We should be so fortunate. No this Govement, long established, will dispose us to suffer, suffer and suffer some more. Look at at misery of the North Koreans and yet their nation is alive and well. People have an amazing capacity for suffering.
>>>... this Government, long established, will dispose us to suffer, suffer and suffer some more. Look at at misery of the North Koreans and yet their nation is alive and well. People have an amazing capacity for suffering.<<<<
I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the North Koreans are well, but your point is spot on. The founders understood that most people for most of human history lived under despotism, and it looks like we’re returning to that primordial state.
As a sidenote, I used to teach US History at a high school in the Alaska Bush, and used that premise as my starting point in teaching about the Constitution. Despotism can take many forms - and in the case of Alaska Native people, that despotism was called “tradition,” an enormous trove of sayings, actions, and beliefs that must be taken in order to ensure a secure harvest or survival. The Athabascans believed they lived in a “forest of eyes,” in which everything was judging every thought, word, or action for correctness and balance. Say the wrong thing the wrong way to the wrong person, and the game may decide not to jump into your snare, and your family starves. When most of my Native kids considered the consequences of living in a culture believing that, they suddenly embraced Natural Law and Locke a lot more enthusiastically. But for every teacher like me, there’s 100 more teaching kids that American tradition comes from slaveholders who hated Indians.
My fear is what comes next.
God help us.