Books Bygone

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

What America Needs

It is snowing.

I could relay cute things about Rocky's first snow but I won't. As everyone who knows me knows, the fact that it is snowing at Farther Along Farm in rural Mississippi on December 7th-- a Day That Will Live In Infamy-- puts me in a foul mood. 

U.S.S. Arizona Memorial
So I'll just pass along this link to Walter Russell Mead's column in which he asserts
Some of the problems we face are due to essential defects in Hamiltonianism, against which a Jeffersonian revival is our only safety.  The unchecked Hamiltonian ascendancy of the twentieth century has led to a lopsided America.  A revival of the Jeffersonian element in American political thought and practice is essential to our national health.
...
Either way, a long revival of American traditions of individualism, skepticism of elites, and distrust of the federal government is a rising force in this country.  Add to that suspicions of finance and of the influence of firms like Goldman Sachs in politics, and a full blown Jeffersonian reaction is beginning to emerge.
...
What America needs is a debate between 21st century Hamiltonians and Jeffersonians.
I am not a fan of Alexander Hamilton.

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