“What would the Founders say?” Right and left, this is surely the most chafing piece of rhetoric in politics. Waterboarding, wiretapping, polyamory, chemtrails, school vouchers: All we can be sure of is that whatever they’d say, they’d say with a good deal more dash and dispatch than today’s expensively coiffed D.C. overlords.
The proof, should you need any, is in this new selection of Ben Franklin’s writings.
Let’s skip the Big Questions. Franklin displays rich thought and good humor in small matters, too, and those are more fun. Take romance. (Did I say “small matters”?) Here is his “Advice to a Young Man”:
I know of no Medicine fit to diminish the violent natural Inclinations you mention; and if I did, I think I should not communicate it to you. Marriage is the proper remedy… . A single man has not nearly the Value he would have in the State of Union… . He resembles the odd Half of a pair of Scissors.
He instructs us in the “Morals of Chess”: “We learn by Chess the habit of not being discouraged by present appearances in our state of affairs, the habit of hoping for a favorable Change.” We ought to play it more.
He even burns bridges cordially. (Cindy Sheehan, take note.) To Mr. Wm. Strahan MP, July 5, 1775:
Look upon your Hands! They are stained with the Blood of your Relations!—You and I were long Friends:—You are now my Enemy, —and I am Yours, B. FRANKLIN
He is ours, too (faithfully, that is), and we are the richer for it.