Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Franklin

“There is no form of Government but what may be a blessing to the people, if well administered………..(it) can only end in Despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic Government, being incapable of any other.” – Benjamin Franklin – From His Final Speech at the Constitutional Convention – September 17, 1787

With the momentous events of the last week, it FEELS like I should say SOMETHING. It feels like we should all say something and DO something. Well, we sent some money to a relief agency but that feels a bit feeble when you look at old guys my age in Ukraine who are packing up their shotguns and heading for the front lines. The Ukrainians are so inspiring right now. The worst is truly bringing out their best. I wonder if OUR politicians would refuse safe passage to escape war and instead ask for more ammunition?!?! What makes Americans so admire the Ukrainians is that they remind us of us!! Or at least they remind us of what we THINK we were and what we are. And it is true that there have been remarkable American patriots at the birth of our country and in the centuries since then who were no less heroic than our modern-day Ukrainians. But history is always a little more complicated than we like to remember it. Things are not always so black and white as we would like to think they were.

As I have reported before American history fascinates me. I have been working my way through a course on the constitutional convention over the last months. I love digging in to the nitty gritty of history because it always reminds me that our heroes (and villains) were nearly always ordinary people, with their own prejudices and passions, their own strengths, and weaknesses, doing extraordinary things.

The constitutional convention was in session from May 14, 1787, to September 17, 1787. The delegates included an impressive list of our heroes of the revolutionary era. James Madison was the unofficial notes taker (although he was not the designated secretary), George Washington presided, and Benjamin Franklin was a delegate from Pennsylvania. The list included Edmund Randolph from Virginia, Roger Sherman from Connecticut, and other founding fathers. The process wasn’t quite as neat as we might remember. Some states did not participate for the entire process, delegates came and went, and Rhode Island never came at all!! The delegates jealously guarded the interests of their own states and schemed and argued for provisions that would serve THEIR state the best. Slavery was a thorny issue for them. There was great discomfort with how to address it and there were certainly conflicts of interest – many if not most of the delegates were slave owners. There were many times when the delegates thought that it all would blow up and that everyone would just go home in frustration. But they all agreed that the country could not continue under the Articles of Confederation. What has the American constitutional convention got to do with the awful invasion of Ukraine? Its Benjamin Franklin and Vladimir Putin.

Franklin was in his advanced years during the convention. There were days when he was literally carried to the meetings and days when he was unable to attend at all. But when the document was ready for signing, he asked for one last chance to address the convention. His concern was for the future of the proposed document. Would it be approved by the congress that existed (under the Articles of Confederation) and would it be approved by the ratifying conventions that would be held in each state? The delegates had pounded away at each other for a whole summer and now at the end of it all they were worried that their work would go for naught. Indeed, three of the delegates refused to sign the document and actively worked against its approval. If you have not read Franklin’s speech which he wrote but was too weak to deliver (it was read by James Wilson, a fellow Pennsylvania delegate), I think you will find it to be one of greatest speeches of the era. There is a lot in it about compromise, respecting the opinions of others and seeing ourselves the way we really are. But the above quote is my favorite part of the speech.

So, what is my point? Well, there are a couple:

– Governments are really only made up of people. And people can be good or bad, or good sometimes and bad other times, wise sometimes and foolish other times. Are the Russian people inherently evil? I can not believe this. They are like us. They want to live in peace and prosperity. They want their kids to grow up in a world that will be better than the one we live in now. And I believe their form of government COULD be a blessing to them and to the world IF a despot did not lead it. Yes, Putin is a liar, a cheat, a thief, a megalomaniac, and a lot of other things which add up to him being a despot. When you look through the sad history of Russia, unfortunately he is not the only one – Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Rasputin, and others to say nothing of the czars that preceded them. What makes this happen? The leaders who are evil of course, but more. It is also the people who immediately surround the despots – their co-conspirators, their fellow thieves. The creation of the oligarchy in Russia needed two parts – the despot (Putin definitely fits the bill) and his enablers. These include the oligarchs, his fellow thieves in their corrupt version of business, and his fellow thieves in the higher levels of government who all take their cuts, stealing from the Russian people in their own ways. This might mean pocketing money meant to be spent on social programs or even pocketing money meant to modernize their military. People are amazed at how the Russian military equipment seems to be old and breaking down despite billions of dollars dedicated to updating it. Transparency International has ranked Russia as one of the world’s most corrupt countries, identifying a particular problem in its defense sector. Thieves!! These people do not challenge the despot because they are afraid of him, but also because they are in league with him.

– Despite some missteps on our part (think about our recently concluded adventure in Afghanistan or the “shock and awe” of Iraq) America has been and still is the shining beacon of liberty for the world. While we have NOT been perfect, we have done so much good over our history. How have we avoided the maladies that have inflicted Russia for decades and even centuries? WE have been blessed with leaders and people who surrounded them that while flawed, still had the best interest of the country and the world in mind. These people are there because we have been blessed with a culture of independence and a free press. We EXPECT and DEMAND accountability from our leaders and the ones that surround them. The spark for doing this in Russia has been so starved for oxygen for so long it is hard for it to burn.

– Well, if as Franklin says any form of government CAN work, does it follow that any form of government can be corrupted? The constitution that those people labored over in the summer of 1787 makes that a little more difficult here, but it still comes down to people. We have been blessed throughout our history with patriots who could fend off corruption. But events of the last few years have shown that despite our form of government, we are NOT immune to despotism. We must always remain vigilant.