Thursday, July 15, 2010

Bastille Day - Lessons Not Yet Learned?

July 14 is Bastille Day - the day most historians mark as the beginning of the French Revolution.  On this day the citizens of France began the long road of revolution by storming the Bastille prison in the heart of Paris.  Little did they know that they path they began would lead to advancement of major political, economic, and social liberties, but end in the slaughters of the Terror and the dictatorship of Napoleon.

The French Revolution ended so differently than the American, because the French, in the pursuit of liberation, ended up destroying the rule of law, the Social Compact, and the unalienable rights they claimed they were protecting.  The ends justified the means - tyranny, in the name of liberty, became the prevailing reality.

That the power to do good can also lead to the power to do evil seems to be a forgotten lesson.  When one empowers the government with unlimited power with the expectation of it using it wisely, history reveals that the unlimited power almost always ends in the corruption of the government and the oppression of the common man.  This is a lesson we need remember at all times, lest the Terror be unleashed yet again.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Michael Warren may talk the big talk but behind the vibrato is a man of small stature with a giant ego. There is nothing that Warren actually believes or practices in life which bears any resemblance to being a patriot. In his demented mind the word patriot is just another word to hang his hat on in his climb to be somebody. As a judge he has no compunction about lying in his orders, causing pleadings filed by litigants to disappear then lying by claiming that the pleadings were never filed. He has no problem fixing cases as an Oakland County Circuit Court Judge or using his position as a judge to sell his horrible book. The man has no pride or scruples