Politesse
Lux Aeterna
- Joined
- Feb 27, 2018
- Messages
- 15,956
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- Tauhalamme/Laquisimas
- Gender
- nonbinary
- Basic Beliefs
- Jedi Wayseeker
To my fellow Americans, Happy Washington's Birthday (Observed)!
By your patience, and in honor of one who in life tried that of many, I would like to offer some words for the occasion:
"Interwoven as is the love of liberty with every ligament of your hearts, no recommendation of mine is necessary to fortify or confirm the attachment ... Profoundly penetrated with this idea, I shall carry it with me to my grave, as a strong incitement to unceasing vows that Heaven may continue to you the choicest tokens of its beneficence; that your Union and brotherly affection may be perpetual; that the free Constitution, which is the work of your hands, may be sacredly maintained; that its administration in every department may be stamped with wisdom and virtue; that, in fine, the happiness of the people of these states, under the auspices of liberty, may be made complete by so careful a preservation and so prudent a use of this blessing as will acquire to them the glory of recommending it to the applause, the affection, and adoption of every nation which is yet a stranger to it."
~From the infamous Farewell Address, as he voluntarily stepped down from the position he received first by accolade and then by vote.
"The immediate objects are the total destruction and devastation of their settlements and the capture of as many prisoners of every age and sex as possible. It will be essential to ruin their crops now in the ground and prevent their planting more."
~From a 1779 letter to General Sullivan, ordering the genocide and punitive starvation of the Iroquois peoples for their partial loyalty to the British government.
In these two quotations, I see the footprint of the very best virtues and the most horrific weaknesses of General George Washington, our first American president, who is honored by the national holiday we are currently enjoying. As we enter a new time of struggle - when the Constitution itself and of the judicial system that defends it are questioned, when our leaders conspire openly with the principal enemies of global liberty and spurn our former allies as "weaklings", when the genius investor who changed the face of US automobile and battery production has been seduced away from his businesses by the call of unelected supragovernmental power, when the working people of this nation are being called to organize, to find our true communities, and to rethink to whom and what our fundamental loyalties lie, when brave Americans are already laying down their lives and freedoms in hope of defending the freedoms of those others who outlive them - I think it is prudent to remember the life of George Washington in its most full and complicated scope.
It would be bold indeed to deny that he was one of the most remarkable political and military leaders the British Empire ever produced, or that his actions and choices were uniquely influential on the shape and character of the young nation he helped to found. His legacy defies overly simplistic stereotypes of good and evil. In the vicissitudes of his life, we can see that the paradoxes of American culture - the beauty of our common culture counterposed with the cruelty of our generals, businessmen, and analysts - the ingenuity of our many unique arts and industries forevever hindered by our lazy readiness to let others do the work of building them for scant compensation - our love of wisdom and learning habitually undercut by our distrust of the learned - have all been with us from the very beginning. Indeed, from well before the beginning of this nation, for most of Washington's legacies were inheritances. Neither is this our first Constitutional crisis, our first would-be tyrant, the first time our technology advanced faster than the common sense of it, nor the first time that factional rivalries called the stability of our democratic government into question. On this natal anniversary of the man who through the changing fortunes of his life was called by his friends the "Sage of Mount Vernon" and by his human property "Master", to some remembered as the "American Cincinnatus" and to others the "Destroyer-of-Towns", I can only pray or hope that the virtues of our shared nation will bleed true from conflict once again, that by the hand of those most faithful to its most promises, the better angels of the great American Experiment may survive yet one more perilous storm.
By your patience, and in honor of one who in life tried that of many, I would like to offer some words for the occasion:
"Interwoven as is the love of liberty with every ligament of your hearts, no recommendation of mine is necessary to fortify or confirm the attachment ... Profoundly penetrated with this idea, I shall carry it with me to my grave, as a strong incitement to unceasing vows that Heaven may continue to you the choicest tokens of its beneficence; that your Union and brotherly affection may be perpetual; that the free Constitution, which is the work of your hands, may be sacredly maintained; that its administration in every department may be stamped with wisdom and virtue; that, in fine, the happiness of the people of these states, under the auspices of liberty, may be made complete by so careful a preservation and so prudent a use of this blessing as will acquire to them the glory of recommending it to the applause, the affection, and adoption of every nation which is yet a stranger to it."
~From the infamous Farewell Address, as he voluntarily stepped down from the position he received first by accolade and then by vote.
"The immediate objects are the total destruction and devastation of their settlements and the capture of as many prisoners of every age and sex as possible. It will be essential to ruin their crops now in the ground and prevent their planting more."
~From a 1779 letter to General Sullivan, ordering the genocide and punitive starvation of the Iroquois peoples for their partial loyalty to the British government.
In these two quotations, I see the footprint of the very best virtues and the most horrific weaknesses of General George Washington, our first American president, who is honored by the national holiday we are currently enjoying. As we enter a new time of struggle - when the Constitution itself and of the judicial system that defends it are questioned, when our leaders conspire openly with the principal enemies of global liberty and spurn our former allies as "weaklings", when the genius investor who changed the face of US automobile and battery production has been seduced away from his businesses by the call of unelected supragovernmental power, when the working people of this nation are being called to organize, to find our true communities, and to rethink to whom and what our fundamental loyalties lie, when brave Americans are already laying down their lives and freedoms in hope of defending the freedoms of those others who outlive them - I think it is prudent to remember the life of George Washington in its most full and complicated scope.
It would be bold indeed to deny that he was one of the most remarkable political and military leaders the British Empire ever produced, or that his actions and choices were uniquely influential on the shape and character of the young nation he helped to found. His legacy defies overly simplistic stereotypes of good and evil. In the vicissitudes of his life, we can see that the paradoxes of American culture - the beauty of our common culture counterposed with the cruelty of our generals, businessmen, and analysts - the ingenuity of our many unique arts and industries forevever hindered by our lazy readiness to let others do the work of building them for scant compensation - our love of wisdom and learning habitually undercut by our distrust of the learned - have all been with us from the very beginning. Indeed, from well before the beginning of this nation, for most of Washington's legacies were inheritances. Neither is this our first Constitutional crisis, our first would-be tyrant, the first time our technology advanced faster than the common sense of it, nor the first time that factional rivalries called the stability of our democratic government into question. On this natal anniversary of the man who through the changing fortunes of his life was called by his friends the "Sage of Mount Vernon" and by his human property "Master", to some remembered as the "American Cincinnatus" and to others the "Destroyer-of-Towns", I can only pray or hope that the virtues of our shared nation will bleed true from conflict once again, that by the hand of those most faithful to its most promises, the better angels of the great American Experiment may survive yet one more perilous storm.
