Books, and Things that Resonate
Jul. 17th, 2006 12:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
forsythI'm reading 1632 by Eric Flint, a sci-fi/alternate history book about what if a small West Virginia town got transported back to 1632 in Germany, at the height of the Thirty Years' War. I'm only about a third of the way through it, but it's really good. It's very American, but in a good way. It celebrates the good bits (at least so far) and I've been grinning through most of it.
One part, in particular, prompted this post, because it put things I've known but not been able to express, exactly, into words that made me go "Oh yeah! That!" Let me quote.
"But they are also a people who cherish their laws. Which they enact themselves, you know, with scant respect for lineage and rank. From what my daughter tells me, they are the most inveterate republicans since the ancient Greeks."
Balthazar spread his hands, as if demonstrating the obvious. "This is why, I think, that their instinctive response was to protect us, along with our goods. The law was being broken, you see. Their law, not the crown's."
That's the crux of a lot of things I feel, I think. And part of why so many things tend to make me angry. Or used to, before they kept piling up and getting worse despite everything. It doesn't always work out that way in practice, but our laws are OUR laws, made by We The People, not something handed down from a king or god or anybody else. That makes it personal, on the important things. When the laws get ignored, it's not just flouting some authority, it's flouting all of us, including me. They're our laws, and they apply to everyone, including the people who write them and enforce them. That's how it's supposed to work. It doesn't always, especially in a lot of things where Congress has basically become a rubber stamp for the corporate authorities on high with the money and the connections. Which is why THAT gets under my skin. They're undermining the whole point of the laws. The laws aren't something internal imposed on us from without or above, they're something we build for ourselves, not to keep us down, but to shelter us and build on top of. And when that's corrupted, it puts the whole system at risk. And for all its faults, I still love our system. We need to take it back, and make it work how it's supposed to. And because of this, there's people who would be happy to scream I hate America, while they support the same people who're attacking what makes America America. But I don't care what they think. I know better, and now I know how to put it.
One part, in particular, prompted this post, because it put things I've known but not been able to express, exactly, into words that made me go "Oh yeah! That!" Let me quote.
"But they are also a people who cherish their laws. Which they enact themselves, you know, with scant respect for lineage and rank. From what my daughter tells me, they are the most inveterate republicans since the ancient Greeks."
Balthazar spread his hands, as if demonstrating the obvious. "This is why, I think, that their instinctive response was to protect us, along with our goods. The law was being broken, you see. Their law, not the crown's."
That's the crux of a lot of things I feel, I think. And part of why so many things tend to make me angry. Or used to, before they kept piling up and getting worse despite everything. It doesn't always work out that way in practice, but our laws are OUR laws, made by We The People, not something handed down from a king or god or anybody else. That makes it personal, on the important things. When the laws get ignored, it's not just flouting some authority, it's flouting all of us, including me. They're our laws, and they apply to everyone, including the people who write them and enforce them. That's how it's supposed to work. It doesn't always, especially in a lot of things where Congress has basically become a rubber stamp for the corporate authorities on high with the money and the connections. Which is why THAT gets under my skin. They're undermining the whole point of the laws. The laws aren't something internal imposed on us from without or above, they're something we build for ourselves, not to keep us down, but to shelter us and build on top of. And when that's corrupted, it puts the whole system at risk. And for all its faults, I still love our system. We need to take it back, and make it work how it's supposed to. And because of this, there's people who would be happy to scream I hate America, while they support the same people who're attacking what makes America America. But I don't care what they think. I know better, and now I know how to put it.
