The Pilgrims' voyage was about freedom

The Independent ^ | 29/11/02 | Richard Boucher

[Jakarta ex-pat]

From a Thanksgiving speech by the US State Department Spokesman to the Pilgrims Society, given at Mansion House, London

I understand there are people in England besides you who celebrate Thanksgiving. They do it in their own way, and a little earlier – 6 September, the day the Pilgrims finally left England. The Pilgrims and England were not on the best of terms when the Mayflower set sail. Fortunately, our nations moved past that point, and today we are strong partners, allies, and friends.

Our relationship proves an old axiom – children cannot really appreciate their parents until they move out of the house. Our relationship is also strong because our nations developed and remain today bound together by certain principles. In a farewell letter to the Pilgrims, their pastor John Robinson alluded to some of these principles. He talked about the Pilgrims becoming a "body politic" with a civil government, choosing their governors themselves.

The Pilgrims' voyage was about breaking the shackles of intolerance. It was about cleaving to the ideals held in self governance and the rule of law. Simply put, the Pilgrims' voyage was about freedom. And freedom is the foremost principle that binds together America and Great Britain. Freedom makes us strong.

I declare myself an unabashed, simplistic American. I believe in freedom as a right, a responsibility, a destiny, a force that cannot be vanquished. And, in my line of work, it is more than a faith – freedom is a foreign policy.

The United States will defend freedom relentlessly. But fighting for freedom does not always come in the context of war, bombs, or suffering. In this age, it has an enormously wonderful, enormously positive aspect as well: expanding the community of freedom.

You may be tired of hearing me talk about freedom – I'll stop soon. But being that unabashed, simplistic American, to me that is what it is all about – plain and simple. The United States stands for freedom, defends freedom, advances freedom, and enlarges the community of freedom because we think it is the right thing to do.

[FReepaholic]

>>...The United States stands for freedom, defends freedom, advances freedom, and enlarges the community of freedom because we think it is the right thing to do...<<

Perhaps someone could remind our Congresscritters of this before they pass more liberty-strangling laws disguised as "Patriot Acts" and "Homeland Security".

[authordavidtoy]

Good thing the Pilgrims didn’t arrive today! If they heeded the animal rights activists, they’d be having tofu-turkey, and all those founding fathers in their cute little hats would not be allowed to smoke their pipes after diner. When the wanted to put out their wares and trade with the Native Americans, they’d have to buy a permit to hold a yard sale, and prayer in their school would be strictly forbidden. Worst of all, if they drank water from the streams and rivers, they might all mutate into leering hedonists bearing a strange resemblance to Bill Clinton. No, it’s a good thing they arrived when they did.

[vannrox]

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"...The United States will defend freedom relentlessly. But fighting for freedom does not always come in the context of war, bombs, or suffering. In this age, it has an enormously wonderful, enormously positive aspect as well: expanding the community of freedom.

You may be tired of hearing me talk about freedom – I'll stop soon. But being that unabashed, simplistic American, to me that is what it is all about – plain and simple. The United States stands for freedom, defends freedom, advances freedom, and enlarges the community of freedom because we think it is the right thing to do..."

The Constitution and every single document and history of this country is founded upon the idea and the ideals of FREEDOM.

Sometime around 1830 a notion of equality became to be synonymous with the word freedom. In fact, while the Civil War was fought over the 10th Amendment, the Union Press started to interchange the words so frequently that citizens began to forget just what Freedom is.

Freedom is the opposite of Equality.

If you give a group of people FREEDOM some will do better and some would do worse (depending on a third persons viewpoint). Their success would be a direct function of their differences. Eventually a bell shaped distribution curve would result. Some people would perform exceptionally well, and others would preform poorly. The majority would be somewhere in the middle.

However, if everyone was equal, the rules of society would assure that the strengths would be minimized so that the weakest in a group would be equal to the strongest in a group. This is in violation of the laws of nature and evolution. But forcing it on a society would thus create a situation of which everyone would be equally miserable.

In reality, there would be a new artificial natural selection process that would create a bell-shaped curve. This bell shaped curve would be formed not by the natural attributes of the human condition (for these would be suppressed.), but rather by the non-suppressed attributes. Most usually social in nature.

What we have to do is to get back to the fundamental concepts of freedom. Period.

And, that means a Conservative leaning towards the origional intent of the Constitution, and much more dependence on the working of independently minded citizens.




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[Ragtime Cowgirl]

"It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians, not on religions but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ." - Patrick Henry