A lesson worth remembering in our troubled times<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Years ago I was at a conference, and had the pleasure of sitting next to a historian from L. America. \u00a0Argentina, if I remember correctly. \u00a0We talked\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2017\/02\/lesson-worth-remembering-troubled-times.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A lesson worth remembering in our troubled times\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Years ago I was at a conference, and had the pleasure of sitting next to a historian from L. 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{"id":8785,"date":"2017-02-28T07:29:54","date_gmt":"2017-02-28T11:29:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/?p=8785"},"modified":"2017-02-28T07:29:54","modified_gmt":"2017-02-28T11:29:54","slug":"lesson-worth-remembering-troubled-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2017\/02\/lesson-worth-remembering-troubled-times.html","title":{"rendered":"A lesson worth remembering in our troubled times"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

He said like all countries, the US has its good and bad. \u00a0But then he asked if I knew why so many people in his country envied the US. \u00a0I didn\u2019t know. Trains? \u00a0Wealth? \u00a0Bears? \u00a0I didn\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

He said our Founding Fathers. \u00a0As he proceeded to explain, most revolutions turn out disastrously. \u00a0Perhaps the revolutionaries are good, but can\u2019t build an effective government. \u00a0As often as not, they merely promise the world and then make things worse once they have power (see Orwell).<\/p>\n

For all the flaws of the Founders (and goodness knows, if you\u2019re under 60, you should know what they are), they did two amazing things: 1) they constructed a government that worked, and 2) they set out\u00a0to make a country that would work toward fulfilling their promises. \u00a0It\u2019s not as if it\u2019s never happened. \u00a0But it\u2019s rare, and the US is the most glaring example of revolutionary success.<\/p>\n

On the other end of the scale, we have the revolution that brought the most disastrously murderous and evil political system in the history of the human race<\/a>. \u00a0One that is still influential in our world today. \u00a0In these troubled times, it\u2019s worth thinking about and considering the odds.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"