I actually think our ideas have persisted remarkably well. What they have going for them in my opinion is that they are true,
I see they are Self-Evident to you. (and to me)
It seems to me that it is human nature to seek the truth, unless you are taught that there is no truth. But then how could that be true?
I believe in those truths, but I don’t think they’re self evident. Some people think it’s self-evident that everyone has a right to a house or a job or whatever, which is just wrong. So the notion of self evidence is good in a rhetorical way, and it works when everyone agrees that the thing that’s claimed to be self evident is self evident, but it really kind of holds itself up by its own bootstraps and so isn’t exactly an immovable anchor.
True it’s human nature to seek the truth, but it’s also human nature be wrong about stuff. If the truth is to prevail and persist, it takes more than just letting people seek the truth. The truth has to be expounded and defended against untruth and it has to be pitched and sold and ingrained into people. Otherwise they’ll just wind up believing silly things. The fact that Barak Obama is president proves this.
Calvin Coolidge got it right in a great speech that he gave on the Fourth back in 1926:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2546810/posts
“””No other theory is adequate to explain or comprehend the Declaration of Independence. It is the product of the spiritual insight of the people. We live in an age of science and of abounding accumulation of material things. These did not create our Declaration. Our Declaration created them. The things of the spirit come first. Unless we cling to that, all our material prosperity, overwhelming though it may appear, will turn to a barren sceptre in our grasp. If we are to maintain the great heritage which has been bequeathed to us, we must be like-minded as the fathers who created it. We must not sink into a pagan materialism. We must cultivate the reverence which they had for the things that are holy. We must follow the spiritual and moral leadership which they showed. We must keep replenished, that they may glow with a more compelling flame, the altar fires before which they worshiped.”””
He says that if “we are to MAINTAIN the great heritage which has been bequeathed to us, we must be like-minded as the fathers who created it.....We must CULTIVATE the reverence which they had for the things that are holy. WE must KEEP REPLENISHED...”
Our principles are great and true, but we can’t rely on the notion that they’re self evident to maintain them. Instead we have to do the hard work of maintaining/cultivating/replenishing them. This is hard work, and especially hard for a pluralistic nation with a million things going on, but it has to be done by every generation. We can’t be casual about it or rest on our laurels or we’ll lose them.