Something has to define the community and bring people together into a common enterprise that is worthy of the sacrifices necessary to defend it. In the United States, “liberty” has always been one of the concepts that defined the community. The word “liberty” has a noble ring to it because it implies the people who have it are just, moral, virtuous and upright. It implies an admixture of duty, honor and responsibility. But when we divorce these concepts from it, as we are doing today, the word loses its dignity and depreciates down to mere “license.”
Which bears this fruit...
In the long run, people will never rally around something so empty as the mere concept of “license.” Rome learned this the hard way. When Rome was sacked by the vandals, few came to its defense because by that point in time there was nothing left of “civil society” deemed worthy of being saved. There was no longer any binding commonality of objectives, morals, or vision of destiny. The free bread and circuses weren’t enough to rally the people in a life-threatening defense of their country since the heart and soul of their country had long since vanished.
And the playbook:
Change the domestic habits of the Americans, their religious devotion, and their high respect for morality, and it will not be necessary to change a single letter in the Constitution in order to vary the whole form of their government.
The forces set against us are legion and one is obliged to ponder whether or not Americans any longer have the will to fight this evil. Exacerbating the problem is something I frequently see here on FR, that is, there are many "conservatives" on this very forum who mock, ridicule and belittle religious faith and principles generally. Outright antagonism to religious principles is not at all uncommon here. If for no other reason, religious principles should be embraced by all conservatives, even non-believers, for its stabilizing effect on society and cohesiveness of the culture.
And that is your money quote.
Basic Conservatism (smaller government, lower taxes) without an understanding of the philosophical basis of our form of government is a dry and desolate place. It is unappealing compared to the free goodies promised by the Left. It is only in the context of Christianity and Natural Law that our Declaration and Constitution form a coherent whole. So few are aware of this.
On our side are Cicero, St. Thomas Aquinas, Locke, Jefferson, Madison, Thomas Paine and others. On the side of the Left are Marx, Lenin, Stalin, . . . and assorted mass murderers.
Perhaps we can occasionally educate our Freeper brethren.
Please ping me regarding similar posts of yours.
You're right about the antagonism, but do you really think that advocacy (or the presence) of what amounts to deism is the solution?
"Religious principles" is pretty weak tea when compared with Christian belief.
Truly you wrote, "The forces set against us are legion and one is obliged to ponder whether or not Americans any longer have the will to fight this evil."
My suspicion is America is under massive spiritual attack, and for this sort of thing you need spiritual defenses. Plus we have to take into consideration the fact that the enemy knows this, and so has been assidously working at delegitimating all the spiritual foundations of persons and societies, and especially the religious ones, for over two hundred years now.
Indeed, the view is proselytized (and gaining adherents) that man himself has no soul, no spirit: He is just a sophisticated "meat machine" that ultimately reduces to material particles and nothing more. This is the doctrine of metaphysical naturalism, which boils down to matter and mechanics. The point is, it's difficult to see in what way a "meat machine" could ever be virtuous, to be willing to sacrifice for the well-being of something greater than himself; e.g., society, country, Constitution; to be able to order and restrain his passions; to respect other individuals as he himself expects to be respected; etc.
To accept the meat machine definition of one's self does have the advantage of relieving one of any personal responsibility for moral acts, on the reasoning that things that "reduce to material particles and nothing more" — i.e., to matter and mechanics — are determined systems already. There is no free will here.
Without free will, a system of self-governance is impossible.... But a descent into disorder and viciousness is easily imaginable.
For free will — Liberty — one needs a soul. Moreoever, the soul needs to be under God. Thomas Jefferson put it this way (quoted from the outstanding essay by Timothy Lewis at the top):
"...the relations which exist between man and his Maker, and the duties resulting from those relations, are the most interesting and important to every human being, and the most incumbent on his study and investigation."The theme of "the relations which exist between man and his Maker" is at the very heart of the Declaration of Independence. It is literally the basic rationale of our American system of self-government. I.e., the reason we didn't need kings anymore was because as free, sovereign citizens, we are directly "under God." The historic kingly intermediary was no longer needed — or acceptable to Americans of the Founding period: no more "divine right of kings!"
The DoI itself is a splendid example of Natural Law reasoning. TJ was a natural law thinker; and I am, too — so naturally I appreciate his thinking on these matters....
And I very much enjoyed reading your excellent essay/post, ForGod'sSake! Thank you so much for the ping!