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What Would Our Founding Fathers Think of America On Its 243rd Birthday?
Townhall.com ^ | July 4, 2019 | Bill Wenger

Posted on 07/04/2019 4:57:55 PM PDT by Kaslin

On this our Constitutional Republic’s 243rd Birthday, let us consider what our Founding Fathers said about where the destructive and misguided progressives are leading us over the abyss of allowing our nation to fail.  

George Washington, the successful General-in-Chief who lead our Army to eventual but not pre-ordained victory over Britain, and our twice unanimously elected president said this about our freedom of speech that is being abused by the left:

If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.” 

If the progressives have their way, and they are gaining momentum on this issue, the Republic is doomed. Of our liberal infested universities, not only denying freedom of speech, but actively conspiring to limit the teaching of history and civics, the very basis of an informed voting electorate. I fought for four years in combat for our nation to facilitate and instill the rule of law in two nations, Iraq and Afghanistan. But back home, our “institutions of higher learning” actively work to create robots who support the destruction of our rule of law. Just look at what Hillary, the DNC, Obama and the cabal in Obama’s law enforcement and intelligence communities did in 2016.

This lawlessness is a crisis. Blue states ignore our immigration laws, with state governors, mayors and city councils actively violating federal law regarding criminal illegal aliens. Then they add salt to the wound by legislating millions of dollars of taxpayer funds to provide medical care for criminals while homeless veterans and law-abiding Americans do without care. Of this, the brilliant Thomas Paine wrote:

But where says some is the King of America? I'll tell you Friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the Royal Brute of Britain...let it be brought forth placed on the divine law, the word of God; let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve of monarchy, that in America THE LAW IS KING.” – Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776

Of our ever-growing reliance on ever-increasing and more costly federal and state governments, Paine wrote:

Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.” – Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776

Thomas Jefferson, who wrote our Declaration of Independence, added this warning:

An elective despotism was not the government we fought for, but one which should not only be founded on true free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced along general bodies of magistracy, as that on one could transcend their legal limits without being effectively checked and restrained by others.” – Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782

The Founders strongly believed that American citizens’ right to keep and bear arms, “…shall not be infringed.” They would have been aghast at how the Second Amendment has been repeated and continuously violated. Look at where I live, California, where I must now get a background check to buy ammunition. Do criminals? Of course not. This undercuts our Founder’s vision of a free people:

A free people ought not only be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government.” – George Washington

No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms…What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance. Let them take arms.” – Thomas Jefferson

“I ask, sir, what is the militia?  It is the whole people. To disarm the people is the best and most effective way to enslave them.” – George Mason, Virginia Convention to Ratify the U.S. Constitution, 1788

Benjamin Franklin, that sage so instrumental in our Revolutionary War, the Declaration of Independence, and our Constitution, said it best:

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." –Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759

The future of our Republic is in grave danger from the deranged ideas and initiatives, of the left. Too much of their insanity has found its way into our governance…just ask a New Yorker or Californian. On this great day, we should again consider the waring of Ben Franklin. As he left the final session of the Constitutional Convention in the fall of 1887, he was stopped and asked by a group of Philadelphia citizens:  “Dr. Franklin, what form of government have you given us?”   Franklin smiled and said:  “A Republic...if you can keep it!”  

Happy Fourth of July.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: 4thofjuly; foundingfathers
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1 posted on 07/04/2019 4:57:55 PM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

They would weep.


2 posted on 07/04/2019 4:58:44 PM PDT by gcparent (Justice Brett Kavanaugh)
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To: Kaslin

“Why aren’t you men shooting yet?”


3 posted on 07/04/2019 4:59:51 PM PDT by ClearCase_guy (If White Privilege is real, why did Elizabeth Warren lie about being an Indian?)
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To: ClearCase_guy
They'd say, "Whose bright idea was slavery?"


4 posted on 07/04/2019 5:01:52 PM PDT by bagster ("Even bad men love their mamas".)
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To: Kaslin

We don’t HAVE to wonder:

When it turned out Benedict Arnold had used sensitive intel against the country...

THEY HANGED HIM.

They didn’t wait around for years, then more years, while judges beard-stroked and made hand tee-pees about whether to release more docs.

We don’t have to wonder, we can simply look at history.


5 posted on 07/04/2019 5:03:35 PM PDT by gaijin
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To: gcparent
They would weep.

I agree. All those who fought for our country, many dying would weep as well. It is so sad what America has become. This was not God's Plan; however, He knew the end from the beginning and we are living it. We all have choices and right now many are making the wrong ones for their own selfish and evil agenda.

6 posted on 07/04/2019 5:03:47 PM PDT by Maudeen (AMERICAN by Birth . . . CHRISTIAN by the Grace of GOD)
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To: gcparent

The letters the founders wrote between themselves throughout the course of their lives reveal the true state of their minds...Jefferson and Adams being the most well-transcribed over the course of many years...(Both men died on July 4th, 1826)

I don’t think you realize how frustrated they were from the very get go. LoL


7 posted on 07/04/2019 5:04:26 PM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
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To: gaijin
Didn't know about this guy:

Major John Andre --apparently he played some role in the turning of Benedict Arnold.

So it wasn't ONLY Arnold whom they hung, they even hung the people who had SOMETHING TO DO with his betrayal.

8 posted on 07/04/2019 5:05:51 PM PDT by gaijin
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To: Maudeen

THey were already weeping in the short years following the Declaration. The Constitutional convention was a very draining process and I think people feared the experiment would never work out.


9 posted on 07/04/2019 5:07:04 PM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
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To: gaijin

They didn’t hang Arnold. He survived the war but went a bit crazy in his final years in England.


10 posted on 07/04/2019 5:07:42 PM PDT by Publius ("Who is John Galt?" by Billthedrill & Publius available at Amazon.)
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To: gaijin

The founding fathers would probably shake their heads in disbelief


11 posted on 07/04/2019 5:08:55 PM PDT by Kaslin
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To: gaijin

Benedict Arnold live in England after the war.


12 posted on 07/04/2019 5:08:55 PM PDT by Lurkinanloomin (Natural Born Citizen Means Born Here Of Citizen Parents_Know Islam, No Peace-No Islam, Know Peace)
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To: Kaslin

I imagine they’d be akin to Hillary Clinton supporters the evening of November 8, 2016...only justified.


13 posted on 07/04/2019 5:10:02 PM PDT by Moonlighter (I)
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To: Kaslin

I think they would be horrified at the assaults on our Bill of Rights (especially freedom of speech, religion, bearing arms, and states rights from the left). They would be shocked at the overreach of the federal government versus state and local governments and at how strong the presidency as grown compared to the powers of the Congress. Most would be baffled at how we give federal justices and judges total veto power over the other two branches of government, and they would be sad that political “factions” have cause even more divisions among Americans than in their time. Many would be especially sickened by the moral decay of the nation.

On the other hand, many would be pleasantly surprised I think that their Constition is still the governing document of the land after all this time. Look at how many changes of government the French have gone through in the same amount of time. Many would be thrilled simply to know we are still Independent and that no foreign power has ever conquered us.


14 posted on 07/04/2019 5:11:12 PM PDT by FenwickBabbitt
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To: Kaslin

They would be horrified by what has happened culturally. The size and scope of government would be well behind.


15 posted on 07/04/2019 5:11:54 PM PDT by cdcdawg (Fact: Dogs can extract more info from smelling a pile of $h!t than humans can from viewing CNN)
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To: Lurkinanloomin

Damn, the lack of historical knowledge on this thread burns! lol, and it was expressed with such vehemence.


16 posted on 07/04/2019 5:14:49 PM PDT by Night Hides Not (Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad! Remember Gonzales! Come and Take It!)
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To: Kaslin

Vastly disappointed.

But he’d say that pretty much about any existing country today, I believe.


17 posted on 07/04/2019 5:15:30 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man (Gone Galt; Not Averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: Kaslin

Up until the early 1960s, I think they would have generally been approving, with strong reservations...these days not so much.


18 posted on 07/04/2019 5:16:19 PM PDT by LongWayHome
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To: Kaslin

They’d be glad they’re dead.


19 posted on 07/04/2019 5:17:06 PM PDT by bigbob (Trust Trump. Trust the Plan.)
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Happy Independence Day from foreverfree!


20 posted on 07/04/2019 5:19:14 PM PDT by foreverfree
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