The media has just revealed the consequential success of long-standing efforts at the production of nuclear fusion. It has been predicted that after some required years of refining the formula, the energy producing process (identical, reportedly, to the Solar production of energy), will enable the production of pollutant-free power. Such laudatory success, the result of decades of dedicated, experimentation, will have salutory benefits for Man and his Planet.
Experimentation, as such, requires the assiduous and precise application of novel, rational and hopefully workable, procedures, in a continuing effort to achieve a recognizable, desired, result. The failure to adequately, apply or satisfy such proposed procedural criteria, predictably, leads to an indeterminate result or abject failure. It was the English poet, Ralph Waldo Emerson, who penned the following, instructive, lines: “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by statesmen, philosophers and divines.”
Much has been debated, in these divisive times, regarding the subject of the success or failure of the Founder’s (“radical”) experiment, the latter, consisting of the novel creation of a Democratic Republic, by and for the People. Depending upon one’s personal perception, it can, arguably, be maintained, to be relatively, successful, albeit, with certain historical blemishes. It can, contrariwise, be viewed, in an opposite light, by reason of the Nation’s seemingly, consistent propensity for dispute and divisiveness on many significant subjects.
Serious contention has persisted between the “mainstream” American, generally content with the political architecture of the present government, and the large horde of the discontented, often inadequately, educated citizen, the latter, to the extreme of recently, mounting an, aborted, attempt at insurrection.
Thematically, we would emphasize the metaphysically, inarguable, position that the success or failure of any experiment (in science or political science) cannot empirically, or rationally, be gauged or determined, unless and until the subject experiment, conducted, specifically as conceived, has, in fact, been empirically, performed. Our present, intended declaration is that the experiment, in government, envisioned by the Founders, has not, to date, been properly conducted, as conceived, by its 19th Century political architects. Like Emerson’s hobgoblins, we have persisted, foolishly, in our failure to comply, with the Founder’s proposed formula.
We would maintain that the most profound area of the Nation’s errors and departures from its originally, devised, formulation, consists in America’s failure of compliance with the “Establishment Clause” of the Constitution; the latter, providing that government will neither aid, nor, interfere with the exercise of religion. Said failure has resulted in an avoidable, divisiveness and profound suffering, had the Nation properly adhered to the clear, secular prescriptions of its Founders. The denial of a woman’s, personal, right to elect an abortion, the penal Blue Laws, the latter, universally, proscribing business on the Sunday Sabbath (the 7th day of the week when the” Omnipotent” Deity, was fatigued and obliged to “rest”), the untold miseries of the transgender and homosexual citizens treated as “sinners,” by reason of their happenstance, inheritance of nuanced, assortment of chromosomes and hormones, the illnesses and mortalities, caused by religionists who renounce vaccination, the atavistic laws of divorce and adoption, the Christian, evangelic destruction of Native American childhood and Native ethnic culture, the unjustified exemption from taxes by profitable religious entities, the banning of books, films and school curricula, the myriad acts of bigoted mischief and criminality, resulting from subjective perceptions of religious dogma; all of which negative phenomena would be non-existent, had the provisions, mandated by the “Establishment Clause,” of the United States Constitution, as formulated and anticipated, been observed.
How can we evaluate the degree of success of an experiment when such experiment’s devised protocol, or formula, has not been followed?
An additional, tragically impactful interference with the American experiment can be observed, as well, in the tactical, misreading of the Second Amendment. The relevant provision, itself, was the result of a settlement of the dispute between the Federalists, who favored a Central Government and the State’s Rights advocates, by permitting the States militias, (viz., the “People”) to bear arms. The Nation has experienced uncountable tragedy from the tactical, misrepresentation of the NRA and the plethora of gunslingers, in their intentional and deceitful, distortion of the subject Amendment, purportedly, to permit every citizen, without qualification or limitation, to possess lethal weapons. This intentional/ignorant and especially profitable misreading of the Amendment has tragically resulted in the senseless killing of innocent children and adults at schools, parks, places of worship, and places of public assembly.
Despite the plethora of tragedies, the gun worshipers have successfully, resisted all rational and responsible efforts to regulate guns, inclusive, at worst, military armaments with horrendous, lethal impact. The white-hot dispute, political and social, between the gun- toting individuals and their more responsible opposition, might critically, be perceived, as a failure of democratic amity, in a Nation, created, by and for, the people.
Such divisiveness and rancor, as in such issues as abortion and guns, might, along with other, unsatisfied provisos, of the Founders’ conceived experiment, with which there has not been compliance, including, voting interference, gerrymandering and election denial, disparity in payment due to sexual bias, unfair tax laws, unjust penal system, and others) conceivably, be attributed to a failure of the Founder’s experiment. Nevertheless, if there are failures of success to be noted, they cannot, justly, be attributed to the Founders’ experiment in the conceit of Republican Democracy, since their prescribed and anticipated, criteria, have not, at least,, to date, been observed.
-p.
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