complacent modern perspective regarding democracy, which assumes that a government cannot be decent unless democratic, our Founding Fathers more … soberly, were concerned how to make this new government decent even though democratic.” Again, the Founding Fathers were sober. They didn’t hail this new democracy as the best thing ever and the only way to do things and the only right and true government out of all the world, and wow everyone else is an idiot for doing things their way, rather they gradually moved toward democracy and ended up there. Once there, they made sure there was balance enough for the nation not to collapse. Their expectations sober, their ideals pensive and pure, the Founding Fathers built this country under God in a way unequaled, before or since.