Must-read opinion piece in the NYT. Here’s the heart of it:
Structural checks can be overrated. The survival of our Republic depends as much, if not more, on the virtue of those in government, particularly the upholding of norms by civil servants, prosecutors and military officials. We have grown too jaded about things like professionalism and institutions, and the idea of men and women who take their duties seriously. But as every major moral tradition teaches, no external constraint can fully substitute for the personal compulsion to do what is right.
It may sound naïve in our untrusting age to hope that people will care about ethics and professional duties. But Madison, too, saw the need for this trust. “There is a degree of depravity in mankind,” he wrote, but also “qualities in human nature which justify a certain portion of esteem and confidence.” A working republican government, he argued, “presupposes the existence of these qualities in a higher degree than any other form.”
It is called civic virtue, and at the end of the day, there is no real alternative.
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But should this all be put in the past tense? The shits are still trying to kill us.
December 11th, 2020 at 9:48AM
UD, say what you will regarding DJT, all justified. But, you gotta admit, he’s been a catalyst for a hell of civics lesson. How many of us knew anything about election laws, certification of vote tallies, on and on.
Along with that, Texas vs Pennsylvania is going to be a monumental SCOTUS ruling, along the lines of Brown vs Board of Education…
December 11th, 2020 at 9:57AM
charlie: Agreed about the civics lesson. Here’s hoping there’s no SCOTUS ruling at all, just a very rapid ‘fuck off.’
December 11th, 2020 at 10:10AM
I don’t know, UD, with all the states that have joined TX, as well as the Repug portion of the PA legislature, you should book tickets for that trial. This is a downright, good ol boy, judicial Civil War…