Posted on 04/03/2014 3:00:56 AM PDT by kingattax
We hear a great deal about how America needs to be “changed” by people who don’t seem to know America’s history, understand our country’s uniqueness, or appreciate how good we’ve had it as a people.
Until you understand what made America a great nation to begin with, you have no business suggesting any changes to the policies, tradition, and culture that made us so uniquely successful.
It’s not an accident that America became a great power. It’s because of these seven reasons.
(Excerpt) Read more at rightwingnews.com ...
The Constitution for the United States is the crowning achievement of Western civilization. The NATURAL RIGHTS of mankind are specifically acknowledged. The Constitution explicitly states the purpose of and reason for government is to secure these rights.
The creation of the United States is our greatest achievement. From that Liberty and prosperity has flowed. Health, wealth and well being has never been greater. We have brought mankind to the stars. Communism has subjected mankind to poverty and brutality, killing hundreds of millions to achieve its Utopian ends, it has sent mankind to the depths of Hell.
For fun, I compared the constitution of Cameroon with ours---very much the same. But Cameroon has a genuine dictator, vs Obama who so far is constrained by (occasionally) the Supreme Court, the House, and elections.
Christian mores, freedom of exchange (a free market with no combines), private property, and rule of law (written rules, written records)
All else HAS failed.
In America, every citizen is responsible for his own security and has the right to bear arms in order to maintain it. This puts the monopoly of force, necessary for the security of the state, at the lowest and most disperesed possible level.
All of our freedoms stem from this one freedom. The right to not be messed with, and the firepower to back that up.
The American People, freed from the shackles of repressive government, responded by building the greatest nation in the history of the World.
What's overlooked in this article is the importance of being "new." And by this I mean the U.S. is one of the few places in the world where land titles and property ownership can be traced back continuously through the entire history of human settlement in the modern age. This is absolutely critical in any economic system built on bank financing and mortgages.
Would you please clarify what is meant by “Protestant religious foundation” as distinguished from “Christianity”.
This Hawkins guy doesn’t seem to be the sharpest tool in the shed. Some of his commentary is flat out stupid even when he does get something right. In particular the comment about Western Culture being a main strength, and then citing Venezuelans as being a counter example. Where does he think Venezuelan culture comes from the Incas? Dolt.
The fact that free markets and common law are not even cited (as you did) indicates that he’s utterly clueless.
Heck, citing a strong military is particularly egregious in its silliness. The U.S. did not really have a strong military at all except in bursts until after WW II. It’s hard to justify us being a world power based on something we only picked up after being a world power.
It wasn’t what government did that made America great, it was what the Constitution prevented the government from doing that allowed America to become great.
The Constitution is the only reason America became a great power.
Many of today’s Americans have never experienced the freedom a government with limited powers of legislation allows. The elected discovered they can get more votes by ignoring their oath to defend the Constitution and advocate more favors from the Treasury that their powers of legislation permit.
"Do not blame Caesar, blame the people of Rome who have so enthusiastically acclaimed and adored him and rejoiced in their loss of freedom and danced in his path and given him triumphal processions. Blame the people who hail him when he speaks in the Forum of the new wonderful good society which shall now be Rome's, interpreted to mean more money, more ease, more security, and more living fatly at the expense of the industrious." --Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC)
"When the law no longer protects you from the corrupt, but protects the corrupt from you - you know your nation is doomed."
1. Barack Obama wasn't President
2. Harry Reid wasn't Senate Majority leader
3. Nancy Pelosi wasn't Speaker of the House
4. John Roberts wasn't Chief Justice
5. There was no "Great Society"
6. The mainstream media was only mildly biased and corrupt
7. No one called the Constitution a "living document"
- protestant work ethic
- limited government at all levels, especially the federal level
- abundant resources
- unbridled capitalism
- willingness to nearly exterminate the natives
- restrictive immigration policy that protected the culture for the most part and enabled an English speaking super majority.
- success in recruiting the best and brightest from elsewhere to come here from their home countries where they were either under appreciated or outright discriminated against.
- plus, we were blessed with the greatest founding fathers in the history of the world which make the intellectuals of today look like complete morons.
- willingness to fight to protect or expand.
- restricted voting rights for most of our history to only those who had earned the right.
You mean like, Vicky Gene Robinson's Episcopalians?
I’ll take a stab at it.
American Catholics don’t like to hear it, but Catholicism till quite recently was utterly hostile to everything America stood for.
The idea of democracy and enforceable human rights as against the State, for instance, emerged in a Protestant nation, England.
Catholicism specifically denounced as heresy the very idea of individual religious freedom up thru at least the latter 19th century.
Catholic religious hierarchy would seem to make the Church more comfortable with secular aristocracy than Protestantism inherently is.
exactly.
America was primarily founded by protestants FLEEING from Catholic countries where they were persecuted.
I like your list.
I will add that they only exterminated the natives when necessary. Most other cultures would have gone and solved the problem permanently. The USA went for forced relocation on an on going basis rather than extermination.
I will also add that the USA really rose to power after the WWII smashed up everyone else.
Forced re-location resulted in mass deaths, so the result was the same (and I am ok with that) because if we had not cleared the continent of them for the most part... we would now be in a south/central american situation at best or a south africa type situation at worse.
In the end, it was either us or them. And it may seem heartless but in that situation I will choose us every time.
Unlike most, I see man as he is, not as how I would prefer him to be. And I have no doubt that given the chance any other people or race would have wiped white Europeans off the face of the earth and taken everything they have.
I think America is great, and that is because of history and the leadership of many many people.
What is happening however is we are now facing a bigger challenge.
China.
China has five times our population, and (much) cheaper labor pool, and a strongly nationalistic government which does not allow equal treatment under the law. The country limits companies to Chinese ownership, and prevents foreign (American in other words) ownership of land.
China is doing to America, what America earlier did to the world. Except they are doing it, not simply by competing, but by setting up laws which discriminate.
China is in the drivers seat, and both American parties are playing along.
The problem is, China is getting ever stronger, and ever more sophisticated.
China is a very formidable competitor, and America faces a real threat if we continue to just go along.
I’m not sure how to best deal with China, but what we are currently doing is simply surrendering.
Rapidly.
Compare the Constitution of the United States with the Constituiton of the USSR or the Islamic Republic of Iran. Both of those countries had/have very nice Constitutions guaranteeing all sorts of Rights, although there are certain “nuances” squirreled away in the documents that were/are used to deny all of those rights. The important thing is not what the document says but what the body politic does. The document by itself is a scrap of paper, and is used as such most places in the world.
America’s great achievement was to live out the document as a way of public life. And it worked...for a while anyway. I’m afraid it’s pretty much a scrap of paper now, just like every other place on earth.
“....clarify what is meant by “Protestant religious foundation vs Christianity...”
Not just protestant, but a very particular flavor. Hard scrabble hard core backwoods hillbilly flavor.
“A Hessian captain, fighting on behalf of the British, told a friend in Germany in 1778, “call this war, dearest friend, by whatsoever name you may, only call it not an American Revolution, it is nothing more nor less than an Irish-Scotch Presbyterian Rebellion.”
40%+/- of Washington’s duration troops were first or second generation Ulster Scots as were the Over the Mountain Men in Carolinas as well.
Read more in The Journal of the American Revolution.
http://allthingsliberty.com/2013/09/presbyterian-rebellion/
Google American Revolution and Presbyterianism for the full effect of the Scottish Reformation (John Knox)and Scots Age of Enlightenment (Adam Smith for example) on America’s founding and intended character.
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