Re:NSA Owns Everything (2015)
by sanderjd on Thursday August 13, 2020 @09:28AM
(#24143098)
I happen to be reading a biography of Alexander Hamilton right now and I think Washington was pretty disappointed in the people of his own time too. And the members of each faction thought the members of the other factions were "un-American" (though I don't think they had that term). The founding era was not a golden age, there's always been a battle for control of our culture.
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I would agree that he had high standards, but he was mostly unhappy with some rank-and-file who were coerced into joining up, so I can hardly blame them. Other factions were not part of the whole at that point, so there was no back-stabbing there, to begin with.
Would he have been happy if he found out one of his immediate reports had been helping the French to get gunpowder in for a cut? Analogous to the wholesale tax dodging today.
Seems today "it's just business", back then he'd have been hung. Yes life back then wasn't all knights in shining armor, but now, good god.
Even if people didn't always comply to the code, there was a code and that code wasn't "every man for himself". They would have regarded that as insanity.
BTW I might read the Hamilton one next, I imagine it's Chernow you are reading, he has an engaging writing style.