The Documents That Bind Americans Together
In 1772, just four years before Jefferson wrote the Declaration, another Founding Father, Samuel Adams, used his leaflet The Rights of the Colonists to describe this common pursuit of freedom as “true liberty.” Drawing strongly on Enlightenment philosopher John Locke, Adams shared Jefferson’s conviction that our creation “entitles” us to pursue freedom, which Adams claimed is ours “by the eternal and immutable laws of God and nature.”
In describing the characteristics of government that are just and worthy of implementation, Adams wrote that “the grand end of civil government, from the very nature of its institution, is for the support, protection, and defense of [the] very rights” to which Jefferson had insisted we are entitled. Adams then summed up those rights as “Life, Liberty, and Property” — a summation that Jefferson rephrased as “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”
In 1787, the “true liberty” of which Adams wrote, represented by the rights which Jefferson expounded, was given a government that James Madison introduced with the words “We the People of the United States.” These opening words of the Constitution expressed the Founders’ view that “We” were bound together, if even imperfectly, under a government many of the Founders risked their “lives, [their] fortunes, and [their] sacred honor” to establish.
And if anyone supposes I’ve exaggerated the scope of Madison’s language in the opening phrase of the Constitution, just consider that later in the same sentence he expresses his hope that the government of the United States would “secure the Blessings of Liberty to [the founding generation] and [their] posterity.”
There you have it, folks. Although the left does its best to conceal it, the truth is that Americans from all walks of life hold in common a heritage founded on “true liberty” and drawn from the rights with which their Creator endowed them. These are the ties that bind, and they represent matters of far greater import than the color of my skin or the color of yours.
The quicker we get back to these truths, so clearly expressed in the documents the Founding Fathers left behind, the quicker we can recapture common ground and take pride in being “Americans” once more.
Any perusal of the political writings of the Founders will demonstrate their beliefs in this and in God. Both these concepts are out of vogue on the Left. Western Civilization, Freedom, and God are interlinked. Governmentalists hate all three.
(Statist is correct, but it lacks oomph to people. State can be okay in their minds, but government, not so much.)
In the original Star Trek series there was an episode wherein a people on a distant planet had a sacred script, but they didn’t know how to read it properly nor did they understand it, until Captain Kirk put them straight. the sacred script was the Preamble to the Constitution.
That episode reminds me the milieu we live in today.
We have city, state and federal governments that expand far beyond the definition set forth in the Constitution.
The principles and rights written in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights are considered criminal today.Just revisit Ruby Ridge and Waco, or be hauled into court and learn firsthand. You have the right to be jailed, the right to be fined, the right to be presumed guilty, etc. You don’t have the right to disobey a traffic signal. You don’t have a right to bear arms in places where you really need them. The unalienable right to self defense? Not according to Supremist Sotomayor.
In the Star Trek episode Captain Kirk was able to turn those people to the truth quite handily. I don’t think it will be so easy
on this planet.
In the original Star Trek series there was an episode wherein a people on a distant planet had a sacred script, but they didn’t know how to read it properly nor did they understand it, until Captain Kirk put them straight. the sacred script was the Preamble to the Constitution.
That episode reminds me of the milieu we live in today.
We have city, state, and federal governments that expand far beyond the definition set forth in the Constitution.
The principles and rights written in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights are considered criminal today.Just revisit Ruby Ridge and Waco, or be hauled into court and learn firsthand. You have the right to be jailed, the right to be fined, the right to be presumed guilty, etc. You don’t have the right to disobey a traffic signal. You don’t have a right to bear arms in places where you really need them. The unalienable right to self defense? Not according to Supremist Sotomayor.
In the Star Trek episode Captain Kirk was able to turn those people to the truth quite handily. I don’t think it will be so easy
on this planet.
Patrick of Atlantis, your point about traffic signals might seem out of place to some people, but I think it’s an important one.
My community is installing red-light cameras at key intersections and will soon be expanding them to not-so-key intersections.
I no longer have the right to disregard a yellow light if it would be safer to go on through, rather than slamming on my brakes, lest my rear bumper still be in the intersection when the light turns red.
A police officer might (or might not) understand (or care) that it is sometimes safer to go on through, and, being a human being who can think, he might realize that free citizens and safe, courteous drivers sometimes have to deviate from what traffic signals and signs instruct them to do.
No more. With red-light cameras, the exact letter of the law must be adhered to, and any deviation, regardless of circumstances, will be punished. People contesting a camera-issued ticket in traffic court have no [human] accuser, and no defense that a traffic court is likely to even consider. As far as they’re concerned, the robo-camera’s Word is Gospel, so just be a good sport and pay up.
Hawkins: think you’re Cicero do you? Notice how the comments of your correspondents degenerate to discussions of parallels in a TV cartoonish fiction rather than to the Federalist Papers and the Founders letters’ forecasts of just what’s happening today? Aaaaah Patriots!
Cicero, remember, died at the hands of the usurpers, then the usurper himself died by the hands of his Senators.
All the same, the Republic was lost, as has been ours for quite some time now.
Excellent work here AWR. Liberty is our common thread, I just hope we can preserve it.
…all “created equal” and “endowed by [our] Creator with certain unalienable rights.”…These opening words of the Constitution expressed the Founders’ view that “We” were bound together, if even imperfectly, under a government…
These days, it seems like “we” are bound together by the opportunity to pay taxes, at every level, to support Jabba The Hutt.
(Hasn’t the bulk of Porkulus money already paid out gone to support the bureaucracy, pay salaries of government workers ?)
The example of the state of California isn’t an isolated one
The “dues” paid by taxpayers in order to belong to Club California purchase benefits that, increasingly, are enjoyed by the staff instead of the members.
Liberty is indeed essential, both in practice and in theory. But I fear that our ignorance of liberty portends its slow death, and therefore marks the end of any common tie between the American people.
The earth is the common property of the human race. And to make that practical, wealthy landowners should be taxed, made to pay rent on the land in order to “create a national fund out of which there shall be paid to every person, when arrived at the age of twenty-one years, the sum of 15 pounds sterling, as a compensation in part, for the loss of his or her natural inheritance, by the introduction of the system of landed property. And also the sum of 10 pounds sterling per annum, during life, to every person now living, of the age of 50 years, and to all others as they they arrive at that age.” – Thomas Paine on advocating redistribution of wealth.
There you have it, folks. Although the right does its best to conceal it. Let the gymnastic rationalizing begin. Or you can continue with your insights into Star Trek.
“There you have” what? Paine was a revolutionary, whose views were congruent with those of the Founders only as far as a shared opposition to royal tyranny. He was decidedly out of the mainstream of American thought, and played no role at all in the development of the counry. The fact that he ended up in France, rather than staying to help build the country whose birth he had helped to facilitate with Common Sense, demonstrates the separate path he took. He was a ” progressive,” just like modern liberals; he wanted to create heaven on earth, a utopia, which the above quote so amply illustrates. The only cost, of course, was private property and the essential freedom that comes with it. I’m glad he left for France.
AWR,
You make some very interesting points in your article. I think your reasoning has one major flaw. You appear to confuse anti-Republicism with anti-Americanism. The two are not the same. Being anti-Republican has often meant being pro-civil rights, pro-union, and pro-family. Being for those ideas is not anti-American. I myself am anti-DEM and anti-REB. Anyone who knows my personal history would laugh at the suggestion that I’m anti-American. Being anti-Republican is not anti-American. If anything it’s the embodiment of what’s best about America, that right to choose. We choose where we work, where live, and who we vote for. We should celebrate that. And when others disagree with those choices, you should try to convince them how there wrong, not call them anti-American.
I agree that the philosophies surrounding the declaration of independence and the constitution were noble and far-sighted. However, whenever you write a history of the common bond Americans have while ignoring the slavery of African Americans, followed by apartheid and then the indentured servitude and limited rights of Asian Americans, you simply look like you’re trying for a dog whistle. Only a chump would come up with such an argument and expect anyone but a specific group of people to perk up. The nation has a lot of good qualities and, more importantly, the constitution itself, when applied without prejudice is a wonderful document. It was sh^%t on consistently for about one hundred and fifty years. If Americans have any common bond, its been that of trying to improve the American dream so that it applies to everyone. And throughout that effort there have been people opposed to that effort; they certainly don’t share that American bond. And many of them seem to have gotten control of the GOP and its media circus.
n&t: That’s all you got? Kos got that to you quickly.
The author is talking about liberty and what it means to be a citizen of this great nation.
And you and Kos come up with Paine and his notions of collectivism and redistribution.
Oh what a wonderful world you live in Blotto, where agency is always applicable only to three individuals–Saul Alinsky, Kos, Soros. Lucky for you; I don’t think that your brain could handle anything more complex.
That’s all you got? Kos got that to you quickly.
Only now or never (n&t) & other Leftist geniuses could conflate Thomas Paine’s writings on indemnification with Barry’s notion of co-opting the machinery of the federal government for Marxist “redistributive” ends.
Moho
There is such a thing as indentured white servants such as my ancestors. At the time many people from around the world came to this contry. It is they that built this country or died trying. There were no handouts as it was make it or break it. When the handouts started so did our decline.
Bottom line…
“It has been well said that really up-to-date liberals do not care what people do, as long as it is compulsory.”
~George Will
#10 Arrow Against All Tyrants.
I didn’t see Thomas Paine mentioned by name in the article. I guess I missed it. Anyway, in my copy of Paine’s “The Rights of Man”, #17 is “The Right to Property, being inviolate and sacred, no one ought to be deprived of it, except in cases of evident public necessity, legally ascertained, and on condition of a previous just indemnity”.
Yes, Paine was a Utopian, wanted to redistribute wealth at at time when wealth was mostly inherited, and he took part in the French Revolution after taking part in the American revolution. But he did seem to believe in property rights.
#10 Arrow Against All Tyrants.
I didn’t see Thomas Paine mentioned by name in the article. I guess I missed it. Anyway, in my copy of Paine’s “The Rights of Man”, #17 is “The Right to Property, being inviolate and sacred, no one ought to be deprived of it, except in cases of evident public necessity, legally ascertained, and on condition of a previous just indemnity”.
Yes, Paine was a Utopian, wanted to redistribute wealth at at time when wealth was mostly inherited, and he took part in the French Revolution after taking part in the American revolution. But he did seem to believe in property rights.
This article approaches a topic that needs to be recovered in this country (and the West as a whole)- the idea of a shared monoculture. We are killing ourselves to be diverse and there’s nothing gained by it except more division.
To Moho – did you notice that you interjected race into the issue when race was not even on the table? The whole point of the article is that there is something bigger than race and socio-economics which can bind us together – that tie is liberty. This is the most free nation in the world (regardless of one’s skin color), and we should be able to discuss foundational principles without going back 150 years to slavery.
#11 Mr. Independant (sic) – Anti-Republican has often meant being pro-civil rights, pro-union, and pro-family? Really? Well, one out of three ain’t bad.
Pro-civil rights – Republicans were behind the civil rights movement. Eisenhower nad MLK were both Pubs. The Pubs have always been against any form of slavery. The Dems? Not so much.
Pro-union – In that, you’re right. Unions drag down business. It goes against free market principles. It is a distortion. Look at the businesses dealing with strong unions, like the auto companies. Going down! Government unions, like the NEA (teachers union)? Going down!
Pro-Family – Because pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage, anti-religion, pro-Hollywood indecency (yes, about 90% of “creative types” are Dems), pro-higher taxes, pro-radical feministas, anti-job policies, pro-single motherhood, pro-illegal immigration, pro-multiculti, et cetera, are all pro-family, pro-America Dem positions. Uh huh.
Jesus.
#12 Moho – Normally, I wouldn’t engage you, but you bring uo a common misunderstanding in a fairly civil manner, so I shall respond.
The Founders were split on what to do about slavery. Madison’s line for the Declaration of Independence was Life, Liberty, and Property. Jefferson and others were concerned that this would enable a greater defense of slavery down the line, so they changed it to Pursuit of Happiness.
They opted to kick the can down the road, because the country would be torn apart by the conflict and was not yet strong enough to survive it. England would win in the end. they understood that there is only so much change that one can do at one time. It takes almost a hundred years for radical new ideas to substantially affect the culture.
England had abolished slavery, but not in the colonies. After his Presidency, John Quincy Adams argued successfully before the SC against slavery in a case. It takes time. The King of England declared the colonies to be in rebellion in 1761. We declared Independence in 1776. About a hundred years later, we ended slavery.
Even after the Civil War, there was a resistance to the Emancipation. We got Jim Crow laws. It took almost exactly another hundred years to abolish them, finally accepting that there is no superior race. These were essentially two separate issues. Slavery could be any race. Superiority was about race.
Who knows? In fifty years, maybe everyone will decide that abortion is okay. On the other hand, maybe abortion will pass like a bad dream. The USSR collapsed, demonstrating the utter failure of Marxism. It may be a hundred years later that this idiocy departs the public consciousness. Or perhaps, it’ll be a hundred years after McCarthy-ism.
What I’m saying is, it takes time… lots of time. Do not blame this country nor its Founders for slavery. They gave us the most freedom of any peoples in the world and laid the groundwork for ending slavery. They were very far-sighted men.
No 23 Marc Malone: nicely done. Amazing too that so many prostrated themselves to the real Stalinists while nitpicking the US. Dreaming of perfection, they ignored real freedoms in the US and the suppression of freedom in the USSR.
Question though: much as I detest unions, especiallly ones of govt workers which I think ought to be illegal, how is it a violation fo free market principles for private sector workers to organize and bargain as a group? I doubt that even chuck pelto, wherever he has mercifully gone, would take the postion that workers couldn’t lawfully combine among themselves. I assume you mean to oppose the govt’s thumb on the scale–forcing businesses to bargain with unions–as the violation of free market principles.
The war against a common American culture has been underway for some time – maybe even before the 1960s that Hawkins postulates. We must regain our common culture or else. We are currently 300 million people with 300 million different definitions of what it means to be American.
I’m afraid we’ll never recover what Hawkins indicates we’ve lost. We’ve gone too far in the other direction. I’ll bet a majority of people educated in the government school system haven’t even heard of the Sam Adams’ document (“The Rights of the Colonists”) that Hawkins cited, much less have they heard of the rights Adams expounded.
Marc Malone,
Well to start the REBs were not behind the civil-rights movement. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was introduced by former president Kennedy (a DEM), chaired by former representative Emanuel Celler (a DEM), & Mike Mansfield (a DEM), and signed into law by former president Johnson (guess what, he was also a DEM). Your assertion that the REBs were behind the civil-rights movement is not just wrong, it’s laughable.
On unions your points are mostly wrong as well. Organized labor is just the economic expression of democracy. Union members elect their leaders, decide on agendas, and if they are unhappy with their current membership they can start their own union. As to your belief that unions drag down business, that’s just a REB talking point, with no basis in fact. Organized labor was at the height of it’s power between the 40’s and 70’s. Business not only didn’t suffer, they thrived. Organized labor built the US middle class. Right now less than 7% of all private workers in the US are unionized; is it just a coincidence that the overall wealth of the middle class hasn’t increased with the decrease in unionized labor? Now I said you’re mostly wrong on your opinion of unions. On government employee unions you and I are in agreement.
Your final point about anti-family measures I disagree with everyone of them (except higher taxes). Can you cite any proof to back up your claims, I doubt it.
Finally, I noticed that you didn’t dispute the actual topic of my post, that being anti-Republican is not anti-American, was that an oversight?
The first thing is to get rid of the Socialist way of thinking.
I’m afraid we’ll never recover what Hawkins indicates we’ve lost. We’ve gone too far in the other direction.
I agree. My “modest proposal” is to split the country in two parts (Mohos and Now and Thens off to one side, those who aren’t obsessed with redistribution of wealth and past wrongs off to the other).
We’re the country that pioneered no-fault divorce, surely we can solve our political problems the same way. Beats the alternative of killing each other, which is the only other real option.
The reason Moho and Now and Then won’t agree to this, of course, is because in America as currently configured, b*tching and moaning about the past and clamoring for other people’s money is actually a viable way to earn a living. With “evil Rethuglicans” to rail about or mooch off, they’d be forced to actually work for a living.
One of the great things about the rise of the Internet has been the ability to connect with people around the world who actually do have more of a love of liberty than our own resident statists. I’ve got more in common with non-Americans who love liberty than I do with Americans who don’t. We need a global “resettlement” project to get people living amongst their own kind, ideologically-speaking.
I’m amazed that liberty is not cherished by more Americans. It seems to me that apart from the “hayseeds” and “hicks” whom the liberals love to hate, these is very little esteem for liberty in our country as a whole. We have been overwhelmed with a sense of entitlement and have lost our way as a result.
To Moho – did you notice that you interjected race into the issue when race was not even on the table?
I’m trying to imagine an act of nature that would produce such a stupid person. Certainly, the whole point of my post was to inject race, because race [along with gender] is at the heart of every betrayal of the constitution for the past 150 years. The idea that you can tell a history of the US without mentioning race–or describe a common historic bond that all Americans have–is simply the most asinine thing I can imagine someone thinking. Its quite a popular mindset here, and it makes me wonder if you ever run into anyone who’s not of the same ethnic heritage as you.
The reason Moho and Now and Then won’t agree to this, of course, is because in America as currently configured, b*tching and moaning about the past and clamoring for other people’s money is actually a viable way to earn a living.
I’m laughing at your criticism of focusing on the past, in the comments section of an article talking about the past. The only reason the past keeps coming up is because idiots like you keep manufacturing cleansed and hygenic versions of it…viz, your constant appeal to return to a dual federalist framework, without ever conceding that federalism produced some of the most horrifying domestic outcomes. Federalism without restraint is a recipe for a return to plantations and serfdom. You’re a clown.
your constant appeal to return to a dual federalist framework, without ever conceding that federalism produced some of the most horrifying domestic outcomes. Federalism without restraint is a recipe for a return to plantations and serfdom. You’re a clown.
“Horrifying” in an American context, no doubt, but actually quite par for the course for world history. Sorry, but I don’t ascribe to your “Princess and the Pea” view of history. If anyone needs to concede anything, it’s you that needs to concede that for all that the Left complains about American slavery, it was no worse than Chinese slavery or African slavery or South American slavery, etc., etc., etc. Get over yourself.
As for the probability that such outcomes would be the end result of any future dual federalist model, that sounds like the boogey man stories my parents used to tell me to get me to behave and is about as likely as his existence. In the first place, when small-government types talk about wanting to live under low-tax, low-spending, low-regulation regimes, it’s not a code word for “let’s get those brown people back working in the fields” and, secondly, in case you hadn’t noticed, most slaves and serfs were engaged in types of labor that no longer exist, due to automation and technical progress. What exactly would be the value of people on plantations or serfs when all of the ways in which those classes added-value in the past are gone?
If you would just take your head out of your ass, you’d see that we’ve made wonderful progress since Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin. I’d say it’s you that’s the clown, only I might have to go back a few centuries and say you’re more of a jester.
It would be interesting to talk with a scholar concerning Thomas Paine. At the time of the writing of the Constitution, the English had been practicing primogeniture for hundreds of years. Thomas Jefferson, in writing the State of Viginia’s Constitution, abolished primogeniture as anti-democratic because it maintained the political and social status of the aristocracy.
Because of this, along with what we have already been reminded of up thread, I have a tendency to believe that the expectations of all these men at the time were that more and more citizens could/would become property owners, inheritance or no inheritance. Which is exactly what happened. Excluded siblings, along with those who indentured themselves for passage to this land of opportunity became prosperous and prominent citizens on their own merits. Ordinary men and women gained stature in every discipline imaginable, and faster than could be imagined.
The idea that Thomas Paine advocated actual redistribution of wealth to any real extent doesn’t seem to comport with his other thoughts as land owners paid taxes from the get go.
My question would be if Thomas Paine has been politically commandeered.
The ideas expressed in our founding documents is alot more radical than anything the “left” has ever come up with (even on acid). Most of the world is still far ready to comprehend what we have had for the past 200 plus years. Sadly an increasing proportion of our people have never read or heard those sacred (yes, inspired by God)documents. They are written in plain English (unlike modern legislation) so they cannot be misunderstood.
#35 Elliot
Thomas Paine was a self educated man who made a career as a pamphleteer. His fortunes were mixed. For every friend he had an enemy. He was praised and slandered, mocked and revered. His first 37 years were miserable and lived in obscurity. He then gained national honour and adulation. If he had died at the end of the American war of revolution he would be regarded along with Jefferson, Washington, Franklin. But he lived through and beyond his shining time and also lived for his own purpose and dreams. He left America, returned to England, went to France and was elected to the French Convention but was thrown in jail and narrowly escaped the guillotine. After that he became obsessed with devising prescriptions to fix the ills of his day in Europe. Among these were income tax to support social welfare, laws for the protection of workers, limitation of arms by treaty etc etc.
All this shit disturbing got him indicted for treason in England in 1792. He went back to America where he died in N.Y in 1809.
There is an army of Thomas Paines in his pamphlets. Yes, he can be made out to be this or that politically by choosing from his writings. Whatever he was he served the cause of liberty as best he could and far better than most.
#32 MOHO
You could not be more mistaken about the engines that drive history. My friend, race, gender and ethnicity are secondary to the real movers of history – politics and economics, which know no race, gender or ethnicity. These are primary. All other considerations are seconday and tertiary.
Veni, like I said, a simple clown:
“Horrifying” in an American context, no doubt, but actually quite par for the course for world history. Sorry, but I don’t ascribe to your “Princess and the Pea” view of history. If anyone needs to concede anything, it’s you that needs to concede that for all that the Left complains about American slavery, it was no worse than Chinese slavery or African slavery or South American slavery, etc., etc., etc.
First things first, I don’t know whether it was worse or better. Second, its so obviously irrelevant that I have to wonder about the kinds of moral decisions you are faced with every day. Rape is not immune to criticism because there is also rape with aggravated assault. Murder is not okay, simply because there are multiple murderers. The idea that because other people do worse things, one’s own behavior should be left unexamined is the very thesis of irresponsibility. I can’t believe I have to let you in on this little secret.
Get over yourself.What exactly would be the value of people on plantations or serfs when all of the ways in which those classes added-value in the past are gone?
Second, go read the Federalist papers. Madison was not specifically concerned with slavery when he wrote about the tyranny of the majority. In fact such tyrrany could take any form, it could even relegate white men to lower servile status in a reality where doing so makes economic sense. Or it could make certain people the target of surveillance simply for political purposes. Really, dude, you’re dumb as a bag of hammers.
#24 greenberry – When you go to a job interview, are you offered pay based on the job and your abilities, or is the salary set by the union? Admittedly, it might be higher with the union… or not, if you’re really good at what you do. When you get laid off, is it based on merit, or seniority? Promotions? Merit or toeing the union line? These are just a few examples.
Unions seem like a good idea in theory, but in practice, they always lead to many unintended consequences. In most States, you are forced to pay union dues if working in a union shop. Your dues often goes to support political causes you don’t support. Unions often suffer from massive corruption. Violence and unions often go hand-in-hand. Public employee unions lead to an ever increasing looting of the public treasury. Corruption of elected officials happens again and again. On and on and on.
Unions just lead to a collective mentality. There is a disincentive to improve, or even work. How many Auto company jobs have no work attached, guys they can’t get rid of? What kind of man takes a no-work job? How does he look at himself in the mirror in the morning? What does he do on take-your-kid-to-work day? Does he crow about working the system instead of working the work?
Road crews do the same thing. The unions require 3-7 employees for every man needed. That’s why you see so many guys doing nothing. Prevailing wage laws also get into the mix. These two things make fixing our roads too expensive. Rural areas can’t afford it at all (too many roads, too few people, and having to pay top dollar in low-dollar areas).
Unions just seem to turn good men into parasites. They distort the work and political systems. Do they get higher wages? Generally, yes, but there is a price we all pay. There is no such thing as a free lunch. But, hey, they’re getting theirs… by hook or crook.
#27 Mr. Independant (sic) – I will call a Marxist anti-American, but being anti-Repub is not anti-American… although being anti-American always means you’re anti-Repub. Always.
As far as Dems being behind the Civil Rights movement, they were Johnny-come-latelies. The first 2 black Senators and first 5 black Congressmen were ALL Republicans. The blacks used to vote overwhelmingly Republican. The Pubs had been pushing for equality since the Civil War.
Only after the Civil Rights Law passed did they move over to the Dems… because the Dems offered them free stuff… and re-enslaved the blacks by making them dependent and shackling their minds.
As for proof of the positions I mentioned, go to the DNC website. Read the Party platform and issues. It is shocking what they stand for. The truth is there for all to see… but folks are too blind to see. The Socialists have hijacked the Dem party.
It’s why there are so many Lib Pubs. They are Dems who have been forced out of their own Party. McCain, Giuliani, Huckabee, Romney. These were the big Pub candidates, along with the Libertarian Paul. Not a Republican amongst them. Conservative Dems. Faux Pubs.
C’mon, the author of this article does not want the Founders Papers to “bring us together;” he wants to use them to gore the other side.
“Bringing us together” so reeks of collectivism, anyway, right?
There will always be tension between freedom and collectivism, but BOTH are inside our system. When Gen. Gates issued orders that men from different states militias should not fight each other or would be punished with the lash, immediately, it was a serious abridgement of the men’s “freedom,” but he did it anyway and our government has been doing it ever since, and then they used our taxes to pay Gates’ and all his men’s salaries. Our citizens have reacted bitterly on this threat to our freedom to fight each other, hence the internet was invented.
Whadda we need a guvment for, anyway?
Founders’ Papers were always meant to gore the enemy. Originally it was the monarchists who wanted dictatorial powers for the royal government. Then it was the radicals who wanted no national government and the fools who wanted an American monarchy. Now it is the grasping Marxists who want to wipe away the states and the Constitution and impose big-brother government into every aspect of our lives.
The casual distain many Americans have for our unique and hard-earned liberties does amazes me. And the willingness they have to throw those liberties away for bread and circuses.
Milton Freeman spoke about the amazing and historically unique run of freedom Americans enjoyed for a century and a half or so (from the Revolution through the Coolidge Administrations). That run is over and will probably never be repeated unless we colonize other planets.
Westerncanadian, thank you for doing my homework for me. I have found Thomas Paine to be a real pain in that he confuses me with what appear to be contradictions.
Interesting posts on this, but I disagree with some that say Hawkins’ purpose here is to gore one side or another. Throughout the article it seemed to me that he was saying we have common ground, but we’ve lost and need to recover. That ground is a love for freedom.
Dwight, I wouldn’t presume to assign ulterior motivations into Hawkins’ piece at all because I am left with another sense altogether-one of being reminded of what could be lost in this present political fight. That loss of a state of mind that brought an overall view or understanding of well-being to a vast and diverse set of people. That understanding was the freedom of individuality-the liberty to make choices on our own, even to risk failure.
Our relatively short, shared experiences as American citizens have put us through trials and times of angst as serious and significant as those we face currently. Yet the American people never felt the need to tear our moorings down to bare bones and restart a nation on ideals founded in other/unlike experiences. This nation, and its people, recovered each time and grew stronger. Whether folks will admit it or not, this freedom has been the envy of the world all over. Yes, this faction or that will moan and b*itch from time to time but not many really try to escape oppression here.
The idea of being forced by legislation to exchange those freedoms, that feeling of well-being, for one of being imposed on by governing stranger-officials to give yourself to the service of “good works” is, frankly, uninspiring. Clerics have filled that role in the past, they had a “calling” to do so. Not everyone can fulfill that role or has been called. Therefore, a vast majority will be enslaved by someone else’s ideal. The thought of working long hours and devoting periods of time in innovative thinking will be the end to motivation for many among us-the real true dullness of hope and change.
Hawkins wants to preserve/conserve what greatness we enjoyed in our liberties(imho). Me too.
Marc Malone,
OK, I’m confused by your statements. First you acknowledge that being anti-REB is not anti-American but then you state “being anti-American always means you’re anti-Repub”. You’re contradicting yourself. How about we just stick with your first statement, being anti-REB is NOT anti-American.
On your second point, yes in the aftermath of the Civil War it was the Republican Party that were the ‘radical progressives’. Those days are long gone. Since that time (with the exception of Teddy Roosevelt) the REBs have consistently been against the civil rights movement.
Your third point is false as well. In the aftermath of the passage of the Civil Rights Act it was the ‘Dixiecrats’ that left the DEMs to become REBs.
On your final point, I did what you suggested and went to the DNC website: http://www.democrats.org/agenda.html . On their agenda section I didn’t see any evidence of the things you suggested (except on issued of taxation). Tell me, what is this so called ‘truth’ you’re referring to?
Recently, when either party loses an election, they get so damned dramatic about it that when the winner comes in and does more or less what we would expect a winner from that party to do, the other side goes nuts with “this is fascism; this is communism, the republic will fall, blah, bla, blah. GWB faced 9/11 and Obama faces the Pearl Harbor of economic crises; both reacted a certain way, which we might have expected, given their track records. Immediately, the other side’s PR arms go into overdrive, throwing red meat to the yahoo bases on the left or right about how the current President is only one click short of Hitler or Stalin. It is really stupid, but given the overwraught nature of both bases these days, it more or less works, and the result is that any discussion of what we should actually do, is subjugated to getting the current monster out of office. How can either side be so dramatic about either Bush or Obama and their wretchedness? Can reasonable people actually believe this stuff, or do we just go for dramatic titillation, because otherwise politics would bore us?
You Sir get right to the heart of the matter.
Right on!
As a ground pounding working stiff it is heartning to see journalism that discards the symptoms and perscribes medicine for the ailment.
Those founding principles of liberty are the root of us our country and the guiding morals for a good way of life. Self determination is the true bearer of prosperity.
Thank you for your thoughful and heart felt words.
It is truely appreciated from a patriot who is grateful for being born to and who lives in this wonderful place called The United States of America.
God bless you!
Dwight,
Excellent post. To bad there isn’t a 3rd party that realizes public works are more important than politics. Maybe things will change soon. Any thoughts?
I’m not sure that a third party would help for this (unless one party were to essentiall fall apart like the Federalists and Whigs did and something new forms. Bare knuckle politics and checks and balances have so much been a part of our culture for so long (think Jefferson and Adams), but talk radio, cable tv, and the internet have taken the bare knuckles to a level of mania. You know the people who just cannot shut up? Someone once compared the kind of anxiety produced by bad news on tv (and I would add talk radio) to the warning cries of a gaggle of geese over and over and over and… Talk radio is actually a little more sophisticated than that, believe it or not, but it pushes the Limbaughs etc toward the extreme, rather than the center. The extremes make for better entertainmnent, better ratings.
Obama talked as if he could find or create a civilized center, but unless he can work on the line “our friends on Fox news have some legitimate concerns and here is how we will address them…” and say it somewhat convincingly, he won’t be able to get to that place. McCain would also have had a shot at it, as I don’t think the left would be quite as nuts about his winning as the right is about Obama, but that’s irrelevant now.
The Massachusetts version of Romney could do something like that in a national election, but the righties are unlikely to let him get the nomination. He has probably blown his chance, although, but if he could be reborn one more time and sell it to the center. Tere migt be a tird party opportunity tere; unlikely, very, but not impossible.
Pawlenty maybe?
Can you tell that the H key tends not to fire on my computer?
Let’s try that next to last paragraph again:
The Massachusetts version of Romney could do something like that in a national election, but the righties are unlikely to let him get the nomination. He has probably blown his chance, but if he could be reborn one more time and sell it to the center. There might be a third party opportunity there; unlikely? very, but not impossible.
You are an embarrassment to the historical profession.