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.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Principles of Liberty (Twenty-seven)
Principles of Liberty (Twenty-seven)
By William Pressgrove
“The burden of debt is as destructive to freedom as subjugation by conquest.” (The 5000 Year Leap, W. Cleon Skousen p. 291)
If there is a principle that is more timely to discuss than this one at this time, I can’t find it. The Founding Fathers warned us about going into debt either on an individual level or as a country. Because of the relevance of Dr. W. Cleon Skousen’s work, I will be almost exclusively sighting The 5000 Year Leap by W. Cleon Skousen pp. 293-302. Therefore I don’t take any credit for this content but defer to Dr. Skousen all credit for the content.
“Slavery or involuntary servitude is the result of either subjugation by conquest or succumbing to the bondage of debt.”
“Debt, of course, is simply borrowing against the future. It exchanges a present advantage for a future obligation. It will require not only the return of the original advance of funds, but a substantial compensation to the creditor for the use of his money.”
When discussing debt and splurge spending Dr. Skousen states, “...all the reveling and apparitions of debt-financed prosperity disappear like a morning mist when it comes time to pay. Extravagant living, waste, and hazardous borrowing against the future can reduce the best of us to bankruptcy, abject poverty, and even gnawing hunger from lack of the most basic necessities of life.”
“The kind of frugality for which the Founders were famous was rooted in the conviction that debt should be abhorred like a plague. They perceived excessive indebtedness as a form of cultural disease.”
Dr. Skousen quotes Benjamin Franklin with these words: “But, ah, think what you do when you run in debt; you give to another power over your liberty. If you cannot pay at the time, you will be ashamed to see your creditor; you will be in fear when you speak to him; you will make poor pitiful sneaking excuses, and by degrees come to lose your veracity, and sink into base downright lying; for, as Poor Richards say, the second vice is lying, the first is running in debt.”
When discussing the Founders’ policy concerning a National Debt Dr. Skousen points out, “The pioneers of the American commonwealth had the wisdom born of experience to know that the debts of a nation are no different from the debts of an individual. The fact that the indebtedness is shared by the whole people makes it no less ominous.” He also quotes Thomas Jefferson who said, ‘I, however, place economy among the first and most important of republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared.’”
The topic of one generation imposing its debt on the next brought forth the following expression. “...the American Found Fathers...felt that the wars, economic problems, and debts of one generation should be paid for by the generation which incurred them. They wanted the rising generation to be genuinely free—both politically and economically. It was their feeling that passing on their debts to the next generation would be forcing the children of the future to be born into a certain amount of bondage or involuntary servitude—something for which they had neither voted nor subscribed. It would be in a very literal sense, ‘taxation without representation.’”
When looking at the history of the national debt, the following becomes very apparent. “By carefully tracing the pattern of these debts, we notice that after every war or financial emergency involving heavy indebtedness there was an immediate effort to pay it off as rapidly as possible. This policy was followed for the sake of the rising generation. The adult citizens of America wanted their children born in freedom not bondage.”
Now see if what Dr. Skousen sets forth next doesn’t sound like what is going on today. “Beginning with the era of the Great Depression, all three branches of the federal government used the climate of emergency to overstep their Constitutional authority and aggressively undertake to perform tasks not authorized by the Founders. Extensive studies by Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman have demonstrated that every one of these adventures in non-Constitutional activities proved counter-productive, some of them tragically so.
“Secondly, the people were induced to believe that these serious aberrations of Constitutional principles would provide a shortcut to economic prosperity, thereby lifting the people out of the depression. It gave the people the illusion that by spending vast quantities of borrowed money they would prosper, when as a matter of fact, the outcome was exactly the opposite, just as the Founders had predicted.
“Dr. Milton Friedman points out that after the federal government had spent many billions of dollars and had seriously meddled with the Constitutional structure of the nation, the unemployment rate was higher in 1938 than it had been in 1932.”
As Dr. Skousen discusses spending in our generation (keep in mind this book was originally written in 1981) he expresses the following: “For the first time in the entire history of the United States, a generation of Americans is squandering the next generation’s inheritance.”
Dr. Skousen then makes this comparison. “It is the very essence of human nature to pursue this disastrous course once the appetite has been created to demand it. American taxpayers now discover themselves playing a role almost identical to that of an addict on hard drugs. The addict denounces his ‘habit’ and despises the ‘pusher’ who got him into it, but when he is confronted with the crisis of needing a ‘fix’ he will plead with tears of anguish for the narcotic remedy. The ‘fix’ of course, is not the remedy at all. The real remedy is withdrawal.”
Polemics (arguments) against the government’s profligate spending are vehement. The denunciation of high taxes is virtually universal. From banker to ditch-digger it is eloquently explained how this entire syndrome of big spending, high taxes, oppressive government regulations, and mountainous debt is stifling the economy, inhibiting the rate of production, and stagnating the wholesome development of the traditional American life-style. Yet, with all of that, any Congressman will verify that it has been...almost political suicide to try to change the trend. When it comes to cutting programs and reducing costs, balancing the budget, and eliminating deficit spending, it is amazing how few will make the necessary adjustment without the most violent outcries of protest when it affects them personally. But then, this would come as no surprise to the Founders. It is called ‘human nature.’”
I know this is long and it uses many quotes from the book, but each point is vital to an understanding of what is going on today. The people of this country need to learn this and, like the addict, we need to kick the habit instead of getting another “fix” like the Federal Government advocates.
By William Pressgrove
“The burden of debt is as destructive to freedom as subjugation by conquest.” (The 5000 Year Leap, W. Cleon Skousen p. 291)
If there is a principle that is more timely to discuss than this one at this time, I can’t find it. The Founding Fathers warned us about going into debt either on an individual level or as a country. Because of the relevance of Dr. W. Cleon Skousen’s work, I will be almost exclusively sighting The 5000 Year Leap by W. Cleon Skousen pp. 293-302. Therefore I don’t take any credit for this content but defer to Dr. Skousen all credit for the content.
“Slavery or involuntary servitude is the result of either subjugation by conquest or succumbing to the bondage of debt.”
“Debt, of course, is simply borrowing against the future. It exchanges a present advantage for a future obligation. It will require not only the return of the original advance of funds, but a substantial compensation to the creditor for the use of his money.”
When discussing debt and splurge spending Dr. Skousen states, “...all the reveling and apparitions of debt-financed prosperity disappear like a morning mist when it comes time to pay. Extravagant living, waste, and hazardous borrowing against the future can reduce the best of us to bankruptcy, abject poverty, and even gnawing hunger from lack of the most basic necessities of life.”
“The kind of frugality for which the Founders were famous was rooted in the conviction that debt should be abhorred like a plague. They perceived excessive indebtedness as a form of cultural disease.”
Dr. Skousen quotes Benjamin Franklin with these words: “But, ah, think what you do when you run in debt; you give to another power over your liberty. If you cannot pay at the time, you will be ashamed to see your creditor; you will be in fear when you speak to him; you will make poor pitiful sneaking excuses, and by degrees come to lose your veracity, and sink into base downright lying; for, as Poor Richards say, the second vice is lying, the first is running in debt.”
When discussing the Founders’ policy concerning a National Debt Dr. Skousen points out, “The pioneers of the American commonwealth had the wisdom born of experience to know that the debts of a nation are no different from the debts of an individual. The fact that the indebtedness is shared by the whole people makes it no less ominous.” He also quotes Thomas Jefferson who said, ‘I, however, place economy among the first and most important of republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared.’”
The topic of one generation imposing its debt on the next brought forth the following expression. “...the American Found Fathers...felt that the wars, economic problems, and debts of one generation should be paid for by the generation which incurred them. They wanted the rising generation to be genuinely free—both politically and economically. It was their feeling that passing on their debts to the next generation would be forcing the children of the future to be born into a certain amount of bondage or involuntary servitude—something for which they had neither voted nor subscribed. It would be in a very literal sense, ‘taxation without representation.’”
When looking at the history of the national debt, the following becomes very apparent. “By carefully tracing the pattern of these debts, we notice that after every war or financial emergency involving heavy indebtedness there was an immediate effort to pay it off as rapidly as possible. This policy was followed for the sake of the rising generation. The adult citizens of America wanted their children born in freedom not bondage.”
Now see if what Dr. Skousen sets forth next doesn’t sound like what is going on today. “Beginning with the era of the Great Depression, all three branches of the federal government used the climate of emergency to overstep their Constitutional authority and aggressively undertake to perform tasks not authorized by the Founders. Extensive studies by Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman have demonstrated that every one of these adventures in non-Constitutional activities proved counter-productive, some of them tragically so.
“Secondly, the people were induced to believe that these serious aberrations of Constitutional principles would provide a shortcut to economic prosperity, thereby lifting the people out of the depression. It gave the people the illusion that by spending vast quantities of borrowed money they would prosper, when as a matter of fact, the outcome was exactly the opposite, just as the Founders had predicted.
“Dr. Milton Friedman points out that after the federal government had spent many billions of dollars and had seriously meddled with the Constitutional structure of the nation, the unemployment rate was higher in 1938 than it had been in 1932.”
As Dr. Skousen discusses spending in our generation (keep in mind this book was originally written in 1981) he expresses the following: “For the first time in the entire history of the United States, a generation of Americans is squandering the next generation’s inheritance.”
Dr. Skousen then makes this comparison. “It is the very essence of human nature to pursue this disastrous course once the appetite has been created to demand it. American taxpayers now discover themselves playing a role almost identical to that of an addict on hard drugs. The addict denounces his ‘habit’ and despises the ‘pusher’ who got him into it, but when he is confronted with the crisis of needing a ‘fix’ he will plead with tears of anguish for the narcotic remedy. The ‘fix’ of course, is not the remedy at all. The real remedy is withdrawal.”
Polemics (arguments) against the government’s profligate spending are vehement. The denunciation of high taxes is virtually universal. From banker to ditch-digger it is eloquently explained how this entire syndrome of big spending, high taxes, oppressive government regulations, and mountainous debt is stifling the economy, inhibiting the rate of production, and stagnating the wholesome development of the traditional American life-style. Yet, with all of that, any Congressman will verify that it has been...almost political suicide to try to change the trend. When it comes to cutting programs and reducing costs, balancing the budget, and eliminating deficit spending, it is amazing how few will make the necessary adjustment without the most violent outcries of protest when it affects them personally. But then, this would come as no surprise to the Founders. It is called ‘human nature.’”
I know this is long and it uses many quotes from the book, but each point is vital to an understanding of what is going on today. The people of this country need to learn this and, like the addict, we need to kick the habit instead of getting another “fix” like the Federal Government advocates.
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