Why We Remember the Fourth of July
Independence Day is an important holiday for all Americans. Each July Fourth we celebrate that moment in history when the Second Continental Congress formally adopted the Declaration of Independence -- the earth-shattering document that asserted man’s natural right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” -- and the new nation’s declared sovereignty from the humiliating tyrannies of an imperial power. But it’s also worth mentioning, too, that the impending success of the “American experiment” was hardly a foregone conclusion -- despite what so many of us believe today or perhaps were taught in school.“No event in American history which was so improbable at the time has seemed so inevitable in retrospect as the American Revolution,” historian Joseph J. Ellis wrote in his Pulitzer Prize winning book Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation. Indeed, Americans today perhaps just assume that under the leadership of Washington, Adams, and Jefferson -- during those early and chaotic years -- the United States would eventually become, in Ellis’ words, “the oldest enduring republic in world history.”
Not so.
“No one present at the start knew how it would turn out in the end,” Ellis argues, least of all the Founders themselves. This is a fact I suspect most of us overlook.
And yet the United States today is the beau ideal for many developing nations. Our most cherished political institutions -- a bicameral legislature, an autonomous judiciary, and a duly elected chief executive -- serve as a template for burgeoning democracies everywhere. Clearly, the United States has created, over time, a framework that has ushered in unprecedented opportunities for advancement and social mobility. For example, when the nation was founded in the late eighteenth century, there were only 2.5 million people living in the United States. Today there are more than 300 million. One hopes that this is precisely what the Founders imagined when they spoke about forming “a more perfect union” -- a fluid yet imperfect society that is continually developing and growing and becoming more prosperous.
But it seems to me we are facing a perilous future. Too many of us seem to disregard the Founders as nothing more than “dead white men” -- statesmen who most notably failed to secure citizenship rights for all Americans and resolve the slavery question in their own time. Liberals, for their part, often scoff when conservatives show even the slightest hint of reverence for the nation’s Founders and the principles they embraced. But those progressives forget, perhaps, that the 56 delegates who founded the nation established, for all of us, the very pillars of freedom and opportunity that make living in the United States today so highly regarded throughout the world. If for no other reason -- on this quintessentially American holiday -- this is why we should celebrate and remember them.
We have much to be grateful for.
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/danieldoherty/2013/07/04/why-we-remember-the-fourth-of-july-n1633447
How the Tea Party Can Save America and the World – a Plea From New Zealand
Many Tea Partiers and American patriots understand that the fate of the United States of America hangs in the balance.
No melodrama here. If the US loses its position as the world’s number one military super power, another country, or countries, will take its place.
Realistically, that can only be Russia or China, or more likely, an alliance of Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Vietnam and whoever ever else climbs aboard.
As the U.S. Dollar slowly sinks and America’s prestige and power goes with it, the “Evil Axis” grows bolder.
But why should I care? I’m safe aren’t I? Way down at the bottom of the South Pacific, in New Zealand.
Well, maybe not so safe. China is steadily advancing through the Pacific. It now has several footholds in our region, particularly in Fiji, which is my country’s nearest major island neighbor. To any thinking Aussie or Kiwi, this is cause for major concern.
in June of 2012, Song Xiaojun, a “retired” Chinese general, told Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald, that “Australia has to find a godfather sooner or later…” “Australia always has to depend on somebody else, whether it is to be the ‘son’ of the U.S. or ‘son’ of China,” Song said, adding that Australia had best choose China because it all “depends on who is more powerful and based on the strategic environment.”
If America goes under folks, the West goes under. No ifs, no buts. Only a strong America can keep the bad guys in check. Just as soldiers from all over the world fought in Europe and the Pacific to save liberty in WW2, today’s freedom lovers need to join the fight to save the US. Once liberty was fought for in the Coral Sea, Guadalcanal, Normandy and Sicily. Now if liberty is to be saved, we must win the electoral battles of Florida, Ohio, Virginia and Colorado.
From my home in Christchurch, I recently spent an hour on the phone with a savvy Florida activist. She outlined for me the crushing problems being faced by American patriots, in the face of a relentless leftist onslaught from the Obama Administration. According to my usually optimistic friend, much of the Tea Party is in disarray, the GOP leadership is even more arrogant and out of touch than usual and if the Dems pass “immigration reform” the Republic will be swamped with millions of new loyal Democrats, effectively turning the US into a permanent “one party state.”
And to cap that, now I’m hearing whispers of a third party.
Let’s get real. There is only one vehicle that can take back America from the Democrats and their union and far left allies, in the very limited time we have left. That is the Republican Party. If the Democrats hold the Senate and take back the House in 2014, or even 2016, which they could well do, America is done for.
Illegal immigrants will be granted voting rights and the intimidation tactics now being employed will seem like kindergarten bullying, as the Democrats and unions unleash full force on their remaining opposition. There is a climate of fear now in the United States. If the Democrats get back in full control, they will NEVER relinquish it. This is no longer the old GOP/Dem turnabout game. This is the left for playing keeps and the GOP playing constant catchup.
While I have no particular love for the Republican Party, its hard to see how starting a third party right now could possibly do anything but hand both the House and the Senate to the Dems in 2014 and the presidency to the left in 2016. If that happens, the left will never give up power without bloodshed. If it ever comes to serious civil unrest and the socialist’s power is actually threatened, foreign troops will be called in to restore order. That will be the end of America – and of the entire West. A peaceful revolution is our only realistic hope.
So what to do? A third party will almost certainly hand America to the tyrants. The GOP leadership is ineffectual at best, often cowardly and unprincipled – occasionally even treacherous.
But the GOP does have a structure, a brand, some money, hundreds of thousands of dedicated activists and tens of millions of voters.
That is not something to throw away.
The Tea Party faces a choice. They can “throw their toys out of the cot” as we say in New Zealand and walk away from the GOP. They can work on local issues alone, or dissolve, or form a third party. Satisfying as those options may be, they are almost certainly guaranteed to consign your children and grandchildren to a life of slavery – at best.
So what is the alternative?
I have addressed more than 150 Tea Party groups. I have met thousands of activists. You people are the best of America. I write this on the verge of tears as I remember the amazing patriots, thinkers and activists I have met on my four speaking tours of your amazing country. If America is to be saved, you will do it. No other movement has the energy, drive, commitment, fortitude, foresight or integrity of the Tea Party patriots.
You however have one major weakness. You lack self-confidence.
The vast majority of you are political novices. You take too much advice from your self-appointed “betters” in the GOP and the mainstream conservative movement. This was illustrated in places like Florida, last year, where the Tea Party activists were “forbidden” from pushing the illegal immigrant issue by various “consultants’ and GOP hacks.
The Tea Party needs to realize you have the truth on your side. You are real people, with roots in your communities. Many of you are veterans. You are far more in touch with voters than any GOP blueblood or K street consultant ever will be.
So what should your wonderful movement do?
Here is my advice. It is far from perfect, but I hope it will at least add to the debate.
Its all about CONCENTRATION OF FORCES.
I’ve met a lot of Tea Partiers working inside the GOP. Some of them very successfully. However what tends to happen is that many of them become marginalized by GOP “moderates” and their good work comes to little.
In Australia, the Labor Party – the counterpart, of your Democrats, operates in two main formalized factions – the conservative/moderate Labor Unity and the Socialist Left. One party, two power blocs. Effectively two separate organizations within a one party structure. The two factions horse trade, do deals, fight like cats and dogs, compete viciously with each other, yet at election time, stand as a “united front” against their conservative opposition.
I’m suggesting that the Tea Party should adopt a variant of this approach. Join the GOP en masse, but don’t dilute your efforts by operating as scattered individuals inside the GOP structure. If the tea parties collectively become say, a “Constitutional Caucus”, within the GOP, you could maintain your agenda and your integrity, but would also have the advantage of GOP structure, branding and the ability to actually get your candidates elected. Don’t join GOP branches, BECOME GOP BRANCHES.
There need be nothing covert about this. Tea Party groups should identify themselves openly as Constitutional Republicans and refuse to be in any way subservient to head office dictates. Put the GOP old guard on notice that you are here to retake your party and restore it to its constitutional foundations. Openly state that you regard them as usurpers until proven otherwise.
Boldly proclaim that you fully intend to bloc vote your way into positions of influence and that you will work with other Constitutionalists in your state and nationally to primary GOP candidates, no matter how long serving, who do not actively support in word and deed, the US Constitution. TAKE NO PRISONERS.
Concentrate your resources. Pick winnable fights only. Do not primary candidates you cannot defeat this election cycle. I’ve seen that happen too often. Tea Party groups targeting scattered RINOs all over the state and not quite beating any of them. Pick a handful of winnable races each election cycle and call in fellow Constitutionalists from all over the state to defeat the RINOs and elect some of your own. If they do not respect you MAKE THEM FEAR YOU. The respect will follow later – trust me.
Now is not the time for peripheral issues either. The survival of the United States of America is at stake. The future of Western civilization hangs in the balance. CORE ISSUES ONLY. The Constitution, National Security (including border control, and gun rights), Education and the Economy). I don’t want to minimize other issues, but this is a last ditch effort to save your country and mine. If we blow this one, there may not be another in our great great grandchildren’s lifetimes.
This is cultural warfare folks and we must concentrate resources on core issue that may actually help to defeat our opponents in both parties, in the fast approaching battles ahead.
Logically, the United States of America should never been born. In the 1770′s most Americans were either pro-British or apathetic. Fewer than 10% of the population actually supported the revolution and way fewer actually fought it.
How in God’s name, did a bunch of poorly armed farmers and lawyers, laborers, shopkeepers and tradesmen, seriously hope to defeat the mightiest army in the world at that time? Yet they did it. I left out one important group for a reason. The first American revolution was preached from the pulpit. Hundreds of pastors, a bible in one hand, a long rifle in the other, boldly supported George Washington’s ragtag army. They understood better than any one that America was founded on religious freedom. They understood exactly what was at stake.
The first American revolutionaries were inspired by something much greater than themselves. You Tea Party revolutionaries always need to keep the big picture in mind.
If you don’t think this war is worth winning, you tell me one that is? If you don’t think your grandchildren’s liberty is worth fighting for, please tell me what you do care about?
We all admire the first American revolutionaries, for their incredible bravery and fortitude and sacrifice. They risked everything to give you the exceptional country you enjoy today.
In two hundred years’ time, young teenagers will be standing in front of civics and history classes in schools all across America. These young people will talk about their free and prosperous country with great pride. But some of the proudest will be able to say something like this;
“You know guys, you know back in the early 2000s when the country was in crisis, when a lot of people thought America was done for. When patriots stood up and saved the Republic, restored the Constitution? Gave us the incredible freedom and prosperity we enjoy today? Well I’ve done some family research. And you know what? My great great great Grandpa and Grandma…they were in the TEA PARTY…”
Your Creator gave you both a heart and a brain folks. Now is the time to use both.
Yours in Liberty
Trevor Loudon
Christchurch, New Zealand
http://www.rightsidenews.com/2013070432830/editorial/us-opinion-and-editorial/how-the-tea-party-can-save-america-and-the-world-a-plea-from-new-zealand.html
Celebrating the Declaration of Independence
... Thomas Paine wrote in Common Sense that "a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom." The Declaration of Independence also pointed out "that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed." And James Madison observed, "Since the general civilization of mankind, I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people, by the gradual and silent encroachments of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations [.]" Our founders dreaded the thought that government's slow advance against individual liberty in America might continue unchallenged, strengthening Britain's hold on power and inviting further abuse.When we look at the broad scope of federal power today, it is clear that we have failed to curb the growth of our government. We've let federal power progressively advance beyond all limits of the Constitution, in contravention of the principles upon which our nation was formed. Government no longer preserves our inalienable rights to life, liberty, and property; in many ways, it controls them. For example, our president wields the power to kill Americans without due process of law. We are subjected to invasive searches anytime we travel. We are forced to abide by thousands of regulations crafted by unelected bureaucrats. Our property can be redistributed to the liking of those in office. And the list of arbitrary, oppressive powers goes on.
Indeed, it is tempting for us to look past these abuses and deny that despotism has come to America. We may even convince ourselves that our elective control over our representatives makes us a party to the policy choices thrust upon us -- that we have nothing to complain about since our agents in government are supposedly executing our will. But our voting power amounts to nothing when government's power is absolute. Thomas Paine explained, "It is not because a part of the government is elective, that makes it less a despotism, if the persons so elected possess afterwards, as a parliament, unlimited powers. Election in this case becomes separated from representation, and the candidates are candidates for despotism."
The domineering government we have today was never the design of our founders -- in the words of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, "An elective despotism was not the government we fought for." But the government we have today needs not be the government we keep. By the principles of our founding, we have the power to change our government and secure our inalienable rights. Perhaps one day, we will act on these ideals to make Independence Day meaningful once again.
Distrusting Government
Recent opinion polls demonstrate a deepening distrust of the federal government. That's not an altogether bad thing.Our nation's founders recognized that most human abuses are the result of government. As Thomas Paine said, "government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil." Because of their fear of abuse, the Constitution's framers sought to keep the federal government limited in its power. Their distrust of Congress is seen in the governing rules and language used throughout our Constitution.
The Bill of Rights is explicit in that distrust, using language such as "Congress shall not abridge," "shall not infringe," and "shall not deny." If the framers did not believe that Congress would abuse our God-given, or natural, rights, they would not have provided those protections. I've always suggested that if we see anything like the Bill of Rights at our next destination after we die, we'll know that we're in hell. A perceived need for such protection in heaven would be an affront to God. It would be the same as saying we can't trust him.
Other framer protections from government are found in the Constitution's separation of powers, checks and balances, and several anti-majoritarian provisions, such as the Electoral College and the two-thirds vote to override a veto.
The heartening news for us is that state legislatures are beginning to awaken to their duty to protect their citizens from unconstitutional acts by the Congress, the White House, and a derelict Supreme Court. According to an Associated Press story, about four-fifths of the states now have local laws that reject or ignore federal laws on marijuana use, gun control, health insurance requirements and identification standards for driver's licenses. Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback recently signed a measure threatening felony charges against federal agents who enforce certain firearms laws in his state.
Missouri legislators recently enacted the Second Amendment Preservation Act, which in part reads that not only is it the right of the state Legislature to check federal overreaching, but that "the Missouri general assembly is duty-bound to watch over and oppose every infraction of those principles which constitute the basis of the Union of the States, because only a faithful observance of those principles can secure the nation's existence and the public happiness."
The bill further declares that the Missouri General Assembly is "firmly resolved to support and defend the United States Constitution against every aggression, either foreign or domestic." The legislation awaits Gov. Jay Nixon's signature or veto.
Both lower houses of the South Carolina and Oklahoma legislatures enacted measures nullifying Obamacare on the grounds that it is an unconstitutional intrusion and violation of the 10th Amendment. You might say, "Williams, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled Obamacare constitutional, and that settles it. Federal law is supreme."
It's worth heeding this warning from Thomas Jefferson: "To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions (is) a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy."
Jefferson and James Madison, in 1798 and 1799 in the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, said, "Resolved, That the several States composing, the United States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government ... and whensoever the general government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force."
In other words, heed the 10th Amendment to our Constitution, which reads, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." That's the message state legislatures should send to Washington during this year's celebration of our Declaration of Independence.
http://townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/2013/07/03/distrusting-government-n1631542/page/full
Gratitude
July 4 reminds us of all we have to be thankful for.
I feel a very unusual sensation — if it is not indigestion, I think it must be gratitude.
— Benjamin Disraeli
“You need both,” Levin allows, and generously reminded a conservative audience that “we should never forget that the people who oppose our various endeavors and argue for another way are well intentioned too, even when they’re wrong, and that they’re not always wrong.”
Well, okay, just 99 percent of the time (kidding). As we prepare to observe the 237th birthday of this greatest republic in world history, this conservative, true to form, is moved to gratitude. Thank God I was born here and thus had the great good fortune to inherit a country designed by a providential collection of political geniuses.
Glancing around this roiling world, with its desperate millions filling the streets of Egypt, Turkey, and Brazil, you reflect on just how complex a successful society is. Popular sovereignty is not remotely enough to provide stability, prosperity, and justice. Suffering Egyptians managed to oust a dictator in 2011, and then to hold an election. But with the advent of Mohamed Morsi as president, Egypt’s predicament has only worsened. The police do not provide basic security. Tourism, the largest source of foreign cash, has all but dried up. Sectarian violence has increased. (A recent video, available on YouTube, showed a group of young men shouting, “Christians! Get them!” and then sexually assaulting several defenseless women.) Food prices are soaring. Poverty — the truly hungry kind, not the relative deprivation of the First World — is endemic. The poor eat little more than bread. Egypt’s economy is in the worst depression since the 1930s, and its leadership is utterly clueless about how to improve matters.
The Muslim Brotherhood may have provided food and blankets to the poor as an outlawed party under Hosni Mubarak, but as Egyptians are learning, Islam doesn’t provide a roadmap for governing a 21st-century state.
The people, unaccustomed to democracy or civic participation, are doing the only thing they can — taking to the streets. They have no tradition of a free press, an independent judiciary, or federalism to check and diffuse the power of the state. There are no town meetings, so they howl, and march, and shoot. Yet even if the desperate protesters now thronging the streets are successful in removing Morsi, such a victory is bound to be pyrrhic. The ejection, after just one year in office, of the first elected president will not improve Egypt’s reputation for stability and will perhaps even further depress tourism and foreign investment.
Turkey and Brazil too are reminders of how easy it is, in most nations, for the people’s rights to be trampled and for the state to censor information.
Is the Third World too remote? Consider then, in our gratitude tour, the nations of Western Europe. Portugal, deeply in debt and coping with unemployment of 18 percent, was paralyzed by a general strike last week. Trash piled up, buses and trains stopped running, and even journalists at the state news agency stopped reporting. Friends just back from Italy report that the discontent there, which had until now been evident only in the provinces, has reached the capital. Italy’s economy has been contracting for seven straight quarters.
Or consider this headline from The Atlantic magazine: “Spain Is Beyond Doomed.” Spanish unemployment is now 27.2 percent. How could such a thing happen? Bad government. Spain, like other socialist countries in Western Europe, has overregulated business to such a degree that it has made it impossible to fire workers. This has had the altogether foreseeable consequence of making Spanish employers highly reluctant to hire. France has a similar problem, along with a huge national debt — the result of spending money it was not collecting.
Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Yet we may not be going down the same rat hole. We have the layers of protection our founders designed to thwart the foolishness and cupidity of our leaders, and we have one thing more — the example of flailing Europe to remind us this July 4 to stay faithful to the principles of our founding.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/352495/gratitude-mona-charen
Rescuing Citizenship and Civic Virtue
By Michelle MalkinAs we celebrate our nation's 237th birthday, a crucial facet of American life has all but vanished. We have forsaken, in a systematic and deliberate public manner, one of our most fundamental duties: fostering civic virtue in each and every one of our citizens.
What does it mean to be an American? Politicians in both parties keep pushing to create a new "path to citizenship" for millions of illegal aliens. But if sovereignty and self-preservation still matter in Washington, citizenship must be guarded ferociously against those who would exploit and devalue it at every electoral whim.
The pavers of the amnesty pathway think illusory requirements of paying piddling "fines" and back taxes will inculcate an adequate sense of responsibility and ownership in the American way. Other fair-weather friends of patriotism satisfy themselves with shallow holiday pop quizzes on American history to fulfill the "well-informed" part of the "well-informed citizenry" mandate of our Founding Fathers.
But Thomas Jefferson said it well: "No government can continue good but under the control of the people; and ... their minds are to be informed by education what is right and what wrong; to be encouraged in habits of virtue and to be deterred from those of vice... These are the inculcations necessary to render the people a sure basis for the structure and order of government."
John Adams said it better: "Liberty can no more exist without virtue ... than the body can live and move without a soul."
And Thomas Paine said it best: "When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary."
Civic virtue cannot be purchased with token gestures or passed down in perfect form like a complete set of family china. A life of honor, honesty, integrity, self-improvement and self-discipline is something you strive ever to attain. Being American is a habit of mind, but also a habit of heart and soul. Abraham Lincoln spoke of the "electric cord in that Declaration that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together, that will link those patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom exists in the minds of men throughout the world."
Calvin Coolidge, profiled in "Why Coolidge Matters," a terrific new book by Charles C. Johnson, echoed the Founding Fathers' emphasis on virtue, restraint and work ethic. "If people can't support themselves," he concluded, "we'll have to give up self-government."
The failure of public schools to impart even rudimentary knowledge of self-government principles, natural rights theory and the rule of law is compounded by the suicidal abandonment of civic education. As Stanford University education professor William Damon notes: "Our disregard of civic and moral virtue as an educational priority is having a tangible effect on the attitudes, understanding and behavior of large portions of the youth population in the United States today."
Add militant identity politics, a cancerous welfare state, entitled dependence and tens of millions of unassimilated immigrants to the heap, and you have a toxic recipe for what Damon calls "societal decadence -- literally, a 'falling away,' from the Latin decadere." Civilizations that disdain virtue die.
Independence Day sparklers will light the skies overhead this July 4th, but George Washington's "sacred fire of liberty" belongs in the breasts of Americans every day of the year.
How to rescue citizenship and civic virtue?
Let's start by sending a message to politicians in the nation's capital who imperil our sovereignty.
Citizenship -- good citizenship -- is not just a piece of government-issued paper. It is not merely a bureaucratic "status." It's a lifelong practice and propagation of founding principles. A nation of low information is just half the problem. A nation of low character cannot long remain a free nation.
http://townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/2013/07/03/rescuing-citizenship-and-civic-virtue-n1632649/page/full
Why the Revolution Worked
If there is one extremely deceptive aspect of the American Revolution, it is that the Founding Fathers made revolution look easy. Since that fateful day, over two centuries ago, revolutions have ruffled across the globe, many claiming to follow in the ideals of the American Founders, or claiming to take their principles to a higher level. Almost none of them succeeded. None succeeded as fully. Quite often the result was a tyranny darker than the one overthrown.So why did the American Revolution succeed so wonderfully?
Four things are necessary for a successful revolution:
1) The old order must be rotten
2) The revolutionary cause must offer improvement
3) Circumstances must be providential
4) The revolutionaries must be worthy
In the case of the American Revolution, the British government was rotten and corrupt to the core. Our school books dumb down the cause to mere taxes, but it is more than that. British laws had put a stranglehold on the American economy, with the intent of making America nothing more than a dumping ground for British manufactures. Trade with the French or Spanish was forbidden.
To the untutored this may seem like nothing more than a protectionist policy; but in the seventeenth century this policy had reduced Scotland to poverty and Ireland to a slavish, starving state of penury; all by design. The rest of the Empire existed only to make London rich. On top of all of this, the colonists had no representation in the Parliament to correct the matter. Not that it would have mattered much with such a corrupt legislature.
Franklin, who had spent some time in the British Isles, had seen the devastation wrought by these policies.
Franklin toured Ireland in 1771 and was astounded and moved by the level of poverty he saw there. Ireland was under the trade regulations and laws of England, which affected the Irish economy, and Franklin feared that America could suffer the same plight if Britain's exploitation of the colonies continued. (Source)More than anything else, Franklin saw how London Bankers, through the Currency Act, forced American colonies to stop issuing their own currency; and required them to take loans at interest. This caused an immediate depression in the colonies.
Franklin saw corruption and influence peddling that sickened him. He knew that America was slated to become nothing more than England's useful doormat. Franklin had gone to England in 1757 as a cheerleader for the British Empire. He would return to the colonies in 1775 as a revolutionary.
The American Revolution met the first requirement. The old order was rotten.
The second requirement is to offer improvement.
One would be surprised how many revolutions do not. Quite often governments can be overthrown merely to exchange power, not improve the situation. This or that tribe feels oppressed, and overthrows the ruling tribe; but no improvement is sought. The underclass and ruling class have merely exchanged places. This is quite typical in the Arab and African world. The present Syrian Civil War between Sunni and Shia is just such a struggle. No matter who wins, the object is to oppress the other side.
In other cases, governments can be overthrown to prevent improvement. This is quite common in Latin America where right or left wing groups have been known to overthrow governments rather than have them proceed with reform. In such cases, the maintenance of tyranny is sought.
In Europe, governments were overthrown to institute murderous totalitarian regimes far worse than the previous order; often in the name of class or ethnic struggle.
In all these cases, these countries would have been better without such revolutions, if only to prevent unnecessary bloodshed, and quite often to prevent a genuine horror.
The second requirement of improvement is rarely met. The Belgians met it in 1830, but just barely. The French Revolution met this requirement initially, but then descended into the Reign of Terror -- perhaps as a reaction against foreign interference. But the French Revolution became a bloodbath. Its initially high principles were trashed.
In America, however, the colonists had a clear vision of liberty; and what it meant. They had enough experience with self-government to know that they could indeed run things better than the British. They had been schooled in the writings of Locke to know how a good government should be framed.
The third requirement is circumstance. There are many fine worthy peoples who have never achieved independence and liberty for lack of providential circumstance.
The Basque come to mind. They are an industrious people who greatly outperform Spain proper. Their per capita output is equal to Germany's. In the Middle Ages, they had a wrested a degree of local autonomy from Spanish kings and ran their provinces like republics guided by the fueros (laws). Moreover, they were amazingly egalitarian with their women; always a sign of high civilization. Devoutly Christian, the Basque -- mostly part of the forces fighting Franco -- refused to embrace the communist atheism rampant in the Spanish Republican ranks; but remained proudly Catholic.
After Franco's victory, it was the Basque country which regularly protested against his fascist rule. The General Strike of 1947 being a famous example.
Yet, this noble people is stuck between France and Spain. They will almost certainly never rise above autonomy, though they certainly deserve more. Likewise, can anyone doubt that if it were not the circumstance of adjacent geography, all of Ireland would be free of British rule by now?
Americans of the Revolution were blessed with natural wealth, a century and a half of practice in colonial self-government, and a history of self-reliance when Britain ignored them, as it did during their Cromwellian Civil War. Most of all, the three thousand miles between America and Britain was a game-changer.
America's circumstances were providentially blessed.
The fourth, and most important requirement, is the quality of men. Most revolutions are run by thugs or benighted intellectuals. Mussolini, Stalin, the Assads of Syria, etc. Worse yet, they often depend on illiterate masses following them.
The Americans of the Revolution were the most unique people in world history. Literate, self-reliant, and moral at levels that is hard for us to conceive of today. They were probably the most biblically educated people in world history. Even the unbelieving Tom Paine would frame his pamphlet, Common Sense, arguing for revolution based on the Old Testament passages.
Contrary to popular belief, America was not one-third revolutionary, one-third neutral, and one-third Tory. In actuality, ninety percent of the population was in favor on Independence, to some degree or another. The American people were of a rare caliber of excellence, unity, and character.
When one looks at other revolutions in history, no one other people comes close.
Cromwell, who claimed to be setting up a Christian Commonwealth in 17th century Britain, dismissed the Parliament, and assumed the mantle of Lord Protector; which is a fancy name for dictator. A Protestant Ayatollah.
Washington, on the other hand refused a similar prospect when Army officers at Newburgh offered to deliver the new American government into his hands. He would not take the path of Caesar, Cromwell, or the subsequent Napoleon. The Europeans were so astounded by Washington's character that he would be honored by all as a giant of history, even in his lifetime; even by the British. Upon news of his death, Napoleon had the French navy fire volleys in his honor.
The American Revolution succeeded because of a unique set of providential circumstances and righteous men. But let us not delude ourselves. The present day American people are not up to their mettle. Not in the least.
http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2013/07/03/its-the-independence-stupid/
IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
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