Political Interlude

My old friend, Don Gordon, Yale '56, Penn '58, author and educator extraordinaire, sent me a copy of his letter to Representative Cantor which I think merits the attention of a broader audience.  Don gave me his permission to reprint it here. 

"

Rep. Kantor:

I am old enough (77) to be your father and, as an American cultural historian with two Ivy degrees, am neither  as stupid and ignorant 

let alone rabid as many of your  Tea Party supporters.     You are a child of Reaganism and know nothing better than that so you are 

now willing to  hold hold more than half our population hostage to the Great Republican God of ideological purity uber alles.   

You are doubtless aware that  section 4 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution does indeed bind the US to honor--to pay--its debts,

 thus maintaining the "full faith and credit" of the US established largely by Hamilton in Washington's first term.    The inherent corollary 

 to this is that  presumably this must be accomplished--in extremis--by finding a way, over time, of  securing a  manageable way to  

pay down debt which threatens the overall economy, not solely by placing your desire to defeat a sitting president, for ideologically

 pure reasons,  in the upcoming election.

In short, your duty is to country first, then party, and only then your ideological biases.     You are reversing  these three and trying 

to sell that despicable inversion to the nation at a time of national emergency.     

This is a good time for you to consider the words of two pre-Reagan notables...   First, the great jurist Leaned Hand , who in 1944 

spoke to a crowd in Central Park, NY, noting that "the spirit of liberty is the spirit of  those who are not sure they are right."   

(Italics mine)      And also, in another desperate time, in England in the 17th century, Cromwell's advisory to Parliament:  

"I beseech thee, in the bowels of Christ, consider that ye may be mistaken."

Your lust for purity betrays a deeper flaw in your character: namely, that of certitude, the ultimate weakness  of the terminally 

arrogant.

You are a servant, surely, of your  ambition, namely to use the country's health--however recklessly--to unseat a president 

and in so doing establish in his place a narrow--but pure!--vision of  plutocratic rule over the lives of 300 million + citizens.       

You don't need to wake up--for you are already awake--but you surely do need to grow up.

Don Gordon

in Santa Fe

 

Amen: Mark in Denver