Posted on 02/09/2021 2:29:57 PM PST by Jacquerie
Perhaps the most prominent commonality among conservative authors and bloggers is their emphasis on first principles and their application to modern times. Everything flows from first principles. Since laws and traditions connect to the past, great truths will not appear until we see the chain that links them to others. Our Framers studied the past, yet were not slaves to it. They let experience be their guide as they applied first principles to their British and colonial heritage.
As Charles de Montesquieu showed, and our Founding generation demonstrated, the first principle, the spring from which republics emerge and are maintained is virtue. This is not the moral or Christian sense of the word, but rather public virtue, by which Montesquieu meant love of country.
Public virtue is not self-renunciation; it doesn’t ask citizens to deny their natural interests. It permits them to envision and work toward a flourishing and tranquil country. In prosperity, the citizen often finds his own peace of mind and independence, the peaceable possession and enjoyment of his property, and the hope of increasing it through freedom of commerce. Should his demeanor and judgement impress his fellow citizens, he can look forward to the temporary dignity of public posts to elective office.
In republics alone the government is entrusted to private citizens. To survive, the republic must be loved. Since everything depends on establishing this love, to inspire love is the principle business of education.
In his 1818 Report for the University of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson wrote,
The objects of… primary education (which) determine its character and limits (are): To give to every citizen the information he needs for the transaction of his own business; to enable him to calculate for himself, and to express and preserve his ideas, his contracts and accounts in writing; to improve, by reading, his morals and faculties; to understand his duties to his neighbors and country, and to discharge with competence the functions confided to him by either; to know his rights; to exercise with order and justice those he retains, to choose with discretion the fiduciary of those he delegates; and to notice their conduct with diligence, with candor and judgment; and in general, to observe with intelligence and faithfulness all the social relations under which he shall be placed.
A properly educated citizen understands the first principles of the American republic and will naturally love his country just as he naturally loves his family.
Jefferson’s “objects of primary education,” continued into the 20th century. Topics in the opening chapter to A.D. Fradenburgh’s 1905 high school textbook, American Civics, addressed Civics and Civil Government, The State, The Origin of the State, Functions of Government, Kinds of Government, Monarchy, Democracy, Other Forms, Constitutions, and Departments of Government. Among the questions at the end of a chapter, it asked students to “Prove that the state is a necessary organ of society,” “Is it true that if all people were good, government would be unnecessary?”, and “Show that democracy is the best form of government for an enlightened people.” Foreign nations think twice before attacking a people imbued with love of country this curriculum inspired.
Where Montesquieu’s republican educators taught love of country, the purpose of education in despotic regimes is to debase the mind. Here, learning in the western sense is needless and dangerous. The mind must be made servile through demands of excessive obedience. Excessive obedience supposes ignorance in the person that obeys, for he has no occasion to doubt or to reason. All he must do is follow the will of the despot. Despotic education strikes the heart with fear and imprints the understanding of a few simple notions turned toward support of the state.
Where is American education today? Does it promote public virtue and love of country through study of first principles? The Annenberg Institute for Civics offers some odd lesson plans for high school civics in a republic:
Visit a cultural center to see artifacts and hear first-person accounts of the victimization of Japanese Americans during World War II. Make connections between newspaper articles and issues (Professor) Butler raises in her book. Encourage students to involve themselves politically by writing letters that call for social justice. Conduct an opinion poll on racial profiling. Physically engage students by having them move around from “Agree” to “Disagree” to “Undecided” positions during discussion. Lesson plans such as these do not uplift; they debase. Rather than promote republican ideals, they dull young minds into social justice conformity. Disdain of country replaces love of country. It is not the young people that are degenerate; they are soiled by those of more mature age already sunk into corruption. When generations are taught that their country isn’t worth defending, it follows that they won’t defend their country. The ongoing islamic invasion and open borders reflects a despotic ruling elite that not only do not love our country, they despise it. To illustrate, a couple of federal district court judges recently slapped President Trump with unconstitutional restraining orders involving immigration and sanctuary cities.
The Left corrupts first principles to justify ever changing fuzzy social justice. Montesquieu wrote, “Man, that flexible being, conforming in society to the thoughts and impressions of others, is equally capable of knowing his own nature whenever it is laid open to his view, and of losing every sense of it when it is banished from his mind.” (my italics) When public virtue and love of country are banished from our educational systems, the subsequent societal decay guarantees eventual dissolution of our republic.
While government is the business of politicians, the Constitution, our societal compact, is the business of every American.
Montesquieu wrote, “Man, that flexible being, conforming in society to the thoughts and impressions of others, is equally capable of knowing his own nature whenever it is laid open to his view, and of losing every sense of it when it is banished from his mind.”
When public virtue and love of country are banished from our educational systems, the subsequent societal decay guarantees eventual dissolution of our republic.
You and I have been together on the Article V movement since it first began,
but I am beginning to wonder if it is a lost cause.
Too many nay-sayers, who offer no other solution.
Of the Constitution as the Supreme Law of the Land until amended in accordance with Article V, Alexander Hamilton asserted:
If one of the Founders, himself chosen to interpret the Constitution to "the People," through his writings in THE FEDERALIST's 85 Essays, makes such a strong assertion about the nation's Constitution's supremacy, then isn't it reasonable that elected or appointed officials in the government it structures are not allowed to "innovate" upon appropriately-enacted laws flowing from its provisions?Until the people have, by some solemn and authoritative act, annulled or changed the established form, it is binding upon them collectively, as well as individually; and no presumption or even knowledge of their sentiments, can warrant their representatives [the executive, judiciary, or legislature]; in a departure from it prior to such an act. Alexander Hamilton
Have these progressives found some new, and appropriately-passed Amendment?
The answer to that question is a resounding, "No!"
In June 2016, Trump stated: "Yet today, 240 years after the Revolution, we have turned things completely upside-down." - Donald Trump
And it's not just about jobs and economic opportunity. It's about freedom, exercise of "Creator-endowed rights and liberties," and opportunity for each citizen, not just self-appointed elitists who fancy themselves as entitled to make decisions for all.
Thomas Jefferson wrote to Roger Weightman on June 24, 1826:
" I should, indeed, with peculiar delight, have met and exchanged there congratulations personally with the small band, the remnant of that host of worthies, who joined with us on that day, in the bold and doubtful election we were to make for our country, between submission or the sword; and to have enjoyed with them the consolatory fact, that our fellow citizens, after half a century of experience and prosperity, continue to approve the choice we made. may it be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the Signal of arousing men to burst the chains, under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings & security of self-government. That form which we have substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. all eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. the general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view. the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of god. these are grounds of hope for others. for ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them."Some time ago, I posted the following:
"Perhaps the so-called "progressive" enemies of freedom understand better than those who fancy themselves as "conservatives" that in order to reverse the Founders' ideas of "People over government," and institute "government over People," they must first marginalize and destroy the ideas from which liberty is derived.
The writings of America's Founders are replete with references which rebuke would-be tyrants and cite a Higher Source for life, liberty and rights. Early histories confirm those facts.
As so-called "progressives" have led a movement in forsaking the Founders' "reliance on Divine Providence," and belief that individuals are "endowed by their Creator," they also have forsaken the principles underlying America's Constitution and Declaration of Independence, and are systematically dismantling the greatest protections for liberty ever established for a people.
"Ideas have consequences"(Weaver).
The ideas of 1776 came out of a set of ideas consistent with liberty.
We tend to forget, or have never considered, that other world views existed then, as now.
Unless today's citizens rediscover the ideas of liberty existing in what Jefferson called "the American mind" of 1776, we risk going back to the "Old World" ideas which preceded the "Miracle of America."
There are those who call themselves "progressives," when, in fact, their ideas are regressive and enslaving, and as old as the history of civilization.
Would suggest to any who wish an authentic history of the ideas underlying American's founding a visit to this web site, at which Richard Frothingham's outstanding 1872 "History of the Rise of the Republic of the United States" can be read on line.
This 600+-page history traces the ideas which gave birth to the American founding. Throughout, Richard Frothingham, the historian, develops the idea that it is "the Christian idea of man" which allowed the philosophy underlying the Declaration of Independence and Constitution to become a reality--an idea which recognizes the individual and the Source of his/her "Creator"-endowed life, liberty and law.
Is there any wonder that the enemies of freedom, the so-called "progressives," do not promote such authentic histories of America? Their philosophy puts something called "the state," or "global interests" as being superior to individuals and requires a political elitist group to decide what role individuals are to play.
In other words, they must turn the Founders' ideas upside-down in order to achieve a common mediocrity for individuals and power for themselves.
It bothers me that I’m careful where I wear my red “Trump 2020” ballcap. A more courageous man would wear it everywhere he goes. Yes, we get shut down. I was on Twitter parole when they banned President Trump, so I fired Twitter and FB on the same day.
So few know even very little of Article V and insist on pinning their hopes to the lost cause of salvation through the electoral process.
The Left is good at banning books and silencing us. I’ve picked up 1984 by Orwell for the first time since High School. It is especially chilling when reread through experienced eyes.
All we can do is keep up the good fight as best we can.
Thanks for such an informative thread.
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