Sunday, June 14, 2009

The Principles of Liberty (Twenty-eight)

By William Pressgrove

“The United States has a manifest destiny to be an example and a blessing to the entire human race.” (The 5000 Year Leap, W. Cleon Skousen p. 305)

This principle lays the weight of the world right on the shoulders of every American. We are to be the example of how the freedom of the individual can be safeguarded and perpetuated to the entire world. I don’t know how many Americans take the mandate of “manifest destiny” to heart and attempt to perpetuate it, but if we don’t it won’t happen.

As a history teacher, the history texts only refer to the term “manifest destiny” as the spreading of America from sea to sea. They don’t mention what that destiny entails. Students just learn that the country should spread over the continent. Some texts go so far as to say that the “imperialism” that was engaged in as America acquired several islands in the Pacific Ocean is a part of that manifest destiny. I think that something is missing from these text books.

It isn’t the acquisition of territory that is the manifest destiny of this country. The Founders had a much greater objective in mind. I have no doubt that they envisioned the boundaries of the country eventually spreading across the continent, but I feel that their vision extended far beyond the boundaries of the continent. Their vision was that the principles of liberty would catch on and spread throughout the world. To a certain extent they have. However, each country that has adopted them has had their own vision because they had different perspectives of the principles. They each went through a different set of circumstances to get to the point where they were willing to adopt a Constitution similar to ours. Their different paradigms made it so that they interpreted the principles differently than the Founders did. So to a certain extent they were disadvantaged by their “differences of understanding.”

As time has passed, we have not been the best of examples of how freedom should work because we have allowed incorrect principles to creep into our own government. For a simple example of how that has happened, I would like those of you who are old enough to remember the 4th of July when you were young (back in the 50’s and 60’s). I had more fun by exploding firecrackers in my front yard. So did every other kid whether they lived in town or not. The parents were responsible for the safety of their children and to take care of any misfortune that happened. As I got older, “government” started placing more and more restrictions on the use of fireworks to the point where now the area in which a person can explode fireworks is sterile and uninviting and parents don’t have to supervise their children because the fire department is right there to take care of any incidents. This scenario has played out in many different facets of life.

The freedoms that we were supposed to exemplify to the world have been swallowed up in the bureaucratic red tape of a government that has grown “too big for its britches.” There is a reason for this. We the people, either through being duped or by our own choice, have lost control of our lives by first giving control of the things we didn’t necessarily want to do for ourselves to the government and then as the government grew and became “an entity unto itself,” it began to take more freedoms away than just the things we didn’t want to do for ourselves. Now we find that government wants to “care” for us from “cradle to grave.” I’m sure the Founding Fathers never envisioned the government the way it is today. Well maybe I’m wrong in thinking that because the Founders put the 28 principles of liberty in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution to safeguard us from the very type of government we have today.

This brings up the question, how did we get from where we were the example of freedom to the world to a people enslaved by debt, state and federal regulations and are now less free than some of the tribes in Africa are? The one constant in the writings of the Founding Fathers was expressed by John Adams:

“We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” (The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, Charles Francis Adams, ed. Vol. IX, p. 229 October 11, 1798.)

So as you can see, we have been relieved of two of the most fundamental principles the Founders of our government placed there to ensure its perpetuation. “A free people cannot survive under a republican constitution unless they remain virtuous and morally strong.” (Principle 2) “Without religion the government of a free people cannot be maintained.” (Principle 4)

Many may say, “What does religion and virtue have to do with freedom?” With a cursory examination, the answer comes from the observation of those who maintain a religiously moral and virtuous life versus those who choose not to maintain such a life. Which one is most likely to be involved in activities that are in violation of the law? It’s that simple. Virtue and morality, taught mainly through religion, require self-discipline on the part of the individual and therefore, that same self-discipline leads one to live by “the rules” in society.

In order to return to being the example to the world to fulfill the natural “manifest destiny” of our country, first we need to return to being a nation that is guided by the virtue and morality of religious precepts. No matter what religion one belongs to, living by the precepts taught, the individual can’t help but be moral and virtuous. My sincere prayer and desire is that we can regain those principles before it is eternally too late.