The five-man committee presents its draft of the Declaration to Congress.
Let’s knock down a myth, shall we? I hope you don’t mind if I choose one that is particularly near and dear to the anti-government crowd.
In a debate last night, on the eve of their runoff contest today, Curtis Bostic quoted from a book written by Mark Sanford, as follows: “America was a country founded by political amateurs.” (And no, I don’t know why he said “America was” instead of “America is,” and I’m not going to go back and read the whole book to find out.)
Bostic was attempting to gain moral advantage here, you see. His point was to claim that he is the amateur, and Sanford the “career politician” (a term that in certain political circles is a grave insult).
Quoth Bostic:
I am the ‘Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.’ I’m the amateur, like those people who founded this nation of ours. I am not looking for a career. I am not looking for somewhere to go. I want to serve you.”
Set aside the fact that Ms. Bostic has served on Charleston County Council for eight years, or the more obvious fact that he is looking to go somewhere — Washington. I’m perfectly willing to grant that he has spent fewer years in public office than his opponent. Although I’ll say in Sanford’s behalf that although he’s been in the public sphere since the early 1990s, he has learned almost nothing from the experience. If that elevates him in your estimation. It doesn’t in mine.
I don’t care about which of them is the least knowledgeable and experienced; let them fight it out.
What I want to ask is, Who were those amateurs “who founded this nation of ours”? Although I majored in history with a particular concentration in that period, I’m having trouble coming up with the names.
Of course, there were a lot of founders, and as a blogger with a day job, I don’t have time at the moment to look them all up. But let’s start with the core nation-founders. Let’s consider the three best-known members of the committee that the Continental Congress appointed to write the Declaration of Independence:
- Thomas Jefferson — He was the youngest and least-experienced of the group. But he had served in the Virginia legislative body from 1769 to 1775. He had established himself as a sufficiently compelling writer in the realm of political ideas that John Adams particularly wanted him on the committee.
- John Adams — His public career was launched in opposition to the Stamp Act in 1765. He became known at that time for drafting the instructions for delegates from Braintree to take to the Massachusetts legislature, which served as a model for other communities. He represented the British soldiers accused in the Boston “Massacre,” and got all of them off except for two convicted on lesser charges (as he should have). Going into the ’70s his reputation as the go-to guy for presenting political arguments only grew. It was quite natural that he would do the heavy lifting when the debate over independence came, as he had extensive experience making related arguments in the public sphere. He served Massachusetts in both the First and Second Continental Congresses.
- Benjamin Franklin — Known for many enterprises, he had been involved in politics for about three decades. Starting in the 1740s, he had served on Philadelphia city council, a justice of the peace, as a delegate to the Pennsylvania assembly, as head of the PA delegation to the Albany Congress, and as deputy postmaster-general for North America. He had proposed a Plan of Union for the colonies as early as 1754.
Neither of the other two members of the committee — Roger Sherman or Robert Livingston — was a political novice, either. And they went on, alas, to have extensive public careers.
After the Declaration, Jefferson, Adams and Franklin served their countries, as ambassadors and presidents, for the rest of their productive lives — rather than going home to run a shop or whatever virtuous, private thing “amateurs” do after founding countries.
If one of y’all has the time to research all the other Founders, let us know what you find. I need to get back to work. But if you find that a majority was inexperienced in public life, Ill be surprised.
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Just out of curiosity, why in the next to last paragraph, do you refer to Jefferson and Adams by their last names, but Franklin by his first?
A slip. I’ve fixed it. Thanks. Maybe I was thinking of Mayor Steve.
With regard to experience in public life, I’m more of the Ronald Reagan school:
I like candidates with qualifications, and do not consider a lack of them to be a virtue.
On the bright side, political guru Caroline Kennedy will be our ambassador to Japan. I didn’t realize she met the qualifications or at minimum spoke Japanese.
Perhaps we should extend this “lack of experience is a virtue” argument to other aspects of life.
In the NFL lets go out and find a very athletic guy with a strong arm but no game experience to be the starting quarterback for a pro team. Let’s pick a doctor who has never seen a patient. How about an attorney with no courtroom experience to defend us. Or perhaps a raw recruit to command an army division or carrier battle group. How about letting the least experienced engineer design a mile long bridge or thousand foot tall building? Yup, this experience is a vice thing makes perfectly good sense to me.
@bud
Andrew Luck, Robert Griffin, and Russell Wilson had ZERO NFL experience coming into this season. They all did better than plenty of experienced quarterbacks. Lebron James seemed to do okay without the experience of college.
The only thing that experience gets you in politics is the ability to better compromise your principles and be capable of being bought off as you trade your morality for incumbency. Our current government at the state and federal level is run by experienced politicians. If you like what we’ve got out of them, keep pushing for experienced politicians.
Me, I want the brightest people with the highest ethics. Learning how to “do” politics is about as hard as learning to drive a car. Anyone can do it.
Doug, this is an untrue, and completely unfair, statement: “The only thing that experience gets you in politics is the ability to better compromise your principles and be capable of being bought off as you trade your morality for incumbency.”
As for “Anyone can do it,” well that’s just patently false. Whether experienced or not, some people are good at it and some are not. Doug, you’re a smart guy and you do a lot of things well. But I really think you would find being a congressman very, very challenging. I know I would, and I think I would be better at it than you — partly because of the experiences I’ve had.
My emphasis on experience, of course, would jump up and bite me were I to run for Congress. Everyone would cite what I’ve written in the past and say that since I haven’t served in elective office at the local or state level, I shouldn’t be starting out with Congress.
I would argue back that I think the experiences I do have qualify me for legislative office at any level. And then people would say, “Well of course you’d say that about yourself…” But I really do think I’d be right; I would be qualified. I say that knowing myself that I possess some of the qualities I look for in a candidate, and which are usually found in people of some experience in public life.
I also know that I’d be better at some parts of the job than at others. I probably wouldn’t be as good at constituent service, or at showing my face at all the requisite events back in the district. Policy is what would interest me. In this regard I’d sort of be the diametric opposite of Joe Wilson. He LOVES the schmoozing. I don’t mind shaking hands with people, but listening to people sound off saying the same things over and over at one town meeting after another would really feel to me like time I could spend better crafting and debating legislation in Washington.
Which means Joe is WAY more likely to be re-elected than I would be. I would probably be a one-term congressman. Or two or three at most. Which would be fine with me, because I’d get sick of being up there.
At least I’ve run for office when I ran for school board in 2002. I saw the people I was running against up close and personal. I heard them lie and gossip about each candidate and about their current board member colleagues. The lack of ethics was a real eye opener. If these people were willing to do it for a low level school board position, what goes on at the higher levels?
Tell me what the hardest part about being a congressman would be? Not the act of running for congress… but the actual job.. I bet I could learn to do their job a whole lot quicker (if ever) than they could learn to write computer programs.
There is nothing difficult about the job aside from raising the money to stay in office.
Sure, and my husband could learn to do your job a lot faster than you could learn to do his, but that does not mean in any respect that he’d be better at doing it than you are.
Different skill sets….
And we’ve all had college professors who did little more than read the textbook to the class. USC isn’t exactly a leader in the computer industry.
@Kathryn
No offense meant but I seriously doubt your husband could do my job as well as I do. My job is 10% programming and 90% customer relationships. It’s traveling into new places on a regular basis, working with new teams that are constantly changing, living the philosophy of “the customer is always right”. My job is far more political than technical. I have to have a poker face when I’m asked to do something stupid, be a counselor to deal with internal political battles between departments, be a teacher to pass along knowledge both in one on one and classroom settings, and do that while spending 150 nights a year in hotels and on 100 flights a year.
But I’m still waiting to hear what the hardest part of being a legislator is… what part of the job requires experience.
I believe it’s making comments like “my good friend” believable. That and hiding your girl/boyfriend from the media.
Doug, I already told you why I’d be better at it than you: I deal with the goddamn customers so the engineers don’t have to!! I have people skills!! I am good at dealing with people!!! Can’t you understand that?!? WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?!!!!!!!
Watch it again on video…
“WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?!!!!!!!”
You should be a therapist… or see one.
Listen, I’m a politician which means I’m a cheat and a liar, and when I’m not kissing babies I’m stealing their lollipops. But it also means I keep my options open.
One ping only, Vasily…
If one were to consider the size of the population at the time, the limited number of “career” politicians, the fact that America was still under British rule when the aforementioned individuals were involved in forming the first step in becoming a free nation by being involved in or contributing to the writing of the Declaration of Independence, and other such trivial matters of the time, then one could assign the label of “amateur” to each one.
However, it is with a very skeptical eye that I look at Bostic, Sanford, and the Democrat nominee Bush when it comes to contributions to our nation that can even be mentioned in the same breath as the three Brad listed. Ted Mack would be proud of all three candidates because in principle, practice, and in contributions, they truly are the “amatuers”.
Actually, Bart, considering the same conditions you describe in your first paragraph, the men who declared our independence were about the least “amateur” politicians you could find in the country. So basically, I consider the same factors you do, but arrive at an entirely different conclusion.
Opportunities for gaining relevant political experience were indeed rare in those days. But the members of the Continental Congress would have had more such experience than you were likely to find anywhere else in the 13 colonies…
Something that surprised me when I went to double-check my memory was that of the three (and perhaps of the five), Adams had the least experience in actual public office before he was sent to the Continental Congress. That surprised me because I knew he had extensive political experience; that experience was just gained without holding office. He was sort of like me — he had written and argued a lot about public policy, and in his case had a great deal of influence on it. He just hadn’t held office while doing so.
As I’ve mentioned before, he’s sort of my favorite founder. He wasn’t very popular in his day; he rubbed people the wrong way. And I feel bad for him because he lived to see his friend/rival Jefferson practically deified, while his own star waned in comparison.
Adams was more responsible for the actual decision to declare independence than anyone, and partly because he WAS such an irritating person. He just wouldn’t shut up about it. Jefferson just sat there through the debate. But Adams knew the guy could write, and wanted him on the committee.
As a professional writer, I know what is involved, and frankly I’m less impressed with a guy who can turn a phrase than with someone who works his tail off to get something done. Jefferson had a gift, and Adams made use of it in coming up with a declaration the Congress would sign. But there would have been no declaration, no independence, without the hard work of Adams.
Also, while I have problems with the Federalists as I do with all parties (although fewer problems than I have with today’s Democrats and Republicans), I would have been much more likely to vote that way than for Jefferson’s and Madison’s party.
In fact, that’s probably the one party in all of U.S. political history that I most identify with.
My comparison and conclusion was based on the proliferation of politicians and so-called politicos of this era vs. the era of Jefferson, Franklin, and Adams.
Speaking of Sanford, I see that he just won the runoff.
They were real professionals (in the positive sense of the term). I don’t think these were the Founding Fathers whom Michelle Bachmann thinks abolished slavery.
Bull-Moose Party here!
Also, I’d like to congratulate Mark Sanford on his victory in the primary! Allez, Allez, Allez!
Me, I want the brightest people with the highest ethics. Learning how to “do” politics is about as hard as learning to drive a car. Anyone can do it.
-Doug
The ethics part is fine but seriously about as hard as driving a car? Really. I could say the same about designing software. And it would be equally ridiculous.
People go to school to learn to program. I guess the closest thing for politicians would be law school, or maybe the federal prison system.
@bud
I’m still waiting to hear what is so difficult about being a legislator. Which tasks of the job require experience to master? Filing bills to celebrate a Little League team’s championship season? Filling out the expense reports for $100 a day to drive across the river without feeling any pangs of conscience? Being able to drink three bourbons at lunch and make it back to the State House? Learning which butt cheek of Bobby Harrell you have to smooch in order to get your brother-in-law a state job?
Seriously – give me one task they do that anyone else couldn’t do with about a week’s worth of training.
bud what did/do you do for a living? Is it something that would take years to master or a couple afternoons?
And by the way Doug, as far as driving a car, teenagers are SUBSTANTIALLY more likely to get in a car crash than any other age group so even that example disproves your point.
What about old people, bud? How do you rate those most experienced drivers?
Sanford will be favored over Ms. Colbert-Busch but this bizarre choice by the GOP at least gives the Dems a shot. Not sure why the Republicans want to put up candidates in districts/states that should be locks.
I believe Harpootlian (the SC Democratic leader) said the same thing about Alvin Greene… “at least gives the Dems a shot”. That is if every Republican and half of the Democrats stay home.
” Not sure why the Republicans want to put up candidates in districts/states that should be locks.”
Because if they didn’t Democrats would fill those seats.
When this country was “founded,” there were maybe 5 corporations, a ruling aristocracy, a little-diversified economy, and slavery. The more influential leaders were not amateurs, but they made big mistakes and constantly battled and joined competing interests. I think the latest wave of newly-elected House members are a good lesson in why we need mature, broadly informed legislators. Poorly-informed rookies, often special-interest funded are no match for K Street.
Doug, accident rates (based on a per mile driven basis) only increase for drivers once they reach their 80s. However, since they drive far less than younger drivers they are actually involved in fewer crashes than any other age group. You know how I know that? It’s because of my experience in analyzing traffic accident data.
CDC says the decline starts at age 75.
“Per mile traveled, fatal crash rates increase starting at age 75 and increase notably after age 80. This is largely due to increased susceptibility to injury and medical complications among older drivers rather than an increased tendency to get into crashes.”
I think that 75 would be a good age limit for politicians as well.
I didn’t bother to post anything last night when the results were in because it had seemed such a foregone conclusion. The interesting thing, to me, is the general election.
I did Tweet a bit about it, though. When Peter Hamby Tweeted the question, “how many times will Elizabeth Colbert-Busch say the word “Democrat” between now and May 7?” I replied, “If possible, a negative number.”
Also, when “Army Wives” actress Catherine Bell Tweeted, “Had an amazing week off with kids/family for spring break (lucky me I was barely in this episode) so home I went! And now… Back to sc! ;)”
I responded, “You sure you want to come back? Sanford just won the GOP primary runoff…”
It occurs to me that my (of course, unanswered) Tweet to Catherine Bell could be misunderstood as the geeky class clown trying to get a rise out of the cute girl at the next desk.
Hey, we’re not in high school anymore. For that matter, when she was in high school, I probably already had gray hair…
I had no idea who Catherine Bell was. I was thinking of Kristen Bell, star of the Veronica Mars TV show.
I didn’t know her by name. But when I saw her picture, I realized she was the hot marine on “JAG,” and was also the temptress anchorwoman in “Bruce Almighty.”
@ bud – so I’m still waiting to hear what your job is? Are you a transportation analyst? A traffic engineer? An insurance actuary? An OTR driver?
To speak up for Bud — I’m not sure he feels comfortable talking about what he does here. Which you should understand, Silence.
I’ve said a lot of times what i do. I’m a “Soldier of Fortune” or “Mercenary” at the moment. I prefer to think of myself as an “Adventurer” though. I’m also an engaged civic volunteer, philanthrophist, educator, investor, blog commenter and international playboy. That’s no secret. I’m just not allowed by la Jefa to use my name.
Oh, “La Jefa.” Como no.
I thought at first that you said, Ia Jefa — with an I, not an L. I was trying to figure out who that was…
I really don’t like sans-serif type. Next time I do a redesign, I’m going to see about a font with serifs, so you can tell an I (capital “eye”) from an l (lower-case “el”).
I shot the serif, but I did not shoot the deputy…
Chief Fry Cook at the Huger & Gervais McDonalds.
Brad, bud has alluded to the fact that he works for the highway department in some capacity in previous posts. Also, based on his comments, he works with statistics for the state. So, I guess Silence’s request is not off base. In case anyone is interested, I have my own small construction related consulting business that pays the bills, allows me to set my own working hours and I work from my office at home.
Bart, residential or commercial? I want to turn a porch into a sunroom.
Paul Haynes of Haynes Construction
Is he the contractor who drives a Prius and only uses recycled materials? Probably a Democrat too, and you know how well those people are at physical labor.
Both
Brad, you can share my email address with Silence if he wants it.
Yep all those inexperienced “tea party” legislators have certainly made this country better. That’s partially why we have the sequestor right now that will only destroy jobs. Interesting that the MSM has lost interest in that. I guess it’s like the analogy of boiling the frog.
Yeah, right, bud. Sequestration was the work of the Tea Party…. inexperienced Tea Party legislators.
Sheesh. At least TRY to deal with reality.
Who is the most powerful Tea Party legislator in Congress now?
Doug,
I did not know until now that Obama was a member of the Tea Party. After all, he was the one who insisted on the sequester. As Roseanne Roseannadanna used to say, “You never know, do you Jane?”
No wonder Sanford is popular with some of you who don’t think politicians are improved with experience. As far as I can see, he didn’t do a darned thing while he was in either office.
“I don’t care about which of them is the least knowledgeable and experienced; let them fight it out.” – Brad W.
As, Hillary Clinton said, “What difference, at this point, does it make?”
Brad accurately told us the foundation of Bostic’s attack on Sanford’s quote was who the real amateur politician was. Rather than mention Sanford’s rebuttal, Brad shifts to Jefferson, (John) Adams and Franklin, none of whom were paid government pensions force congressional service, nor in service health insurance, etc. like today’s career politicians.
Sanford said he sought office to serve taxpayers and has never run from one [government] office to another.
“I don’t need a job. … I don’t need this for the money,” he said, adding that he has disclosed his financial interest on a federally required form that shows nearly $200,000.
Foot-dragging lawyer [and politician wannabe] Bostic never submitted his own financial form by the time of the Sandford debate.
In answer to Hillary’s question and in response to Brad’s letting them “fight it out”, the run-off voters actually did figure that much out.