George Washington vs. Halliburton

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In a letter written from the camp of the Continental Army during the winter of 1780, George Washington expressed his opinion of big-time war profiteers, calling them...

"...monopolizers, forestallers and engrossers of condign [i.e., deserving] punishment...It is much to be lamented that each state, long ere this, has not hunted them down as the pests of society and the greatest enemies we have to the happiness of America. I would to God that one of the most atrocious in each state was hung in gibbets upon a gallows five times as high as the one prepared by Hamen. No punishment, in my opinion, is too great for the man who can builld his greatness upon his country's ruin."

Somewhat different from the opinion that prevails among our great men today.

 

There are no "great men" today, nor are their opinions worth very much....

 

I disagree. The men of today are no more or less "great" than the men of yesterday. George Washington, himself, was no saint. He owned slaves and he threatened to personally kill any soldiers who fled battle early in the war (they later discontinued the practice after learning that, unlike with conscripted soldiers, who was motivated by fear rather than loyalty, a citizen soldier was better motivated by appeals to his pride).

 

I disagree with the disagreement - somewhat . While Washington wasn't ahead of his time on many issues (i.e. slaves) and probably had quite a few other failings, that doesn't detract so much from his standing as a political leader.

However, one of the tenets of history is that it takes quite a while before we can judge someone objectively. In retrospect, we can say Washington had a great vision, the will to carry it through, and the personality to convince others to believe in it. Quite a few leaders today can claim the same, but I rather doubt that history will prove as many as 5% of them right.

Of course, one should also note that while Washington lamented and spoke against such people, it's arguable how much he did (or could do) to thwart them.

 

My point wasn't that Washington wasn't a great man. He was. My point is that the standards by which we judge the great men and women of today are unrealistic. The great men of history were always horribly flawed on account of their being, well, human...and that's never going to change. There are just as many great men and women today as there ever were. In fact, since there are more people now than there were in 1776, there are probably a lot more great men and women now. We just have problems seeing past their flaws. When history finally casts its eye on the present, I'm sure it will have no trouble finding more than its fair share of great men.

 

Some examples would be nice....

The thing about the Founding Brothers is that they knew they were making history - that every move, every utterance, every character flaw or blemish would be magnified a thousand times over. And they were right. In today's media-driven world, there are public relations managers, promoters, "media-handlers" to project these guys in whichever light they choose. Most everything we see, if we are willing to invest the time, is fairly genuine regarding the Founders, even their imperfections, as Drew was very quick to point out. Yet, today most everything is manipulated and artificial. To be honest, we don't really know these people. We see only what it is they want us to see of them. We have to judge the actions and results of what they accomplish in order to judge their real worth. And in that regard, well...compare the results of what Adams, Washington, Jefferson and Madison accomplished - and that's just to name a few. Then look at what our current crop has accomplished. The resluts are quite astounding -- by comparsion.

 

Martin Luther King, Mohandes Ghandi, FDR, Jimmy Carter, Helen Keller, Rosa Parks, Al Gore, and John McCain...just off the top of my head. There are many others. Do you think that Hamilton would have considered Jefferson a great man in his own time? Or vice versa? I doubt it. History, not the people who are making it, will decide who today's great men are.

 

Well, it's interesting that most of the people that you cite are no longer alive. You knew that my comment was made regarding current political leaders. I'm sure there are great men in other areas of public life here in the US, but I have not seen any in politics. Cernak was referring to the current AMERICAN leadership in his post. Thusly, I commented that there were no longer any "great men." Al Gore and Jimmy Carter are no longer political leaders. So, that leaves you with JM.

But the relationship between Hamilton and Jefferson is an interesting one. I think they despised and envied each other as political enemies, as is widely known. One of Jefferson' s great achievement's was the Declaration, while Hamilton's was the Constitution and the Federalist Papers - that's obvious. It's also obvious that as one of the major framers of the Constitution, Hamilton had a much different vision for America than Jefferson did, who had no hand in its framing. What is not quite so obvious, is the documents are both founding documents of two different Americas and that created a rift in the thinking of the Founders collectively. Jefferson often saw Hamilton's political thinking as a betrayal of the founding "principles of '76" - as did many of the self-proclaimed Anti-Federalists - meaning the principles stated in the DoI.

Hamilton's vision, as was Madison's, was to forge a whole nation out of a collection of independent states. And this gets into Washington's singular achievement, and illustrates him as one of the greatest figures in the history of the world - it was that the Revolution would never have succeeded without him, but more than that, nor would the idea that became America. Because of the lack of nationhood there was no America during the Revolution, only a collection of 13 colonies. What the Revolution had was the force of Washington's character, and the force of that character was what crafted the independence of America from a dream into a reality.

At one point, near the end, the colonies were refusing to pay the officers and soldiers of the Continental Army. The officers were on the verge of mutiny and the army was in danger of being disbanded. They fashioned a document of grievances. Washington agreed to meet with them and review the document they had crafted. Before his men, Washington attempted to read the document, but suddenly started fumbling around for his spectacles. "Forgive me, gentlemen," Washington explained, "for I have not only become grey in the service of my country, but blind as well."

The men were so moved that despite the ingratitude of the states, and the hardships they had endured, that on the spot, the men pledged their collective support to Washington, and to see the Revolution through to its end.

The ramifications of this were huge. The army uniting around one man was dangerous - Napoleon comes to mind immediately. All of Europe expected that Washington would assume power in the end and proclaim himself a despot, as was typical on the Continent - so much for the dream that would be America and its lofty principles of '76. In fact, Washington's bitter enemy, King George III pronounced that, "if Washington did not assume the Thone of America, then he would be the greatest man in the world." In the end, Washington surrendered command of the army to the civilian govenment, as he had promised, and returned to Mount Vernon.

Citizens of the new America came to Washington's front door in hordes, literally, to beg him to become their first president. The citizens had choices: John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison. And they would each have their turn. But it was Washington they wanted - regardless of their politics. By contrast, we have John McCain standing in the cold winter of NH, begging for someone to vote for him.

 

Chandos, your point is taken, though I still doubt history will have any trouble determining the great men of today. Just as the apologists of today overlook the severe shortcomings of the great men of yesterday (the slave ownership of just about everyone, Patrick Henry locking his wife in his basement, the illegitimate children Jefferson sired with his own slaves, Franklin disowning his own son for siding with England, Hamilton's affair with Maria Reynolds...), the apologists of the future will overlook the shortcomings of the men of today.

 

Drew - Those are all valid points concerning the Founders of which they are certainly guilty. But the magnitude of their accomplishments outshine their imperfections by far, in the opinions of many and including me. If that makes me an apologist, then that's fine, for in my opinion they were the greatest collection of men this country has ever witnessed.

You forgot to mention that Ben was also a terrible husband, as well as a poor father, and that Thomas Paine was an atheist. And you have not even brought up Aaron Burr! At least in those days they faced each other down, even at the point of a gun. Today we have JM -- who did stand on the verge of greatness -- hugging GWB on stage, appearing a politcal stooge and sychophant, throwing away every once of integrity he possessed. And Ralph Nader, a superb leader and exemplary citizen, turning into a completely self-serving egotist, believing that he alone can save us. Even Colin Powell has been tarnished by the current admistration. Most of them have sold out, Drew. But there is still Al Gore - but even that remains to be seen. But I think he's on a good track....

 

This brings up another big difference, though, between then and now. We haven't had a grand war to fight since WW2 and we've already corrected the most egregious of our social injustices. In 1776, the greatest of the ills facing the colonies required political or military solutions so the greatest minds naturally gravitated to politics and the military. The same can be said of the civil war period of our history. At the turn of our last century, we had child labor, low pay, and horribly unsafe conditions in the industrial sector. We had women's suffrage, the world wars, the civil rights movements....frankly, the causes of today seem minuscule in comparison. Because of this, I think the great minds of today are likely gravitating to other professions...environmental science, for example.

Well, history is kind of split on whether Aaron Burr counted as one of the greats...

I haven't given up on John, yet. I'd give better than even odds that this whole thing is just an act and that, once elected, the John McCain we all know and love will resurface...much to the chagrin of the hard line Neo-Cons currently running the GOP.

You know, god complexes were pretty common amongst the founders, too. (Hamilton comes to mind.) Nader isn't dead, yet, and he may still accomplish much. I'm not ready to count him out, either.

 

I'd have hard time characterizing him as the worst, because we have some truly horrible ones. (And I'm not just looking at the current administration - Nixon, Grant, and Harding all spring to mind as being worse than Carter.) Even though I don't view him as the worst, he definitely was a below average president. That, however, doens't meam he isn't a great man. I think Carter's greatest contributions have come since he has left office. So I think it's fair to characterize him as a great man even if he was a poor president.

You say that as if you expect him to be elected. Last I checked - and I admit I have not look at any polls in the last couple of weeks, Giuliani was still far ahead of everyone on the Republican side. I'm not even sure McCain can win the primary, much less the general election.

 

That's obviously a possibility, but we should also keep in mind that national polls really aren't as important as polls in early primary/caucus states, where the candidates are actually campaigning. McCain does well in New Hampshire. Back in 2000, it was his win in New Hampshire that set him up as the forerunner in Republican primaries all over the country, (and if it weren't for those push polls Rove funded in the south implying that his adopted Bangladeshi daughter was actually an illegitimate child that he fathered with a black woman, McCain would have probably won the whole thing).

The most recent Iowa Poll I've seen had Mitt Romney in first place (by quite a wide margin), McCain in second, and Giulianni in third. To be fair, I don't follow New Hampshire too much, so I don't know what the numbers look like in that neck of the woods, but National Polls are more about name recognition at this phase of the game (which is why national polls give such prodigious leads to Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giulliani) and really shouldn't be trusted. As an example, while Hillary Clinton appears to be way ahead of the competition in national polls, Barack Obama was actually the front runner in the most recent Iowa poll that I've seen...with Hillary Clinton a close second and John Edwards a not too distant third. Regardless of what the national media has to say, it's still anyone's race.

 

You have to wonder about the IQ of anyone who would believe that.

Many of the Founders probably were. But Paine was a suspect by the "religious right" of his time.

 

Chandos, I think your long reply on the Revolution and Constitution is truly magnificent; one of the best I've read on these boards. I'm a little regretful that the supposed topic of this thread--war profiteering--has been well and truly sideswiped by weightier matters, and I don't believe your argument needs any reinforcing from me.

On other subjects, I think McCain has become a knight in tarnished armor. From the heroic to the tragic, if not pathetic. Only clear forthright statements that he seems to be unwilling to make can save him. When he embraced Bush, he stepped onto a slippery slope from which it is difficult to scramble back.

Finally, to get back on topic, if only briefly, I like Washington's suggestion that war profiteers should be hanged.

 

Then you would need to rebuild the rotating door into a shredder.

It would be fun to have a rule like two strikes and you're off - government - free market - government - free market forever. The rationale would be that people who choose between serving their country and business and prefer business for the better salaries are entitled to - and should please stay there. That especially would go for the political appointees. I guess you can't apply that to career politicos at the secretary or cabinet levels. Or total term limits for non-career officials (say, 10 years for politicos and they're out, finis).

And for career folks after the end of the career, a ban to engage in any, defence related business activity, especially a consultancy, for the duration of three or five years (after which a lot of their knowledge of procurement processes ought to be worthless, which is just the point). That then would also apply for politicos having worked in defence related functions.
Thinking about it, you could actually extend that to about any special branch of government, not just defence. It would at least stir up things a bit. But I guess, inevitably, lobbying will find another avenue of approach. In that respect, rules are inevitably reactive.

Tight fiscal control and oversight of any defence contract sought to be self evident and thus mandatory, even if that means to hire a lot more lawyers and financial experts (no small government there, because it's relatively easy for a large company to saturate smaller oversight organisations with a tight budget and limited number of personnel for given tasks with work and paperwork).

Nice ideas, IMO. Still, about the first thing you can expect is that the opponents of the proposal will appear clad in the shiny armour of free enterprise and become beacons of market liberalism, libertarians even ('hawkish libertarian' of course, without that incomprehensible, irrational anti-war streak).

 

Hmm. Rags, I think that was one of your best posts.

 

Stupid people are a lot more common than you'd think. "Average" is really just another word for "median", after all. This distinction becomes rather pertinent when looking at our nation's collective IQ. I'm convinced that every genius in our society is actually balanced out by at least another 5 people who possess an intellect proving beyond all doubt that humans are descended from apes....

 

William Somerset Maugham said that the classics of tomorrow are the best sellers of today. So my guess is that the great men (women)of tomorrow are the well known ones of today. History makes that judgement. But heroes come from all walks of life and many are known only to the few.

Also times of serious trouble bring out the best and the worst in human beings and some who would have been unknown rise (or fall) to the occasion to become famous.

Now I think that Edison, Galileo, Confucius, Marian Anderson were all great people.