Henry David Thoreau Audibly Rolls in His Grave
Rereading “Resistance to Civil Government,” as I turned the pages and absorbed Thoreau’s words, I heard the unmistakable ruffling of rotten clothes filled with old bones. I realized the reverberation, which at first began as a mild, almost imperceptible sliver of sound, and grew to a thunderous dry-clanking rumble by the final pages, was the dead thinker finally flipping in his grave.
Thoreau begins “Resistance” by voicing the transcendental belief that as human beings become enlightened, their need for governmental authority diminishes. Although government in some form is presently necessary, it will disappear as individual Americans take ultimate responsibility for themselves. “‘That government is best which governs not at all;’ and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.” Thoreau didn’t foretell communism; instead, he rallied the nation toward a higher morality—the liberty of individualism.
The United States of America has chosen a different path from the one Thoreau envisioned.
Thoreau addressed two problematic tendencies in human nature. First, he knew not all Americans would choose personal responsibility and liberty over sloth and equality. Second, he recognized all governments follow the same path—toward oppression. No liberal government is capable of disqualifying from participation, influence, or authority those who would bend the government to their own selfish interests, and “the government itself, which is the only mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it.”
Emphsis mine, Although I don’t think all of what DC Bound states in this post is correct, it is a good read and has some really good stuff in there.
