A fact of life is that from the past comes the future. Humans build on the base of what came before. Does it surprise you when the tenured academic elite show themselves to be nit-wits? They supposedly have made their lives in scholarship. We allow them to instruct at our universities and law schools. Wouldn’t you think from all their knowledge would come wisdom?
The professors permitted to inhabit the law schools of this nation are, for the most part, a disgrace. Lawyers should appreciate that the rule of law that enables this nation to be formed in the first place. It is what allowed America to endure for the last two and a half centuries. Our system of law was a legacy from our British forebears and our colonial experience.
It was not a sudden original creation of a genius. Maybe it is time that they read a little history instead of destroying and rewriting it. The fundamental law and the laws created on the basis of it command respect. They produce obedience because American law was developed organically. American law wasn’t handed down by some secular deity.
History applies to revolutionaries too
Today’s anarchists, BLM, Antifa, etc. are much like the French Revolutionaries. They too do not understand that from the past comes the future. There is no comprehension of the basic conservatism animating the American Revolution. They fail to grasp our federal Constitution. There are some very interesting parallels with the French Revolution but with different schemes and outcomes.
The mistaken view the French revolutionaries took from the American example was they could erase the past. They convinced themselves they could erect something totally new based on nothing but abstract ideas. They have full faith they can do this, though they are devoid of experience. It is their belief that everyone will instantly fall in line behind it. After all, isn’t that what the Americans had done? The answer is of course not. You have to read and understand what has come before to acquire the wisdom to lead.
The revolutionist theoreticians claimed to champion the French people. They meant the poor. But the people didn’t respond as desired. When that happened the revolutionists answer was force and violence. The revolutionaries had nothing to guide their actions but abstractions. To them it was easy to change the rules by an on-going refinement of the abstractions. They ignored the fact that from the past comes the future.
Not all change is for the better
Therein lies the rub. They changed the rules and changed the rules. That continued until there was only one constant remaining in French political life. It was the assurance that yesterday’s radicals would become tomorrow’s reactionaries. And they are to be traveling to the guillotine. A downward spiral developed and continued until a dictator came along to put a stop to it. The dictator was someone with courage, commitment and competence in leadership.
Today our heritage is much more admirable than that of Eighteenth-Century France. Yet, the Marxists want to throw history away. It is an obstacle to the installation of their warped eco-hysterical/identity political/cultural vision. Our prosperity, culture and freedom is being cast away in favor of abstractions. Those abstractions are far less admirable than those of the original French revolutionaries.
Unless the America locates its spine we will suffer the same sad conclusion. No people, and no place, is immune from such a fate. We are forgetting that from the past comes the future. We are throwing away the lessons of history. Do we really want to reorder ourselves into a Western iteration of a pseudo-islamic society? One day, the left will be forced into is battle with Islam. Islam is an existential threat to its libertine and relativist approach to life. So, my friend, which side are you on?