I recently read an article somewhere on the vast internet, in which the point was made that we Americans have a tendency to venerate our political ancestors that is not necessarily a universal attribute. Britishers, the writer pointed out, do not cite William Pitt to validate their political positions, much less debate about his position on the Euro or whatever else might be roiling our godless cousins across the sea.
Americans, on the other hand, can’t seem to stop themselves from attributing all kinds of opinions to the “founders”. But we don’t stop there. Witness this story on the Huffington Post, where we learn that a Pentagon spokesperson has somehow channeled Martin Luther King, and made the surprising discovery that, were he alive today, J.Edgar Hoover’s nightmare would be an enthusiastic supporter of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He’s probably right. It has often been observed that many people grow more conservative as they grow older. There is absolutely no reason to believe that this process stops with death, at least judging by the views recently attributed to the Enlightenment types who started our Revolution and wrote our Constitution, all of whom appear to have grown more tradition minded, less open to reason, and more mindlessly religious as the years have rolled over their heads as well as their graves.
Madison Avenue is missing a great opportunity here. Since the opinions of these folks, were they alive, are so easily accessible, or so easily counterfeited, why not use them as advertising spokespersons? If Ben Franklin were alive today, for instance, he’d surely be a Mac kind of guy. Alexander Hamilton could shill for Dell.
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