One of William F. Buckley’s later books was titled simply Gratitude, which is, when you think about it, one of the cardinal conservative virtues. The spirit of gratitude was amply on display this past week at a symposium jointly sponsored by the Bradley Foundation and the Hudson Institute titled “True Americanism: What It Is and Why It Matters.” Spoiler alert: It matters.
Panelists took as their starting point an indispensable new book by Leon and Amy Kass and Diana Schaub called What So Proudly We Hail, a selection of stories, songs, and speeches about “the American soul” that should become the Book of Virtues for patriots. From the Mayflower Compact to Flannery O’Connor, and from Ralph Ellison to George S. Patton Jr., this collection ranges across American history, lighting upon the words that have shaped and reflected us. Whether we continue to cherish the uniqueness of America was one of the questions tackled by the panel, which included Charles Krauthammer, Prof. Robert George of Princeton, Daniel Henninger of the Wall Street Journal, and Sen. Lamar Alexander, among others.
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Although there were disputes on some points, the panelists were agreed that what makes America exceptional is its dedication to enduring principles, its willingness to confront and overcome failings and sins, and the great blessing of having been founded by a collection of political geniuses unequaled in human history.
Liberals always worry that a celebration of American greatness will descend into chauvinism, triumphalism, or denial of the mistakes and crimes of American history. Juan Williams, another panelist, mounted just such an objection.
The danger, at the moment, seems quite the reverse. Our national embrace of multiculturalism, grievance mongering, and internationalism, along with a distorted and biased version of our national story (such as can be found in nearly every textbook in America) threatens to blind us to the sources of our strength. We don’t need a sanitized edition of American history in order to be proud of our heritage — we can handle the truth. But we do threaten the survival of liberty if we fail to instill in those lucky enough to have been born here a deep reverence for what is unique about this country.
On that subject, it’s worth quoting at length from one of the essays in What So Proudly We Hail, by one of America’s most thoughtful philosophers of government: Calvin Coolidge. Coolidge was president when the nation celebrated the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, and he delivered a speech to mark the occasion.
He began by stressing that it wasn’t the fact of seeking to break away from the mother country that distinguished the American Revolution:
It was not because it was proposed to establish a new nation, but because it was proposed to establish a nation on new principles that July 4, 1776 has come to be regarded as one of the greatest days in history.
It may surprise contemporary readers to learn that Coolidge upheld the principle of equality as the most important in the Declaration. It sprang, he argued, from the religious sensibilities of the American people. “They preached equality,” he said, “because they believed in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man.”
In words that could easily have been penned in our own generation, Coolidge defended the eternal validity of the founding documents:
About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning cannot be applied to this great chapter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.
And finally, this, from the man who held the presidency during the Roaring Twenties: “If we are to maintain the great heritage which has been bequeathed to us, we must be like-minded as the fathers who created it. We must not sink into a pagan materialism. We must cultivate the reverence which they had for the things that are holy.”
Isn't it remarkable that the "Progressives" fight so hard to take us backward to a medieval socio-economic standard, much like the Islamists, and yet there are so few willing to stand up and fight for the America of the founding fathers?
Progressives DO fight for the America of the founding fathers.
The founding fathers nailed it. They devised a system of government so good, more than two centuries later it's still the guiding light of the world. Not perfect -- just miles and miles ahead of its nearest competitor.
Who cannot marvel at the job they did?
This is a land like no other. A truly exceptional land.
Sure there have been errors made in America's past. What makes America so great is the fact that our system of government created the institutions providing the means for correcting the wrongs of the past. Error and Correction co-exits in our system. A Yeah But is counter balanced by Can Do. The Civil rights movement would not have made such remarkable progress in my lifetime if we didn't have the institutions in place that had the power to correct civil rights abuse. Alexis De Tocqueville shrewdly observed that America is the only country that possesses freedom and seeks it too.
progressives fight for absolute material equality, quite different from the equality before the law, equality under god, equality of opportunity the founding fathers strived for.
Forget about the "equality of opportunity the founding fathers strived for," because they didn't, plain and simple, in the sense in which you and I understand equality of opportunity today.
The document, however, does the trick.
And the document talks about a more perfect union as well as general welfare, pained as radical conservatives are to contemplate those words.
The general welfare, as understood by the founding fathers, was that government should strive to meddle as little as possible and, only where necessary, promote an environment where people succeed or fail based on their own efforts.
Progressives see government completely differently. They see government as a mechanism to right their perceived inequities (economic and others) between citizens, and by force if necessary.
The idea that the founding fathers would have supported this massive welfare state, the disproportionate taxation in which half the people of this country pay no taxes, and the extraordinary (and hugely damaging) interference in the capitalist economy of the nation is ludicrous.
The founding fathers would never have bought into the massive and intrusive progressive government with which we have been saddled.
There is an excellent two volume set of books called "The Debate on the Constitution." This set is an enormous collection of writings, both public and private, which constituted the debate among the people about the proposed US constitution and how it should work. This will give you an excellent insight into what the people of that time wanted of their government and the progressive agenda in no way complies with the original intent of the founders.
Read these books and you will then know what the people of the time intended and you will also see how far we have strayed from their vision.
The 16th Amendment was ratifed in 1913. The founding fathers knew nothing about it and if you will trouble to read what the founding fathers said then you will understand what I am saying.
Read the debate volumes and see what they said for themselves and not rely on the socialistic intepretations of present day schmuks (sic) who are not fit to polish the founding fathers boots.
It was a part of that enormous boatload of socialistic bunkum passed during those years that effectively destroyed the American system as the founding fathers understood it and designed it.
I suspect there are different flavors of progressives as there are of conservatives. Not all conservatives are libertarians. Not all progressives are trying to undermine the fundamental documents of the government. Enough are and getting press about it that they seem to be everywhere.
But progressives don't all want to overthrow the government. Hillary Clinton doesn't, for example, she just wants to run the government to produce what she believes will be a kinder and more generous result for the least advantaged. Personally, I think government should get out of the social safety net business altogether, because I have faith that the neighbors of the disadvantaged would pick up the slack. Others disagree with me and are welcome to disagree. But government is not efficient about its efforts and arguably not effective, either. And the disadvantaged seem inclined to work harder at getting more from government than at becoming independent of whether conservatives or liberals are running the show.
I've never watched anyone starve, but I expect that I would start giving them food that I bought out of my own funds before I would just watch them starve. I believe we are all like that, and only become stingy when resources are perceived as scarce. When the government takes away more and more of your income, you start to view money as scarce. When the government says it will take care of the poor, you might well feel like it isn't your responsibility anymore. But if someone comes up to you in rags and begs for a few dollars, don't you give them something? I do, even realizing they may just be scamming me and be taking in hundreds of dollars a day. The principle is still valid. We do give money to people that the system doesn't seem to be helping, and we would do this if the government got out of the charity business altogether. And we might well have more money to give, if they rolled back taxes at the same time.
You have stated the position on charity that the founding fathers would understand.
The use of private charity is preferred not only due to basic efficiency but also because local people who help the poor are much better at identifying the deserving from the underseving.
When government provides relief it creates a class of bureacrats who have their little fiefdoms to protect and expand and an entire underclass of rent seekers who desire to have the government care for them at someone else's expense.
The result is toxic symbiosis of government and the undeserving poor that stifles intiative, breeds discontent, wastes the resources of the people and burdens the productive, tax paying citizens onerously.
I give much of my money to charity but I am careful to make sure they deserve it and need it.
As a Canadian graduate journalsm student in the U.S. during the post-Watergate, post-Vietnam War gloom, I still felt the singular dynamism, optimism and self-confidence among Americans.
The intellectual feat of your Founders, the immense scope and dynamic range of your people, and its being a force for good put it among the greatest of nations of all time.
Who the founding fathers were, as people, and what they wrote, as organizational documents, are two different things.
The founding fathers were to one extent or another womanizers, atheists, bigots, elitists -- you name it. I still revere them for what they stood for in general, but you can't exactly call them saints.
Nevertheless, they generated a Constitution that's about as good as human beings can make a document.
But to deliberately misinterpret it, to deliberately disregard it, to damage through feckless and destructive amendments a system so delicately balanced does it a profound disservice.
The constitution is a piece of paper. The system it describes is what should be revered and that system has been treated like socialism's bich (sic) for the last 100 years.
What we have now is indistinguishable from from what they created. The left engages in the fiction of supporting the constitution when they have ignored it or trampled on it for decades.
The left supports the constitution only to the extent that they can coerce it to support their progressive agenda to get what they want. The left loves the constitution the way a faithless husband loves his wife on the nights he wants to have relations.
And as for the people of that time they understood human nature better than Marx, the progressives, or the Democrats ever did and that is why their system is so briliant. Times change but people remain the same. The founding fathers understood this and designed a system to accomodate this most fundamental of facts.
The founding fathers had their full measure of human faults and frailties as do we all. The difference is they knew enough to create a system that did not require angels to operate it.
We are merely human and they created that system on that basis.
If you will read the debate volumes you will see how well they understood human nature and how their original system accomodated it.
OK last post worked, here goes, perhaps 5th time is the charm.
Apologists for America’s sins constantly struggle to mold America into their vision of what a perfect America should be. Thus they refuse to accept the reality of American goodness.
It’s sadly comical because in pursuit of perfection they have likely hurt more then helped. I think of social programs aimed at poverty that have left more people poor then before they started.
Education reform which has led to lower education levels.
Women’s health/rights initiatives that have increased STD's and single mother pregnancies.
History is replete with the tragic folly of aiming for perfection...think Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot...etc, etc.
I could go on...
If progressives want to waste their time and resources aiming for the perfect, let them, as long as they leave rest of us alone. For it the average good person partaking in and contributing to our good nation that makes it great!
I am not saying I would want to live in 1810 America. At a minimum I prefer indoor plumbing and anti-biotics.
How this comment addresses, in any way whatsoever, any point in my post escapes me.
There is no one so blind as he who will not see.
Let me cite a few facts and you can not respond to them as you do not respond to other facts that contradict your world view:
Czars. O has appointed dozens even though the constitution sets out a process for requiring senate approval. Why? because he knows that the senate would not approve his choices.
For all his blather about loving and respecting the Constitution when push came to shove O simply ignored it. That is an example of the left. If you can get what you want through the proper means then fine but if not then screew (sic) the constitution and get it as the leftist saying goes, "By any means necessary."
Another example, Pelosi when asked if O-Care was constitutional looked surprised and asked, "Are you kidding?' What she was actually saying is, "Constitution!? We don't need no stinkin' Constitution!"
You mentioned the 16th amendment which specifically eliminated equal apportionment of taxes. The Founding Fathers did not know about the 16th amendment but they were smart enough to anticipate what happens when the tax code allows the government to punish its enemies and reward its friends through the tax system.
Our current tax code is 28000 (yes, 28 thousand) pages long. It is full of crony capitalism paybacks, leftist socialist redistributionist nonsense and good old fashioned government kleptomania. But that is what happens when the tax code does not require everyone to be treated equally. Friends are helped and enemies are hurt. And the people suffer for it.
The Founding Fathers knew this. I wish the American people had had the good sense to learn from history the way the Founding Fathers did. But no, we are going to have to learn the hard way, just like so many nations before us. The people listened to the poison whispered in their ears by the leftists about punishing ONLY the evil rich and succumbed to a foolish and self destructive class envy and now all of the people have this millstone around their necks.
By seeking to hurt their perceived enemies the people only ended up hurting themselves. The wisdom of our ancestors is with us today if only we have the good sense and humility to listen and learn from them.
Look at how the left uses agency after agency to enforce its will. These agencies are staffed by lifelong bureaucrats who are unelected (sometimes even unknown) and are accountable to no one and especially not the electorate. The Founding Fathers wanted the people to determine their leadership and government through the ballot box. They would be horrified at the proliferation of agencies that are trampling our rights and with no way for the people to stop them, not even the legislative branch.
The legislative branch has enacted no global warming legislation. Yet the EPA has theatened that if they do not get the legislation they want from Congress then they will act on their own. Outrageous.
Consider the Supreme Court. When ruling on the appropriateness of the death penalty for 17 year olds, OConnor, in her ruling used the UN Treaty On The Rights Of The Child as a basis in international law for her decision. There is a huge problem with this. The treaty was submitted to the senate but they refused to ratify it. In effect, OConnor ratified it herself. She held the American people accountable to a treaty rejected by our Senate in clear violation the Constitutional separation of powers.
Furthermore, OConnor said in a speech in Atlanta, GA that the court would extend its use of international law in deciding cases. What!? She is saying that she intends to hold the American people accountable to laws made in other countries by people over whom the American electorate has no direct or even indirect control. This is a flat out assault on our Constitutional rights and a clearly impeachable breach of her oath of office which requires her to use the Constitution and American law as the sole basis for the court's decisions. That woman (and every judge who thinks and behaves as she does) is a menace and should be stopped.
One does not have to desire to live in 1810 in order to desire that the left not use the Constitution as a good time girl from whom they can get what they want and then ignore when the can not.
Your defense of this trampling of Constitutional principles and protections borders on the insane. How will you protect yourself from the government when you have ceded all your rights to it? How will you defend yourself when the law is simply whatever the government says it is at the time they say it?
I will finish by using an old saying that the Founding Fathers would have known and used.
Fire is a marvelous servant but a fearful master.
How do you control a fire?
By keeping it small. Once a fire is very large it has a will of its own and can be impossible to control. It will consume you.
The Founding Fathers knew the same about government.
Keep the government small and the people can control it.
Look at what we now have. We have a government so large that it is the master and we the servants. It is consuming the people through excessive taxation, excessive regulation and spending that is going to render us all destitute.
"Who the founding fathers were, as people, and what they wrote, as organizational documents, are two different things.
The founding fathers were to one extent or another womanizers, atheists, bigots, elitists -- you name it. I still revere them for what they stood for in general, but you can't exactly call them saints.
Nevertheless, they generated a Constitution that's about as good as human beings can make a document.
Let's celebrate the Constitution for what it is."
Mike B. - What? so you are saying they were great intellectually but essentially more immoral than the average person today? So we can use the technicalities of the constitution intellectually to propagate whatever kind of policy we wish, even in complete contradiction to the intentions of the framers? Then you go on to say how great a DOCUMENT it is!! Come on Mike, stop trying to hoodwink yourself, you're way to intelligent for such foolish drivel!! Is it a great achievement only intellectually and not morally? This is how you want to run your country, on the ideals of an immoral group of people? WHY?
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