NP - Your Evening Jemmy

[Monte Davis]

Jemmy Madison, like many of the other framers, had pondered how Rome's
"Executives" - the consul/warlords of the dying Republic and then the first
Emperors - found all these evils necessary in time of peril, and eventually
(who knew?) reduced the Senate to impotence.

 

Fortunately, neither our Constitution nor our presidents nor our legislators
would ever permit such decay, amirite?

 

>From  Wikipedia on "Standing army" (with a truly Pynchonian sting in the,
uhh, tail):

 

"In Great Britain, and the British Colonies in America, there was a
sentiment of distrust of a standing army not under civilian control. In
England, this led to the Bill of Rights 1689, which reserves authority over
a standing army to Parliament, not the King, and in the United States, led
to the U.S. Constitution (Article 1, Section 8) which reserves by virtue of
"power of the purse" similar authority to Congress, instead of to the
President. The President, however, retains command of the armed forces when
they are raised, as commander-in-chief. In the course of this constitutional
debate, Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, arguing against a large standing
army, compared it, memorably and mischievously, to a standing penis: 

'An excellent assurance of domestic tranquility, but a dangerous temptation
to foreign adventure.' "

 

From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On Behalf
Of David Morris
Sent: Wednesday, August 28, 2013 9:56 AM
To: P-list
Subject: NP - Your Evening Jemmy

 

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/Evening_Jemmy_8_27_13

 

Of all the enemies of true liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded,
because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent
of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and
taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination
of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is
extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors and emoluments is
multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of
subduing the force, of the people. The same malignant aspect in
republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the
opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy
of manner and of morals, engendered in both. No nation can preserve its
freedom in the midst of continual warfare. War is in fact the true nurse of
executive aggrandizement. In war, a physical force is to be created; and it
is the executive will, which is to direct it.

-- James Madison, Political Observations, April 20, 1795.

 

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