Please, Sir, Stand Still.

“The truth is that the State in which the rulers are most reluctant to govern is always the best and most quietly governed, and the State in which they are most eager, the worst.”  –Plato, The Republic, Book VII

I did not watch the latest State of the Union address. To be honest, it just slipped my mind. But when I read the news this morning and considered watching the address in its entirety, I realized that I would honestly rather watch Spiro Agnew clip his fingernails.

Nevertheless, I did my due diligence and read the full text––though I would recommend this recap and analysis instead of slogging through the whole thing.

Allow me to draw attention to this lofty proclamation:

“…America does not stand still — and neither will I.“

Slap! Bang! Whammy! But wait, there’s more…

“For several years now, this town has been consumed by a rancorous argument over the proper size of the federal government.  It’s an important debate – one that dates back to our very founding.  But when that debate prevents us from carrying out even the most basic functions of our democracy – when our differences shut down government or threaten the full faith and credit of the United States – then we are not doing right by the American people.”

Beneath the Alinsky rhetoric and Pravda sophistry, there lurks the age-old assumptions of those whom Burke would have called sophisters, economists, and calculators: that as a nation grows and changes, a concerted effort must be made to be institute a correspondent program of change in law and government; that the people of America, or of any nation, require their hands to be held by presidents and lawmakers in order to make the journey from the primordial ooze of ignorant convention into the beaming light of a better system.

Just as whenever the topics of the electoral college or the inequities of senatorial representation come up, what has been forgotten is that our system was designed to slow things down. One of the beauties of our constitution is that it was born out of debate and deadlock, both sides agreeing on few things––among them, that the document should make it as difficult as possible for either side to get anything done.

America, indeed, does not stand still, but, as Russell Kirk warned, “Progress… is the slow and painful ascent of the blind led by the one-eyed, dependent upon conservative institutions and the will of God.”