Rumsfield v. Livy
David Ring
Issue date: 11/15/06 Section: Commentary
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"Nor is there any doubt that the same Brutus who earned such honor by expelling the haughty Tarquinius, would have acted in an evil hour for the commonwealth had a premature eagerness for liberty led him to wrest the power from any of the earlier kings. For what would have happened if...[they] having possessed themselves of liberty, or at least impunity, had thrown off their fear of kings only to be stirred by the ruffling storms of tribunician demagogues, breeding quarrels with the senators of a city not their own, before ever the pledges of wife and children and love of the very place and soil (an affection of slow growth) had firmly united their aspirations? The nation would have crumbled away with dissension before it had matured."
Livy Ab Urbe Condita, beginning of Book II
This week brought for me one of those fortuitous coincidences where everything important convenes into a symphony of relevance. Amidst reading Frederick Douglass and Alexis de Tocqueville, and hearing the news about Rumsfeld, I randomly decided to revisit one of my all-time favorite texts: Titus Livy's Urbe Condita. I was reminded of something Rumsfeld said in response to a question concerning the fate of democracy in Iraq. Feigning philosophical insight, Rumsfeld said something to the effect that the desire for freedom is innately human and that to question the capacity of Iraqis to have Republican government is to question their equality as humans. This, of course, was meant to bring the Declaration and Lincoln onto the side of the administration and to make the critics look racist. Indeed, I believe Reagan used to call such skepticism "cultural condescension."
But while we are invoking the Founding and Lincoln, we should not ignore the obvious fact that our independence was got the old-fashioned way: we took it for ourselves! From colonization to 1776, it is manifest that our Revolution was made possible by a zealous Republicanism informed in practice by our Anglo-American heritage and in theory by our classical heritage. We resented George III for a long time, but only at the boiling point did we declare our independence. The fundamental preconditions were our Republican character and our willingness to pledge our lives, fortunes, and sacred honor with muskets!
Livy Ab Urbe Condita, beginning of Book II
This week brought for me one of those fortuitous coincidences where everything important convenes into a symphony of relevance. Amidst reading Frederick Douglass and Alexis de Tocqueville, and hearing the news about Rumsfeld, I randomly decided to revisit one of my all-time favorite texts: Titus Livy's Urbe Condita. I was reminded of something Rumsfeld said in response to a question concerning the fate of democracy in Iraq. Feigning philosophical insight, Rumsfeld said something to the effect that the desire for freedom is innately human and that to question the capacity of Iraqis to have Republican government is to question their equality as humans. This, of course, was meant to bring the Declaration and Lincoln onto the side of the administration and to make the critics look racist. Indeed, I believe Reagan used to call such skepticism "cultural condescension."
But while we are invoking the Founding and Lincoln, we should not ignore the obvious fact that our independence was got the old-fashioned way: we took it for ourselves! From colonization to 1776, it is manifest that our Revolution was made possible by a zealous Republicanism informed in practice by our Anglo-American heritage and in theory by our classical heritage. We resented George III for a long time, but only at the boiling point did we declare our independence. The fundamental preconditions were our Republican character and our willingness to pledge our lives, fortunes, and sacred honor with muskets!
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