Posted on 07/25/2015 11:17:43 AM PDT by Baynative
In 5,000 years of recorded human history, there has been no nation even resembling the United States. The American model has offered, and continues to offer, a greater chance for dignity, hope and happiness for more people than any other system.
As Margaret Thatcher, the British prime minister, put it: “Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy.” Lady Thatcher was right. The philosophy is one of individual liberty, free-market opportunity and belief that it's all a gift from God. America is the best idea the world has ever had, the greatest value system ever devised.
What are these values that make America exceptional? Individualism, not collectivism. Patriotism, not relativism. Optimism, not pessimism. Limited government, not the nanny state.
God, not Caesar. Faith, not secularism. E pluribus Unum, not multiculturalism. Life, not death. Equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome. Goodness, not moral equivalence.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Something positive for a change!
Kinda nice.
‘Cause we sorta in a state of self-loathing right now...
I am sure you can share some stories too! (HUGS!)
Bookmark.
Bookmark
Exactely.. thats Exactely what has been LOST.. not obscured, covered, changed, or HIDDEN....... but LOST...
Once the Constitution is lost.. America is lost.. AND the U.S. Constitution's Charter has been disassembled LONG AGO..
The entire reason FOR having a COnstitution is to LIMIT THE FEDERAL GIVENMENT...
LIMIT the federal givernment.. to make IT a vassal to the States.. to serve the States..
INSTEAD; the States NOW serve the Federal Givernment.. the Complete Opposite..
Because thats what Democracy is all about.. centralized gov't..
The whole reason for a democracy to exist... (and DEMOCRATS)..
Yes.......... the complete opposite..
And yet, so many would see it destroyed.
This is a truly amazing country, I have always been grateful for the opportunities my ancestors had, who came to the USA between 1845-1869. Most were humble peasants who were not the first-born sons.
Within one generation they were bankers, dentists, teachers, etc. None of that would have been possible if they had stayed in Europe where the class system was still entrenched.
My Mother was very aware of the wonder of America, and she often would get teary-eyed when she saw a flag, saying that she thought it was the most beautiful flag in the entire world.
The article touched me a lot. My Mom was a staunch conservative, and a devout Catholic. My Dad died young, and she kept on working and insisted we all [7] get to college. I am so grateful for my parents, and great-grandparents who sailed the Atlantic for a new life in America. May God bless our country, and continue to watch over us.
We need to pray for a miracle that this country returns to the values that made this country great.
It is startling and abhorrent that half of this nation will argue fervently against this beautiful essay.
Ironic, isn't it?
America WAS the greatest nation since (the original) Israel, and the only nation founded on philosophy. I only hope some of the splintered pieces that result from her breakup over the next decades preserve some of the Founders’ intents. Because it looks like we are hauling toward totalitarianism at breakneck speed.
Yep. And if you read Lysander Spooner, you know he predicted that the Constitution would NOT restrain the Federal government. Also, many of the Founders predicted the same (read the Anti-Federalist Papers).
In case you haven't noticed, it HAS been destroyed. The America of today is connected to the Founders' vision only by labels: we have something called the President (who is now a dictator), something called the House of Representatives (that should be 30,000 strong, but was limited in number to maintain power over the people), and something called the Senate (which was NOT supposed to be popularly elected, but selected by the States). There are bureaucracies that are more powerful than judges, and have abilities to do things that the Founders NEVER meant the Federal government to do. The Federal courts now hold that the Constitution limits THE PEOPLE, not the Federal government.
This ain't the Founders' America. It's already been destroyed, and replaced by a fascist oligarchy.
I have a copy at home, and, just a cavil here, the Anti-Federalists weren't really Founders or Framers, except for the Bill of Rights, for which God bless them, for keeping the arrogant, shifty, and high-hatted Alexander Hamilton's boots to the fire long enough to secure our rights.
Hamilton opposed the BoR (see his diatribes in -- I think it was -- Federalist 81); his basic argument (but watch out here) was that the Government would just lawyer-talk their way around the BoR, using specific language to "imagineer" the opposite notion and then claim that the Framers had "contemplated" -- and therefore greenlighted -- the Government's doing exactly the opposite of what the BoR said. So he said.
"But he is known," said the canny Antifederalist, and he was. He was so slick, he got a reputation for it; and it was his reputation that blunted his grift, as people learned to lift the rug and look the horse in the mouth.
Madison -- who belongs on Rushmore -- saw that the Antifederalists had a point (they included both Adamses, John Hancock, Thomas Jefferson, George Mason, and Patrick Henry) and decided to write the BoR himself, in order to see to it that a competent job was done, despite his misgivings. (He was, after all, a Federalist still.)
I couldn’t read it all. Like the 1795 “Sneer of Sidney Smith”, a Londoner who spent a few hours putting down America and all her shortcomings. I can’t look at it, history’s rebuke of Smith is beyond epic, it’s fantastic. He wrote the most ill-fated, most unfortunate words in the history of the English tongue.
“As Margaret Thatcher, the British prime minister, put it: “Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy.””
America isn’t the only country that was created by philosophy...the USSR was also, and those two philosophies are waging a war right now in the USA.
I emphatically agree. Will Bookmark.As Margaret Thatcher, the British prime minister, put it: “Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy.”
Can’t argue with that.
Nice post!
pshaw. That's "Proposition Nation" nonsense. America grew out of the culture of the colonials who settled it. Their culture was codified in the documents of the founding era.
Anyone who wishes to understand America's founding "philosophy" should read Bernard Bailyn's The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. The law text most cited by the Founders was Deuteronomy.
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