Americans Weak On What Is Celebrated on July 4th

Published on Jul 1, 2015
Media analyst Mark Dice asks beachgoers in San Diego, California some basic questions about America's 4th of July Independence Day celebration and their answers are quite disturbing.

https://youtu.be/kyhCOPh48ew

Differences Between U.S. and French Revolutions; Human Nature

Within this historical essay are patterns which can be seen in the current U.S. President's character. Delusions of righteousness, denial of ability to be an oppressor, reluctance to tolerate competing opinions on issues, are clearly present.

[From article]
But the French revolutionaries, Burke warned, have torn away “the decent drapery of life, . . . the superadded ideas, furnished from the wardrobe of a moral imagination, which . . . cover the defects of our naked, shivering nature, and . . . raise it to dignity in our own estimation.” Laws there must be backed up with force, or else people will rob, kill, and rape; and if you take away the realm of inherited custom, belief, religion, and manners—the realm of unexamined but deeply held prejudice and even superstition—that makes government mild and people habitually law-abiding and civil to one another without force, then “laws are to be supported only by their own terror.” So the French revolutionaries, by demoting religion and monarchy and by stamping out “the old feudal and chivalrous spirit of fealty, which by freeing kings from fear, freed both kings and subjects from the precautions of tyranny,” will bring about a society, Burke predicted, in which, “at the end of every vista, you see nothing but the gallows.”
Anyone who thinks that human reason can supply the place of this cultural fabric woven and passed down over so many centuries from the dead to the living to the yet-to-be-born is deluded.
[. . .]
So the early governments buttressed force with fraud, for they knew as well as Burke that security of rule depends on power over subjects’ minds as well as over their bodies. Indeed, some of the first governments arose entirely out of hocus-pocus. “When a set of artful men pretended, through the medium of oracles, to hold intercourse with the Deity, as familiarly as they now march up the back-stairs of European Courts, the world was completely under the government of superstition,” Paine contended. And Burke’s appeal to the inherited fabric of belief and culture is merely the modern version of such humbug. “Every Ministry acts upon the same idea that Mr. Burke writes, namely, that the people must be hood-winked, and held in superstitious ignorance by some bugbear or other,” wrote Paine.
[. . .]
Though man may be kept ignorant, he cannot be made ignorant.” As soon as people see through a mystique, its power evaporates. For instance, said Paine, in an image that prefigures The Wizard of Oz, “Monarchy always appears to me a silly contemptible thing. I compare it to something kept behind a curtain, about which there is a great deal of bustle and fuss, and a wonderful air of seeming solemnity; but when, by an accident, the curtain happens to be opened, and the company see what it is, they burst into laughter.”
[. . .]
Events proved Burke tragically right in thinking such an outcome unlikely, however. The individual’s store of reason is indeed modest, as Burke had argued—man being more a reasoning than a reasonable animal—and men behave morally not because they are naturally pacific and cooperative, or because their reason tells them how to treat their fellows, but because the beliefs they inherit from their long-developed culture impel them to behave in socially useful ways. With those beliefs stripped away, men will commit violence on their neighbors, unless controlled by force.
[. . .]
Gouverneur Morris, who had come to Paris on business in 1789, stayed, and became America’s minister to France in 1792, formed a particularly acid view of the culture of the French: “The great Mass of the common People have no Religion but their Priests, no Law but their Superiors, no Moral but their Interest.” Take these away, and “Tyranny” or “Anarchy” will result, Morris predicted—and, in fact, both ensued.
[. . .]
the Framers of the American Constitution had seen clearly what they called the “depravity of human nature,” and, in forming a government powerful enough to afford society the protection it needs from man’s natural aggression, both foreign and domestic, they recognized that the officials who would wield that force would be as imperfect as anyone else and thus likely to become oppressors. Hence they sharply limited their authority to what was absolutely essential for effective government, and they set the various branches of government in tension with one another, so that each would serve as a watchdog against any attempt of the others to overreach. They recognized as well that society is a collection of individuals, all with equal rights but with competing interests and passions, so they strove to poise interest against interest, to prevent any single group from invading the rights of other groups or individuals.
[. . .]
[Paine noted] the French revolutionaries seized “power before they understood principles. They earned liberty in words, but not in fact.”

http://www.city-journal.org/2013/23_4_urb-thomas-paine.html

MYRON MAGNET
Tom Paine’s Two Radicalisms
And their consequences—for his era and ours
Autumn 2013
Vol. 23, No. 4

Denying Reality By Intimidation

[From article]
During most of my lifetime the Democrats have been so openly committed to despotic government that anyone who claims to value liberty, and yet still supports them, deserves only pity or contempt.
[. . . ]
the elitist faction media, in all its aspects (news, education, entertainment), has for several decades now taken pains to make the word “conspiracy” into a byword for irrational or insane thinking. In fact what is irrational is to assert that it is insane to apply to human affairs a way of thinking routinely accepted as sane and necessary in the physical sciences, especially given the fact that human beings appear to be far more capable of deliberate deception than stones or fig trees.

http://www.wnd.com/2013/03/in-defense-of-conspiracy-thinking/

DEMOCRATIC DESPOTISM
IN DEFENSE OF 'CONSPIRACY THINKING'
Exclusive: Alan Keyes notes drawing inferences regarding the state is perfectly rational
March 14, 2013

Declaration of Independence

Have you ever wondered what happened to the 56 men

who signed the Declaration of Independence ?

Five signers were captured by the British as traitors,

and tortured before they died.

Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned.

Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army;

another had two sons captured.

Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or

hardships of the Revolutionary War.

They signed and they pledged their lives, their fortunes,

and their sacred honor.

What kind of men were they?

Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists.

Eleven were merchants,

nine were farmers and large plantation owners;

men of means, well educated,

but they signed the Declaration of Independence

knowing full well that the penalty would be death if

they were captured.

Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and

trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the

British Navy. He sold his home and properties to

pay his debts, and died in rags.

Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British

that he was forced to move his family almost constantly.

He served in the Congress without pay, and his family

was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him,

and poverty was his reward.

Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer,

Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton.

At the battle of Yorktown , Thomas Nelson, Jr., noted that

the British General Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson

home for his headquarters. He quietly urged General

George Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed,

and Nelson died bankrupt.

Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed.

The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few months.

John Hart was driven from his wife's bedside as she was dying.

Their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill

were laid to waste. For more than a year he lived in forests

and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his

children vanished.

Remember: freedom is never free!

Failure of Public Education Kills American Heritage

[From article]
"Historian David Lowenthal says of heritage: "By means of it we tell ourselves who we are, where we came from, and to what we belong." Increasingly, we don't know and don't want to know. "Never forget" is an appropriate admonition for victims of atrocities. "Never remember" is a strange and ominous admonition for a nation somebody or other once called "the last best hope of earth."

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/how_we_killed_history_jhfCwZoLYZukvqrbCf7xON

How we killed history
Rich Lowry
New York Post
Last Updated: 1:56 AM, June 18, 2011
Posted: 11:04 PM, June 17, 2011

Violent Overthrow of Government

The important issue in the campaign is in the last paragraph. The Declaration of Independence states:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. [. . .] But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/texassouthwest/stories/DN-broden_22tex.ART0.State.Edition1.33278a9.html

Republican congressional candidate says violent overthrow of government is 'on the table'
12:00 AM CDT on Friday, October 22, 2010
By MELANIE MASON
The Dallas Morning News
mmason@dallasnews.com

* * * * *

http://www.wfaa.com/news/politics/Broden-on-population-control-Nazis-and-revolution-105484458.html

Broden on population control, Nazis and revolution
by BRAD WATSON
WFAA (Dallas/Ft. Worth TX)
Posted on October 21, 2010 at 6:24 PM
Updated yesterday at 11:37 PM

Obama Acts Contrary to the Declaration of Independence

Contrary to the Declaration of Independence, Harvard University teaches its students that they are superior beings and that others should obey what they are told to do. Elitism shares that philosophy with Socialism and Communism. Obama demonstrates how an elitist leader acts, saying one thing and acting to keep the unwashed separate from the elite leaders.

[From article]
"In declaring that "all men are created equal," it insists that there's no such thing as a natural ruling class."

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/declaration_for_the_ages_DUoYf9voa7vM4NEhILRqfJ

Declaring not just a break with Britain, but a new nation devoted to liberty: The signing of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia.
" title="Declaring not just a break with Britain, but a new nation devoted to liberty: The signing of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia.
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Declaring not just a break with Britain, but a new nation devoted to liberty: The signing of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia.

Declaration for the ages

Remember the ideas of Independence Day

Rich Lowry
New York Post

Last Updated: 4:48 AM, July 3, 2010

Posted: 12:26 AM, July 3, 2010

Declaration of Independence (Original)

http://www.nypl.org/events/exhibitions/declaration-independence-7

One of two original copies of the Declaration of Independence is on display at the New York City Public Library. Deleted sections can be seen. One was a denunciation of slavery which was deleted to get the support of southern states. See link above.