“Changing America.” “Improving the lives of Americans.” This would seem to be the flagship theme of this year’s Presidential election. Every candidate, Democrat or Republican, seems to have seized at least some splinter of this plank to fuel the fires at their respective campaign rallies. What’s frightening is that they actually seem to believe theirs is the right, power and ability to make improvements in your life and mine. What exactly did the Revolutionaries seek refuge from when they fought and died to expel the Crown from the Colonies? Did they do it simply to yield power to a new form of government that would likewise insert itself into their lives? I think not.
Getting inside the hearts and heads of our Founding Fathers is paramount to comprehending the essential nature of the Constitution they drafted, and what the Constitution is intended to do, and just as importantly, intended to avoid. Every U.S. citizen must have the understanding that the document the Founders labored over was not, and is not, a how-to manual for receiving and delegating power, nor is it a playbook for the disempowering of one’s political opposition. The Constitution of the United States, and the government it birthed, is the product of a group of people who knew first hand that a government must be intent on preserving the individual’s God-given rights to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, or become tyrannical. These men, and the citizenry and their posterity on whose behalf they labored, never again wanted to live under the yoke of monarchism or its offspring, tyranny. Prior to the drafting of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, and of the U.S. Constitution in 1787, sorrowful amounts of the blood of Colonists had been poured out in the endeavor to subdue and evict the Crown’s militia, so desperately did the colonists desire to be free of autocratic rule.
Before you vote this November, investing a bit of time in some eye-opening reading could cast a whole new light on the slate of candidates, and whether their goals are indeed worthy of the Constitution they will swear to uphold if elected.
First suggestion: Washington’s Crossing, by David Hackett Fischer. Fischer, an historian, draws heavily from preserved letters and diaries of soldiers of the Continental Army, of the British Army, as well as diaries of the mercenary forces (the Hessians) contracted by the King to help subdue the rebellious colonists. In this intimate revelation of our Revolutionary history we hear firsthand the privation and suffering and despair that at times overwhelmed Washington’s army - his men - to near dissolution at arguably the most critical juncture of the war. Consider the fortitude of these Continental soldiers clothed in threadbare garments, many even barefoot, as they traversed the iced banks of the Delaware River in the winter of 1776-77. In their wake they recorded upon the snow their own extraordinary signature to Freedom’s cause, inscribed with the blood that seeped from their frozen feet as they resolutely pressed on, ultimately, and thankfully, proving to be possessed of an indomitable spirit. Read this book carefully and as you read, consider the question, “What were these men fighting so desperately, and so passionately, for…or against?”
Secondly, read The 5,000 Year Leap, by W. Cleon Skousen. Like Fischer’s book, this text utilizes countless documents and personal correspondences written by various Founding Fathers, until piece by piece, in quilt-like fashion, we see the genius of the Constitution of the United States of America revealed.
Today it is far too common for U.S. citizens to point to the Constitution and make selfish declarations about ‘our rights’, and far too rare for us to give consideration to our selfless duty to defend the integrity of that Constitution, even if means personal sacrifice. Indeed the latter is today best understood, if not coveted, by those who wear the uniform of this nation’s military.
Read and contemplate. Before you mark your ballots this November, consider who you would most like to go about the business of ‘improving the lives of Americans’, i.e., of improving your life. Do you want the freedom to improve your life by whatever honorable means are at your disposal? Or would you leave that task, and the definition of ‘improvement’, to an elected official who knows not a single thing about you?
Monday, November 03, 2008
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
On America
America is an incredible country. In the history of the planet there has never been such a place, such a convergence of human spirit and will set free to sail the winds of chance and discovery and fortune.
The human mind is unrelenting in its creativity and objectivity: it is inherently curious and conveniently endowed with the capacity to ferret out answers to the questions posed by itself. Individually, we each possess these attributes in different qualities and quantities, and when we commingle in the free market system known as Capitalism, we erupt in a synergy that expands our species’ very notion of possibility, if not in fact reality.
As a capitalist free nation, American citizens are free to endeavor in legal enterprises and then be rewarded as the marketplace sees fit. But financial reward, materialism, should never be viewed as the enduring blessing of freedom. Because my passions and gifts differ from the mechanic’s whose differ from the surgeon’s whose differ from the teacher’s, we are each variously compensated by the marketplace. When the joy of living and of being an American is reduced to how much stuff we can acquire (viz a viz money), we have prostituted our joy and freedom, exchanging that which has intrinsic value for that which possesses only fleeting worth.
America is a sacred trust. For everyday Colonial farmers and merchants to have been compelled to engage in a war of impossible odds against the military might of the Crown belies the desperate political environ that had grown up around them. These Colonists were stirred to action while at the same time drawn inexorably toward the destiny that would become self-government. Today, like every day since the Colonists declared war against Britain, we personally experience freedom to pursue our own happiness because of the courage and dedication to principle to which the Revolutionaries had committed themselves.
What are the principles that motivate Americans today? How might those who brought America into nationhood view our performance as keepers of the trust they handed to us?
America derives its blessings from her moral grounding, the fruits of human ingenuity, and from certain provisions of the government for the general public, namely a national defense and an infrastructure that benefits the masses. The role of government in the United States of America is not, and shall never be, the intentional redistribution of wealth from one individual to another. The position of most liberal and even some moderate politicians today would be viewed by our Colonial predecessors as heretical, a dereliction of duty, an extinguishing of the sacred trust that is the heart of America.
Today America is synonymous with Freedom. Freedom to try, freedom to fail, freedom to succeed. But not the freedom to demand money from others simply based on disparity. Consider this: In academia the student is given the opportunity to perform to the best of his or her ability and to be rewarded with an education and a GPA that will serve them for years to come. But since not all students are equally intellectually endowed and/or motivated to excel academically, should we instead redistribute the wealth of the overachievers to the underachievers, handing over points and grades from the first group to the latter? The successful students’ A grades become C’s, and the failing students’ become C’s. Hardly a worthy objective or means.
Certainly we have among our citizenry those who need extra help and attention. People with physical or mental disabilities may be limited in their ability to participate in capitalism. And that is why the human spirit is also dressed in compassion. We help those who truly need a hand.
But we should never think it courageous or honorable or even acceptable to demand from others their rightfully acquired possessions. If it is not right for me to approach my wealthier neighbor and demand money from him, it is no more right for the government to do so in our stead.
Thanks, but no thanks.
The human mind is unrelenting in its creativity and objectivity: it is inherently curious and conveniently endowed with the capacity to ferret out answers to the questions posed by itself. Individually, we each possess these attributes in different qualities and quantities, and when we commingle in the free market system known as Capitalism, we erupt in a synergy that expands our species’ very notion of possibility, if not in fact reality.
As a capitalist free nation, American citizens are free to endeavor in legal enterprises and then be rewarded as the marketplace sees fit. But financial reward, materialism, should never be viewed as the enduring blessing of freedom. Because my passions and gifts differ from the mechanic’s whose differ from the surgeon’s whose differ from the teacher’s, we are each variously compensated by the marketplace. When the joy of living and of being an American is reduced to how much stuff we can acquire (viz a viz money), we have prostituted our joy and freedom, exchanging that which has intrinsic value for that which possesses only fleeting worth.
America is a sacred trust. For everyday Colonial farmers and merchants to have been compelled to engage in a war of impossible odds against the military might of the Crown belies the desperate political environ that had grown up around them. These Colonists were stirred to action while at the same time drawn inexorably toward the destiny that would become self-government. Today, like every day since the Colonists declared war against Britain, we personally experience freedom to pursue our own happiness because of the courage and dedication to principle to which the Revolutionaries had committed themselves.
What are the principles that motivate Americans today? How might those who brought America into nationhood view our performance as keepers of the trust they handed to us?
America derives its blessings from her moral grounding, the fruits of human ingenuity, and from certain provisions of the government for the general public, namely a national defense and an infrastructure that benefits the masses. The role of government in the United States of America is not, and shall never be, the intentional redistribution of wealth from one individual to another. The position of most liberal and even some moderate politicians today would be viewed by our Colonial predecessors as heretical, a dereliction of duty, an extinguishing of the sacred trust that is the heart of America.
Today America is synonymous with Freedom. Freedom to try, freedom to fail, freedom to succeed. But not the freedom to demand money from others simply based on disparity. Consider this: In academia the student is given the opportunity to perform to the best of his or her ability and to be rewarded with an education and a GPA that will serve them for years to come. But since not all students are equally intellectually endowed and/or motivated to excel academically, should we instead redistribute the wealth of the overachievers to the underachievers, handing over points and grades from the first group to the latter? The successful students’ A grades become C’s, and the failing students’ become C’s. Hardly a worthy objective or means.
Certainly we have among our citizenry those who need extra help and attention. People with physical or mental disabilities may be limited in their ability to participate in capitalism. And that is why the human spirit is also dressed in compassion. We help those who truly need a hand.
But we should never think it courageous or honorable or even acceptable to demand from others their rightfully acquired possessions. If it is not right for me to approach my wealthier neighbor and demand money from him, it is no more right for the government to do so in our stead.
Thanks, but no thanks.
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