Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it

Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2011 16:29:23 -0500
From: Jeff Lane
Subject: Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it…

On 02/14/2011 10:18 AM, Chatham Chatlist wrote:
> Enough of this foolishness.
>
> Influential people speak with conviction and aren’t afraid to show their true colors.  They don’t hide behind a cloak of anonymity, spreading rumors and threatening to expose
> other people.

Your and my entire way of life is based on the acts of influential people acting and moving anonymously.  From tossing crates of tea into Boston Harbor (Samuel Adams and John Hancock and the Sons of Liberty) to arguing in favor of ratifying the Constitution of the United States of America in the Federalist Papers (written anonymously by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and James Madison) to even debating the ratification of the Constitution in the Anti-Federalist Papers (written anonymously by several people including Richard Henry Lee and Patrick Henry).

Our entire history is built on the ability to speak anonymously and freely.

> Listening in on others’ conversations, pretending to be invisible, calling oneself the name of a children’s cartoon character – these are not the kind of things that people do who
> want to be taken seriously.

So are you then inferring that the above mentioned people of questionable influence dind’t want to be taken seriously?  All that Tea business and Revolution and Bill of Rights stuff was just for fun?  Just being Cheeky?

> I suggest you leave serious matters in the hands of people who do take them seriously.

If more people did as you suggest, we’d all be Her Majetsty’s Royal Subjects in these Colonies.