<h3>Bush II: a Jeffersonian?</h3>

"After decades of a dictator's sustained assault on Iraq's society and dignity and spirit, a Jeffersonian democracy will not spring up in a matter of months" --George W. Bush, 2003 Veterans Day speech to the Heritage Foundation

Does Dubya even know what Jeffersonian democracy is? I really doubt it. Mister Jefferson is surely spinning in his grave at the notion of Bush invoking his name.

Jeffersonians wanted a federal government with limited powers, a respect for civil liberties, and that placed power in the hands of the average citizens and small family farmers (not the wealthy and aristocratic). Jefferson also favored an isolationist foreign policy and a small military.

• "The presumption of dictating to an independent nation the form of its government is so arrogant, so atrocious, that indignation as well as moral sentiment enlists all our partialities and prayers in favor of one and our equal execrations against the other." --Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1823. ME 15:435


• "Not in [my] day, but at no distant one, we may shake a rod over the heads of all which may make the stoutest of them tremble. But I hope our wisdom will grow with our power and teach us that the less we use our power the greater it will be." --Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Leiper, 1815. ME 14:308

Does any of that remind you of the Bush Administration? I don't think so.

This administration is Hamiltionian to the extent that they believe that the power should be in the hands of the wealthy business owners and well-born. They combine that with the nationalism and inherent racism of the Jacksonians. A federal government in the hands of the wealthy and promoting nationalism to the poor so they go and fight the wars of the rich. That sounds like a recipe for class warfare.

Where do I stand? Well, I guess I would more closely identify with the Wilsonian ideas of anti-imperialism, respect for international treaties, federal aid for education, and support for labor and human rights. I know that the neo-cons who pull Dubya's strings somehow think that they are upholding Wilsonian ideals but does anyone buy it? Of course, all of these ideologies have good points and bad points. That's why idealogues, no matter which ideology they advocate, are doomed to fail.