Wednesday, March 9, 2016

Quotation of the Day


Alexander Hamilton, letter to Edward Carrington, May 26, 1792:

On the whole, the only enemy which Republicanism has to fear in this Country is in the Spirit of faction and anarchy. If this will not permit the ends of Government to be attained under it—if it engenders disorders in the community, all regular & orderly minds will wish for change—and the demagogues who have produced the disorder will make it for their own aggrandizement. This is the old Story.

If I were disposed to promote Monarchy & overthrow the State Governments, I would mount the hobby horse of popularity—I would cry out usurpation—danger to liberty &c. &c.—I would endeavor to prostrate the National Government—raise a ferment—and then “ride in the Whirlwind and direct the Storm.”


5 comments:

Ares Olympus said...

Here's a copy of Hamilton's full letter:
http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-11-02-0349

The letter was written when he was 35. I didn't remember he only lived to 47, and died in a duel with Jefferson's VP Burr!!!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Hamilton
-----
... Burr, sensing an attack on his honor, and recovering from his defeat, demanded an apology in letter form. Hamilton wrote a letter in response and ultimately refused because he could not recall the instance of insulting Burr; also, Hamilton would have been accused of recanting Cooper's letter out of cowardice. After a series of attempts to reconcile were to no avail, the duel was accepted through liaisons on June 27, 1804.

The night before the duel, Hamilton wrote a defense of his decision to duel. Hamilton viewed his roles of being a father and husband, putting his creditors at risk, placing his family's welfare in jeopardy and his moral and religious stances as reasons not to duel, but he felt it impossible to avoid due to making attacks on Burr and unable to recant, and because of Burr's behavior prior to the duel. He attempted to reconcile his moral and religious reasons and the codes of honor and politics. He intended to accept the duel and throw his fire in order to satisfy his morals and political codes, respectively. His desire to be available for future political matters also played a factor.
------

So this is what "Honor Societies" are about. I probably would have done the same thing as Hamilton, missed on purpose, and hope my rival did the same. In fact I perhaps would have suggested this privately before the duel. Public spectacles really need proper planning!

Ignatius Acton Chesterton OCD said...

Interesting quote, but Alexander Hamilton could never have anticipated anthropomorphic Climate Change. Climate Change is the greatest threat to our civilization and way of life. We must suspend the Constituttion and deal with the carbon dioxide that all plant life needs to survive, but we have now labeled a "pollutant."

Ares Olympus said...

IAC, the plants seemed to be doing fine with their CO2 quote, with a 10 million year natural carbon cycle that went down to 180ppm in glacial periods and 280ppm in the inter-glacial periods, and now on the cusp of permanently exceeding 400ppm.

The problem with the carbon cycle is plants die in the fall and decay and release all their CO2 back into the air, so if we decide 500ppm is causing problems after 2100, there's a long lag time, thousands of years for natural sinks to chemically reduce it back down to preindustrial levels. So its a bit of a bet to hope "nothing bad happens" and "hope 7-12 billion people can consume as much fossil fuels per capita as Americans do now."

On the interesting side, China's economic engine appears to have stalled, or they've run out of things to build, so their CO2 emissions are actually decreasing. Global recessions can do a lot to slow down the burning of fossil fuels, but we have a lot of future to fill, and a lot of debt to pay, so it doesn't look good that we'll cut back for long.

Also interestingly CC skeptic scientist Christy and Spencer, who said last year wasn't the warmest on record, due to it not being the warmest in the middle atmosphere from satellite data had a surprise all-time record global high in their lagging temperature data, so if 2016 ends up like 1998, El nino will have a year of record warmth satellite temperatures, until the next "el nino of the century" apparently that will come in another 18 years.
http://phys.org/news/2016-03-february-warmest-month-satellite.html

Interestingly also CO2 was discovered long ago, 1754 apparently. That's pretty good. And apparently the greenhouse effect has also been known for some 200 years, and back in 1917 Alexander Graham Bell worried about burning fossil fuels and advocated solar power, but burning one-time energy was just too big of a temptation, that we still think its a good idea a century later.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect#History

Geology also teaches us millions of years ago CO2 had levels as high as 5000pm, and its possible that a long-scale volcanic period in our future might compete with burning fossil fuels, and release more subducted limestone CO2 than we could ever burn. But such events are catastrophic by defition, and there's no evidence 9 billion humans could survive through that any better than survive the next ice age in 13000 years.

But when we'll responsible for threatening civilization, it does seem more tragic.

I don't expect humans will ever colonize Mars, BUT its an interesting experiment. Mars NEEDS more greenhouse effect, but even if we found 1 billion year old coal beds, we couldn't burn them, with no free oxygen. But if we found water, we could use solar power to separate the Oxygen and then we could burn the coal, but it would take millions of years to make a different with that tiny input. And the solar intensity is only half as much on Mars.

I'd be much happier if we just added a nice carbon tax, and then see if we can afford civilization on the higher energy costs the future will demand. Of course we can't since we're already borrowing the future to sustain today, so it looks bleak.

Anyway, whether or not Hamilton approved, I'm betting Franklin and Jefferson would be on the side of science. Of course without fossil fuels, we'd probably still think Slavery was natural and the only way to support modern civilization.

Spending one-time capital is a great deal while it last, who can say no to free stuff?

Marsh said...

Ah, another hit piece from Rupert Murdock, globalist, FOX/News Corp owner, and anti-Trump, who is an anti-US citizen/taxpayer/worker/jobs/interest billionaire and was a phone hacker in UK.

And linking to it is your way of telling us to elect another GOP establishment, ruling class puppet and expect a different result this time. And here we always thought that just liberalism was a mental disorder.

Ignatius Acton Chesterton OCD said...

Hey Ares, judging by Loretta Lynch's testimony today, it looks like the Obamatrons will sue me and send me to prison for being a Clinate Change denier. Can't wait! Then you can discover my true identity and come visit me in a federal penitentiary... for questioning a self-evidently crackpot theory to justify the expansion of socialism. It's impossible to be too cynical about these people.

Science says I should go to jail! Isn't this a great country???

Oh, and did you hear the latest from NOAA? They're not using any data beyond the past 32 years of escalating temperatures. Probably because the whole AGW/Climate Change theory goes to shit when you factor in the last 50 years. But hell, who needs measurements? It's settled science. Al Gore says so! And now Loretta Lynch is going to use the full power of the federal government to make sure no one can say otherwise. Hey, when does RICO apply to the Obama Administration?

I wonder if Santa Claus will be indicted for putting a lump of coal out for the naughty children. This CC stuff is great, no end to the nonsense... the comedy gift that keeps on giving.

"It's heads I win, tails you lose. And let's play some more until you go to prison!"

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!