credit SarahPalin.com
The major difference between liberals and conservatives is that liberals think America is the government, while conservatives believe America is the people and what they have made it through free enterprise and independence from government.
Every so often, when some progressives act like they would have been among the patriots in the 18th century, I point out their error.
It goes something like this:
The colonials who were okay with Arbitrary government were the Tories.
Since Arbitrary governance is the core of “progressivism” in the United States — the Constitution otherwise would prevent progressivism at the federal level and progressives feel no need to amend it to make their mad schemes lawful — it follows that this lot would have had no issues with the abuses of the Crown.
And it isn’t just that they are okay with Arbitrary government, but that in every particular they demand far more of government than the George and his Parliament ever considered or even dreamed of.
As a consequence if we consider how they might have acted upon the Patriot’s complaint of the crown sending innumerable officials to lord it over the colonies ... well, I’m sure they’d understand it was meant for our own good just as their bureaucratic hordes are claimed to be. Same with the taxes.
In fact, today’s nut burgers might be howling that George wasn’t taxing and spending enough!
You can’t want to exceed the Crown’s supposed abuses in EVERY respect and think you’d somehow have been against them had you been there.
Simply: an ideology that demands far worse than the worst of the Crown’s supposed abuses would never side with those who wanted less of it all, and the pretense that today’s left would have been Patriots back in the day is laughable.
Heck, if the colonies had been as far left as the DNC is now the King might have been trying to protest THEM!
The recent outgoing Administration, its supporters, and the Clintons were so out of touch with our Constitution's own formula for freedom they viewed those who advocated a return to the idea of Creator-endowed liberty to be regressive. Hillary even called such citizens "deplorables." That's the "progressive" wisdom. Now, let's examine that view.
Their "media" strategy presents "regressive" as "progressive," "backward" as "forward," and "down" as "up." Within that mindset, semantics play a large role. On and on it goes.
It's a strategy which goes deep into the decades-long effort to "fundamentally change" America from its 1776 new and revolutionary foundations in Creator-endowed liberty backward into the Old World and later Marxian ideas of control by imaginary human grantors and protectors.
Perhaps an answer to the once-asked question here on FR: "Why does Christianity 'scare' . . . ?" may lie in the degree to which the foundation ideas upon which America's Declaration of Independence were laid and from which the concept of Creator-endowed individual liberty and the Source from which that liberty is derived have been removed from "the American mind" (Jefferson).
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.
As a result, the still-revolutionary idea stated by both Ryan and Romney in the 2012 campaign about the Source of our rights became fodder for the other candidate and then-President's disdain, when he declared that the ideas they were espousing were "reruns" from the 20th Century and better suited for "black and white" television. (Actually, Mr. Obama, those enduring ideas were from a time much earlier than that.)
As Jefferson wisely observed:
"History, by apprising the people of the past, will enable them to judge of the future; it will avail them of the experience of other times and other nations; it will qualify them as judges of the actions and designs of men; it will enable them to know ambition under every disguise it may assume; and knowing it, to defeat its views."
All of which reinforces our conviction that the ideas of our Declaration of Independence and Constitution are as revolutionary and objectionable to tyrants as they were in 1776 and 1787!
A most excellent title, axiomatic to all freepers.