Did the means create the ends? Some thoughts about our founding.

Pure accident or pure reason?

 

— Michael Thomas Maxwell 

On the Postmodern Conservative site, Ralph Hancock’s May 14 article titled “‘Founded-Better-Than-They-Said’ Studies?” resonates particularly with my own queries in the past 3 years as to whether the Founders kind of “stumbled” upon some sheer foundational brilliance merely as a matter of reasonable haggling. That, by a sort of commitment to the shared ideal that they were going to go about this thing in an “approach to pure reason,” and by that very process of reason they inevitably came upon the very same product that the fundamental brilliancies would have provided themselves. 

The “Postmodern Conservative” thing was attractive I guess, which is why I clicked it, “postmodern” being such an over-obliterated term for quite some time now, and “conservatives” needing to get a grip on what the hell they’re talking about specifically anyway. Furthermore, it recalls a t-shirt idea that I very recently had. I was gonna have “Be’n Postmodern Since 1776” in the center over a recessed image of either the american bald eagle, in full wing-span and glory like on the Seal, or Ben Franklin’s original idea for the U.S. Seal, the one with the words “Rebellion To Tyranny Is Obedience to God” rounding a scene from Exodus. “Postmodern,” perhaps? 

Anyway, for me, the invention that came, not out 1776’s Declaration of break-away, but out of 1787, after bungling about with the Articles of Confederation, represents a genius formulation of government structured on a principle of Duality at its most fundamental level. To put it simply, and eschewing the multiplicity of reflective dualities that ensue, when presented with a choice between One Centralized Authority and Many Localized Authorities, the Founders merely answered, “Well, who said we had to make a CHOICE?! Ah HA HA HA! How postmodern is THAT?!…”