The conflict over the wisdom of Nidal Hasan’s public execution is not a new one. Americans at the republic’s founding debated – and doubted – whether watching someone die would teach a useful lesson.
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For the nation’s first president, friendliness was strategy, not concession: the republic would treat other nations with civility in order to remain independent of their appetites and quarrels.
Washington’s ‘warrior ethos’ was grounded in decency, temperance and the capacity to act with courage without surrendering to rage. That ideal built an army – and in time, a republic.
The US has long fused politics and violence, often through firearms. To claim that such shootings betray ‘who we are’ is to forget that the US was founded on this form of political violence.
Today’s coronavirus pandemic has echoes in the yellow fever pandemic of the 1790s. Then, as now, workers struggled with how to support themselves and their families. One federal agency had the answer.
