Freedom: The History Of An Idea, J Rufus Fears
The Foreign Policy Research Institute is one of those think tanks that believe the United States should police the world. These are some of my comments to a recent article by Professor Fears.
Professor Fears, I enjoyed your essay about freedoms. I agree that too many people take freedom for granted. I assure you I do not. I treasure my past and present freedoms, which is why I speak so vociferously about protecting them.
You also made a good point about the desire for freedom not being universal. Nor do I think freedom is our natural urge. Our natural state is to survive and procreate. We will chose what we think is the best way to achieve our natural state with the least effort. Our choices may be to submit to kings, popes or some other committee of protectors, or take the hazardous path of independence and responsibility. I happened to believe individual freedom is the best way for the most people to achieve their natural desires without harming others.
Young people born into a caste system in India for centuries accepted their fate. Today many young people in America think it is normal to have so much of their lives regulated. These young people do not have an innate desire for freedom, as you correctly stated.
Prof Fears wrote, "We are engaged in what I believe is a noble crusade to bring freedom to the world. But that crusade is faltering now, in part because we have failed to ask some very fundamental questions."
Professor Fears, the noble crusade you wish for is faltering because it never should have started. You and others keep trying to apply this invasion and occupying of other countries with the colonies wanting independence, our own civil war, and WW II. The only comparison is now we are the "British Empire" who are occupying countries that want us out.
Priof Fears wrote, "Thus our national freedom is founded on absolute truth and upon abelief in God."
How can you say it was founded upon a belief in God? No where is God mentioned in the original Articles of Confederation, or even in the U.S. Constitution. The Declaration of Independence does not say anything about the "Nation" being created by God or for God. It refers only to individuals being created, and by anyone's "creator". It does not say a new nation should be formed, but that the colonies shall be "free and independent states." It is not law. It is only a declaration.
The founders were readers of John Locke, who had lived through some of England's bloody 17th century. It was Locke who inspired the ideas of freedom! Our founders just continued the ideas. Locke's ideas grew and flourished in the same bloody soil they were planted. Without the 1776 revolution, the sun would still not set on the British Empire, and Gary would now have his Universal Health care because we would still be part of the United Kingdom.
Prof Fears wrote, "Napoleon learned this in Spain. History should have taught us to be skeptical of the claim that we would be welcomed as liberators in Iraq."
Prof Fears wrote, "First, there is the legacy of the Old Testament, the idea that we are a nation chosen by God to bear the ark of the liberties to the world. Our Founders believed that deeply. Abraham Lincoln believed it deeply. Franklin Roosevelt believed it."
Lincoln loved the New Testament but abhorred slavery? He killed 600,000 people to preserve Big Government, which is why he is so admired.
So, after centuries of allowing slavery, according to the Old Testament, God finally comes to his senses and decides freedom is important! God must have read John Locke's, "Two Treatises of Government" (1690).
To think one is chosen by God is typical arrogance of people filled with delusional self adulation and importance. It leads them into traps like South Korea, South Vietnam, and now Iraq.
Charles Tolleson
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The Newsletter of FPRI's http://www.fpri.org/
Marvin Wachman Fund for International Education
FREEDOM: THE HISTORY OF AN IDEA by J. Rufus Fears Vol. 12, No. 19 July 2007
posted by Charles Tolleson @ 4:48 AM
2 Comments:
In my search for truth I've covered much of the ground you've covered in your lectures, but I began with the promise that the Creator was logical. Ergo the illogical were not God created. One more major factor: As far as I can speculate only one human ever asked to be born. Ergo, how does the Creator judge us?
Jack Meyer
541 Becton Rd.
Havelock, NC 28532
Bene U C'51
Our nation was founded on a belief of God. Our nation was not founded on the belief that every one must believe in that God. It is mentioned in the first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence:"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."
On the point of God allowing slavery then magically taking it away, You have to take into account free will. To be able to sin is essence free will. Every religion believes it is the chosen religion. If not why join it? Why be a part of something that is not sure of connection to God? I have no plans of joining any religion but if I ever did, I sure would not join one that stated we might be the chosen people of God. We are not sure but.... we will let you know when we find out. Also arrogance in believing you are the chosen people will only be arrogance when proven they are not.
I myself am not a religious man, but I will make an argument in defense of the beliefs that you address in this post.
Thanks,
J
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