Dreams From My Forefathers

Engineers are continually adding to the body of knowledge and principles that comprise their particular art. Bridges get longer, buildings get higher, cars go faster and yet arrive with a higher degree of safety at their destinations. The medical profession uses techniques and knowledge acquired thousands of years ago. And yesterday. We live longer and healthier lives because of it. Mathematicians need not discover Pythagorean’s Theorem today any more than a carpenter need invent a hammer to build with. They are tools that have been given to us by our forefathers which when used properly allow us to do things the original inventors could never do. Pythagoras could never have built the moon lander. Without Pythagoras, neither could we.

It is on their shoulders we stand.

Anybody who has ever had children can instantly grasp the importance of that statement.

Don’t touch that.

Don’t do that.

Don’t stand there.

Don’t dress like that.

Don’t drink that.

Work hard.

Be honest.

Study hard.

Eat to live, don’t live to eat.

Yes it is important to allow children to make mistakes, but one of the most useful lessons a child will learn is to trust their parents and, by extension, their forefathers. Sometimes, OK lots of times, a parent might say, “you shouldn’t do X,” but then allow them the freedom to do X. We do this in the hope that this contributes to building a trust in the parent by the child. “Hey, when my Dad says something is a good/bad idea he is usually right.” If we can build that trust; they can stand on our shoulders.

A good scientist has to understand the value of integrating the known universe with the as-yet undiscovered areas of science. Most of the great scientists in history understood they were building on the work of their predecessors. Sometimes their work would lead to clarifying earlier mistakes, but that was the exception, not the rule. They often collaborated with contemporaries even if competition was fierce. The goal was generally the same: to establish truth and build up our understanding of that truth. Build on prior work, cast aside failed theories, reach for core truths.

“Every science has for its basis a system of principles as fixed and unalterable as those by which the universe is regulated and governed. Man cannot make principles; he can only discover them.” Thomas Paine

Conservatism is all about standing on the shoulders of our forefathers.

Our revolutionary forefathers believed mightily in standing on their forefathers shoulders. Most of the active framers were extremely well read of both ancient and contemporary philosophies and theories of government. As they drafted various constitutions, state and federal, they applied the knowledge of their forefathers as intelligently as possible.

“Democracy… while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide.” John Adams

They recognized democracy as a short path to tyranny. It was rejected. Some, like Hamilton, favored monarchy. He was denied. They were even familiar with early socialists and recognized it for the dark disaster it is. They examined the historical record of various forms of government. Their purpose was nothing less than the preservation of liberty. They rejected the forms that history had shown to be utter failures and tried to build on the only system that seemed viable. “A Republic, if you can keep it.” And they did a good job of it.

“The brave man inattentive to his duty, is worth little more to his country than the coward who deserts in the hour of danger.” Andrew Jackson

We slept.

Today we are up against a failed theory. Whatever name we give Marxism- Progressivism, Nazism, fascism, liberalism, socialism or communism – it has failed. The social democracies of Europe are failures. China recognized the failure of socialism and, while it maintains its murderous totalitarian government, it practices capitalism. The Chinese leadership recognized a fundamental truth that the American Left has been unable to grasp; Marxism cannot be made to work. Dozens if not hundreds of experiments have been conducted. Marxism, Progressivism and their cousins have murdered more people in the last 100 years than were killed in all the other wars in history. Hundreds of millions have died. Intelligent men have long since realized this is not how you build a legitimate government. The Left just puts their fingers in their ears, nah, nah, can’t hear you. It is a religion for them, all profits are evil and the right to private property must be destroyed are two of its primary tenets.

“How do you tell a communist? Well, it’s someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It’s someone who understands Marx and Lenin.” Ronald Reagan

Marxism is a dead end in every sense of the word. A Progressive is a fancy dressed Marxist.

Marxists, Progressives, Socialists and other leftists have been actively working for more than 100 years to destroy our liberty and the Constitution that preserves it.

It took five generations, but they are seeing success for their efforts. It is a testament to the strength of the foundations our forefathers laid that it took so long. Why do they destroy it? Because evil exists in the world; some men choose to serve it and some are useful idiots.

When our colonial forefathers recognized the end was coming to the liberties enjoyed by Englishmen in America, they acted. They acted not to revolutionize the world but to conserve what they already had. First they tried the political route. They stayed generally within the bounds of law and so on. They “begged of the King” to do the right thing. This helped to cement their righteous position when it came to war. They were protecting their God given rights and were within their rights to do so using whatever means necessary. If the time comes again when good men must act to defeat tyranny using force of arms it will be the tyrant that bears the burden of blood, not the patriot.

“The right of a nation to kill a tyrant in case of necessity can no more be doubted than to hang a robber, or kill a flea.” John Adams  

Whatever the founders intentions; their actions did revolutionize the world. Never has any nation climbed so far, so fast. Our momentum was so great we did not reach apogee until decades after the left had cut power to the engines during the FDR and LBJ years.  The prosperity reached was so great its castoffs swept the world and raised half the planet from the Dark Ages. Some people were better left in the dark.

Our liberty is now grievously threatened and may be coming to an end. We are currently in the political phase of our battle. The Tea Parties were a nationwide gathering of freemen imploring their leaders to do the right thing. Not much different than the petitions sent by the colonists to King George begging of him to do the right thing. The Progressives now laugh at and deride our entreaties. One can only imagine the jokes and guffaws in George’s Court at the pretension of the colonists. I doubt they were as vulgar as one night of CNN Tea Party coverage.

“Ancient Rome declined because it had a Senate, now what’s going to happen to us with both a House and a Senate?” Will Rogers

 In a few short months the Republicans will likely retake control of the House and perhaps the Senate. They won’t have the numbers to directly undo the Progressive damage. They may not have the will even had they the numbers.

They must refuse to participate in bankrupting the nation. They must refuse to assist in the ills of ObamaCare. They ought to hinder any Cap and Trade disaster by refusing to put it in the budget. They may just lie and claim they are powerless in the face of the opposition.

“A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing.” Alexander Hamilton

Boy that Hamilton. What a kidder. Thanks Alex. Or maybe we should thank Aaron. The mountains of debt that have been generated by both parties will sink us shortly. As Adams said, “Facts are stubborn things.” (Yes, he said it before Reagan.) The fact is this debt has reached a proportion that already calls into question our national ability to pay even the interest, let alone the principal. If interest rates take off as they did in the early eighties we could be looking at literally trillions per year in interest alone. Bush and Obama had the foresight to finance almost all of our debt short term. Financing a home mortgage on an ARM may be foolish; mortgaging your nation to an ARM is treasonous.

Within 18 to 24 months the fate of the Republic may well be decided. Two more years of trillion dollar borrowing will put repayment beyond reach. I don’t think that means blood and guts and bodies lying in the street, but when historians look back they will point to this time as the point of no return. It may have already passed last year when Dubya destroyed capitalism to save it.

“Mischief springs from the power which the moneyed interest derives from a paper currency which they are able to control, from the multitude of corporations with exclusive privileges… which are employed altogether for their benefit.” Andrew Jackson

Will the FED print us out of debt? To what end? More borrowing? More entitlements? More spending to destroy more cars? To buy more oil from those who would destroy us or toys or trinkets from those who murder their own? Do we take a mortgage to pay off our credit card debts so we can keep on swiping? Will we cut up our cards? Are we really going to print our way out of debt?  Just this once?

If we have government shutdowns and extreme leftwing acrimony, we may have a chance. If CNN and MSNBC are screaming at the top of their airwaves every night about the rightwing extremists in Congress, it will be like paddles to a flatliner. But if the Republicans retake either house and pass even one unbalanced budget, if they fund one day of ObamaCare or collect one penny of a Cap and Trade Tax, it will be the equivalent of blockading Boston Harbor; a declaration of war on the American people by a Political Class that surrenders all appearance of legitimacy.

Would we discard Pythagorean’s Theorem on the suggestion of a grade school math teacher? Because it is to hard for second graders to understand? Or for her to teach? Why  are we so eager to throw away the liberty bequeathed by our forefathers at the suggestion of a self-serving political class?

We could achieve no greater honor as Americans, as conservatives, than to stand on the shoulders of our forefathers. To preserve the liberty their blood purchased.

“Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!“ Patrick Henry