December 27, 2007
by Clay Barham
I want you to consider and reflect upon two great world revolutions. Two revolutions generated great changes in how people, in this world, live and relate to one another. I am not speaking about the American and French Revolutions, however. The American Revolution was a resistance movement.
Americans lived free for almost 150 years before King and Parliament got around to reestablishing their authority and rule. Americans all but forgot rulers from far away and so rejected it. In the French Revolution, people lived under tyranny of the few ruling the many. They just changed the names and people ruling them. That does not count as a revolution, as no real change occurred.
I am talking about true revolution, where big changes became possible for all people in community, nation and world. There were but two of them in the history of the world.
The first and greatest revolution was the teachings of a great philosopher who said all of us are free to make our own choices. Individuals had the responsibility and right to choose how they would live and not have that choice imposed on them by any earthly bully, brute or ruler. We would have to change our thinking and lives to one where we love our neighbors, as they themselves, and treat others, as we want them to treat us. That was revolutionary. Governing ourselves was the fundamental necessity for liberty.
The second revolution was a new society living under those teachings. A small group of immigrants settled in a land far from their place of birth. It was a New World for them. In the Old World, from whence they came, freedom did not exist. The philosopher's teachings was usurped, contaminated and could not gain traction.
In their New World, immigrants followed the philosopher's teaching and built healthy families, communities and a nation. The society they built was based on all men are created equal and given, by their Creator, not some earthly ruler, their individual rights to life, liberty and pursuit of their own happiness, as Jefferson described it 150 years later.
In that New World, reflecting the two great revolutions, men and women found they and their families were the centers of their own existence. Their happiness and prosperity came from their own ingenuity and efforts. They shared willingly by trading with and helping their neighbors and communities grow.
They governed themselves.
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As they prospered, so to did their nation. The resulting nation, separated from the Old World, began on different principles. Individual freedom, not community defined and ruled by elite, was more important. This was a bottom-up movement by a people to organize their own lives in liberty and self-government. It had never been tried before.
Those in the Old World, who would reestablish a tyranny of the few over the many from outside our nation, are beating back the defenders of American values from the inside. Today, they are changing untutored American minds and getting closer to their objective.
How do they beat us from within? First, they dilute and destroy the message of that philosopher who gave us our unique meaning. Second, they rewrite history and alter the experiences given us from those early settlers who founded our nation. They are successful at it. They write history books to tell the story in distorted ways, and use those distortions in our schools. American youngsters, deprived of America's unique history, cannot cite or defend the teachings and the experiences that made us what we are.
We, as a nation, celebrate the philosopher's birth on Christmas day and the settler's success on Thanksgiving. In each celebration, however, mocking the philosopher and the settlers is common, and few are old enough to rise in their defense. America's founding ideals are disappearing. The elections of the 21st century deal mostly with acceptance or rejection of American core values.
Those opposing American culture, traditions and values are rising more to power today. Might be nice to draw a line in the sand and declare your position before it is too late.
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Clay Barham [send him email] has been a candidate for the California legislature and a stand-in talk show host for ABC. He was educated in physical and behavioral sciences, with a Ph.D. in sociology. He is the author of five books, with his latest being Foundations of Modern American Conservatism and Liberalism: The Roots of Freedom and Tyranny. Visit his website at http://www.claysamerica.com.
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