Posted on 05/10/2016 7:32:27 AM PDT by ChessExpert
I think Prager has some good words (bon mots), for example:
“The American Revolution, unlike the French Revolution, placed liberty above equality. For the left, equality is more important than all else. That’s why so many American and European leftists have celebrated left-wing regimes, from Stalin to Mao to Guevara to Castro to Chavez, no matter how much the regimes squelched individual liberty. They all preached equality.”
I think there is some merit to Prager’s Republican party analysis. He realizes, then perhaps forgets, that Trump supporters are a diverse group. They even include Dennis Prager! I think he failed to include switchover Democrats.
Fundamentally, both parties have their factions. Democrats got votes from blue collar labor and environmental zealots, even though their goals were usually mutually exclusive. In recent years Democrats went all green, white working class Americans be damned. Trump noticed, and he talks their language.
Republicans include social conservatives, economic conservatives, Perot voters, and others. Will Trump give the heave-ho to economic conservatives? Many of his supporters at FR would welcome that. Time will tell.
I could be like a Republican poster I read who proudly proclaimed that he voted for Perot, only I’d vote for Conservative Party candidate. Instead, I will do as I always do and vote for the RINO, GOPe candidate, Donald Trump, because the alternative is worse.
Salvation, if it is to be had, will come further down the ticket.
The question for FR and others is this. Will we strive to improve President Trump when he needs it? A Texas legislature corrected Governor Bush on taxes, and he became a better Governor and President for the experience.
corrected tagline
You do know Dennis. One of the most extreme mass immigration enthusiasts that you will ever find. And being a good neocon he subscribes to the "proposition nation" idiocy that they are so fond of: "But America was founded to be an idea, not another country."....because otherwise he would have to admit that America is the creation of America's original colonists, and that the limitless immigration that he stupidly endorses will destroy the native culture that makes this country what it is.
good post
“”Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy.”
lol. That’s not remotely true, as most conservative writers used to understand. America grew as an organic culture from the Europeans, largely British, who settled it before the Revolution. See the writing of Russell Kirk, Bernard Bailyn, David Hackett Fischer, ME Bradford, Forrest McDonald
But America was founded to be an idea, not another country. As former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher put it: "Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy."
So while you are correct, this nation was a thought process born out of philosophical creation by a group of men that we call the Founding Fathers.
precisely
” this nation was a thought process born out of philosophical creation by a group of men that we call the Founding Fathers.”
Nope. The American idea of self government predated the Founding Fathers. It developed out of both predisposition and the necessity of organizing a society on the frontier of civilization.
The “Founders” simply codified what they and their ancestors had already been practicing in the colonies. As Bernard Bailyn describes in his ‘Ideological Origins of the American Revolution’ the most quoted book by the Founders as they created a government was Deuteronomy, not surprising in a literate Christian people. Their big innovation was returning to the Roman Republic as a model for the structure of the government.
The conservative authors that I mentioned in a previous post wrote extensively on the culture of pre-Revolution America and how that culture created the country. The “proposition nation” and “America was a thought process” is self-serving rubbish promulgated by neoconservatives to enhance their own kookball vision for what this country ought to be, a melting pot of the entire globe.
To a degree that is true, but if that were the only process than it would have materialized much quicker than it did. Without a doubt our system is based upon the system employed by the Roman Empire. But they are not exact mirrors of each other.
But for the sake of a non argument, you're correct, and I stand corrected.
Even scarier for the overlords: Trump is popular because many Americans finally realize their own government is their enemy. Through the haze of goofy stories about North Korea, ISIS, etc., Americans realize their country and way of life have been sold out from under them - and there are still enough of us to remember the “before-times” who want them back.
In “Animal Farm” (and Kampuchea, and the USSR) the biggest obstacle to destroying the culture was those who remembered what had preceded the revolutions...
“To a degree that is true, but if that were the only process than it would have materialized much quicker than it did.”
Well they had long been content with being British subjects and would have remained so if their grievances had been acknowledged and corrected by London. But they weren’t going to accept having their rights as Englishmen be trampled on. They wanted representation in Parliament.
Even after fighting had broken out in April 1775 the Continental Congress was seeking a peaceful resolution as late as September, in their ‘Olive Branch Petition’. They had hoped that King George was unaware of their treatment by Parliament. But George was very much aware and refused their petition, issuing his own Proclamation of Rebellion and Sedition and stating his intention to put it down with force. That enraged the colonials and the war was on.
There was much back and forth process in that 5 month period of drafting the Constitution, as the various Founding Fathers brought up their various philosophies as to how the final product should be submitted for ratification.
So I guess we can bicker back and forth as to the legitimacy of Thatcher's statement, but in essence I believe we are splitting hairs based upon a statement has merit but misses the mark in absolute accuracy.
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