October 03, 2004
Jefferson's global test
The Bushites are trying to make a big deal out of John Kerry's "global test." The "test," as Kerry proposed it, is whether we can explain some action we take in terms that our citizens, and the rest of the world can understand:
... your countrymen, your people, understand fully why you're doing what you're doing and you can prove to the world that you did it for legitimate reasons.
The original phrase, I think, was "a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind."
But then Thomas Jefferson was sort of ... well, French ... wasn't he?
Kerry might well say:
The President isn't criticizing me. He's criticizing the signers of the Declaration of Independence. They proposed the first global test. They called it "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind." The test is not whether other people like what we're doing. It's whether we're doing it for reasons we're prepared to explain to the world.
