In a recent show Bill Maher, a television personality, recently said that we should kill executives who got money for nothing. It is was an unintelligent and irresponsible thing to say, and at best it was just a scramble for ratings. However, that is Mr. Maher's way. But, as we have learned from history, psychology, and plain human experience: words have powerful meaning.1 His argument, if real is part of a growing trend among many in America, both on the right and left, to appeal to populism. However, populism at its best, had a checkered past. An history of populism has demonstrated that it can be even more concerned with manipulating government for personal ends than its other tyrannical cousins.
My best friend Andrew and I got into a very insightful discussion about the importance of not being carried away by populism and I am glad to see that he and many Americans still have a good head on their shoulders about all this. However there is reason to fear that a small and vocal few may usurp the passions of the people to their own ends. This is not to say that the general populace is completely blameless. (Recent stories of squatters staying on at houses they couldn't afford in the first place shows a disregard for the laws of the state, the laws of economics, and the laws of nature. If an agreement is reached by the two parties involved, that is fine though.)
The dark history of populism is well-documented. A good example of this is the story of Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus. When I was younger I adored the story of the Gracchi brothers. I thought they were good people who wanted to help the poor of Rome by giving the poor farmers land they had been promised and grain that they needed. However, it was only later that I learned that they were only interested in garnering the support of the mob for their own selfish power grab. Caesar and others would do this later on too.
In the early days of our republic the situation had a chance to happen once again. Many in America believed that freedom meant abandoning the laws of the parent country. At the head of these "Republicans" was Jefferson. Jefferson is the poster-child for the aristocrat who appeals to the masses. Happy to have yeoman farmers till their plots while he enjoyed a comfortable life built on the backs of slaves, Jefferson fought with true Republicans like Hamilton and Adams who knew that order in economics and law (respectively) was the only way to ensure real and lasting freedom.
You see freedom is a lot like the earth itself. Freedom is ordered and organized but it is separated and etched out from the deep waters of chaos all around it. However, our postmodern Americans either don't know this or don't want to know this. We have been told that we can get everything for nothing or everything if we just work hard enough; and frankly, it isn't true at all. It is sickening that we scream and squawk now, but when we were reaping the benefits of the shady business practices, we let them slide. Wrong is wrong no matter if it is beneficial to us or not.
The history of populism is not all bad though. During the 1930s, Roosevelt bound the people's desire for jobs with governmental organizations that would provide work. The people and the country had something to hold onto while the rest of the world drifted from selfish despair into self-righteous anger. We didn't look for scapegoats as much; and we emerged a better country in the end.
But false populism is to be feared because it shows that we have become a culture not of laws and of order, but of expediency and personalities be they the personality of blow-hards (Bill Maher or Rush Limbaugh) or of our own myriad desires. If we were to hang or shoot every person whose hands were sullied in this economic crisis, we would be left with an empty country. The answer is to forgive and move on.
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