D. Hawthorne over at American Greatness has something on which to contemplate given the trajectory this country is following when compared to what the Founders intended:
The American Founding: The Declaration’s Natural Rights ? Individual Character Formation to Create Good Citizens Capable of Self-Government ? Culture with Vibrant Mediating Institutions ? Limited Government
versus
Today’s Progressive Revolution: Relativism in a Naked Public Square ? Society Dominated by a Powerful Elite ? Atrophied Culture ? Individuals as Wards of the State
And then he goes to state what he means for each of these:
- The American Founding: The Declaration’s Natural Rights
- The American Founding: Creating Good Citizens Capable of Self-Government
- The American Founding: Building a Culture with Vibrant Mediating Institutions (don’t miss the bit about “social justice”)
- The American Founding: Limited Government
And then he compares those foundational ideas and goals with what we see with what the Progressivism has wrought:
- Today’s Progressive Revolution: Relativism in a Naked Public Square
- Today’s Progressive Revolution: Society Dominated by a Powerful Elite
- Today’s Progressive Revolution: Atrophied Culture
- Today’s Progressive Revolution: Individuals as Wards of the State and Political Hubris
I highly suggest that you go and the post. In closing, he has a few base questions to ask:
- Question 1: Do we believe our rights come from the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God or from government?
- Question 2: Is it individual character formation, based on universal moral truths and the virtues, to create good and free citizens or is it the nihilism of relativism, with its political correctness and multiculturalism relatives?
- Question 3: Should voluntary associations and mediating institutions or the state dominate the public square culture?
- Question 4: What is the most effective way to dismantle the administrative state, thereby allowing a sovereign people to reassert their natural rights?
Only after a new consensus has been realized can the second part, the hard work of recovery and living differently, begin in earnest. We have a lot to do if we are going to have any chance of reclaiming our uniquely American heritage of liberty and self-government.
