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A Providential Irony

I was pondering our nation's birthday today. I had been explaining to Youngest Daughter (age 5 1/2) what it means to say that July 4 is America's birthday, a locution she likes a lot. And as happens to a lot of conservatives, I found myself forced to admit in the privacy of my own mind that the forefathers' grievances against George III were pretty minor compared to, well, our own present grievances against the present regime. For the life of me I couldn't make the story of the Declaration come out as a good guy/bad guy story. So I'm afraid it was a bit boring. ("You see, the colonists really didn't like some of the things the English had been doing. Taxes and so on that they were being made to pay. And so they decided that they would be a country of their own and govern themselves instead of being English colonies." Borrring. Fortunately Y.D. likes acquiring information, so she wasn't too bored.)

Others more erudite than I can make a plausible case--compounded of things like Thomas Jefferson's highly unfortunate admiration for the French Revolution, for example--that there was nothing terribly conservative about the American Revolution, the legitimacy of Burkean distinctions notwithstanding.

Be that as it may, it does a soul good to try to imagine where we'd be if it hadn't been for the American Revolution. Of course, ceteris never is paribus. Who knows--the entire world might have been governed by Spain and France for a while, followed by a Muslim takeover. Alternative histories are fun to write but rarely very well-supported. But this much I think is clear: America's present relative friendliness to values Christian conservatives hold dear is in no small part a function of America's independence from European control. From hate speech laws to difficulties with home schooling to outright decadence, America has a lot to be proud of in the way of her divergence from European norms.

So it is a providential irony that what may have begun as something hot-headed and anti-conservative has, in the end, delayed the action of the virus of post-Christian evil that is taking over the world at large. Here in America we may hope to preserve the greatness of the West for longer than it will be preserved elsewhere. We may hope to do this because we still retain some degree of national sovereignty and distinctiveness. And as a great man once said, "For my part, I shall not wholly fail of my task...if anything passes through this night that can still grow fair or bear fruit and flower again in days to come. For I also am a steward[.]"

God bless America!

Comments (27)

Of course, ceteris never is paribus.

Actually, it should be: cetera are never pares.

I hate to see butchered Latin, especially on a website like this one!

Apologies, Vladimir. I was treating the words as though the entire phrase had been borrowed wholesale into English.

Actually, the founders had some quite serious grievances like the use of soldiers to police the population. A good argument could be made that we have gone back to that point with the way that American law enforcement is so regimented and militarized that it is much closer to the military than the sort of civilian peace officers it once was (let alone the original Sheriff+Posse Comitatus). The taxes were only the beginning of their issues with the crown.

I know what you mean, but it actually seems an awful lot worse now, with the centralization, the complete decimation of the 10th amendment (when was the last time a federal law was struck down on that basis?), and busy-body bureaucrats poking their noses into every corner of business and many corners even of non-business life, with the prospects for it only to get worse. The British colonies sound like pretty laissez faire places by comparison. And as I said, the romance of some of the founders with revolutionary France was highly unfortunate.

One area were I think it incontestable that America is superior to Europe is law enforcement. In Europe you can rob a man at gunpoint, and even add an aggravated assault, and even with conviction get off without jail time. In most American states aggravated assault and armed robbery will earned you a decade in prison. In Britain recently a couple murdered a toddler, and ended up sentenced to less than 20 years combined. By contrast, in America such a crime will expose you to at least 50 or 60 years, or in most cases, life with parole or capital punishment.

Lydia: "I was treating the words as though the entire phrase had been borrowed wholesale into English."

And, if you hadn't, the allusion would have gone over the heads of those of us who have no Latin. I know the phrase "ceteris paribus;" but the conjugation of the words? Not on your life.

Mr Cella, that disinclination to punish serious and horrific crime is the logical end-result of the categorical refusal to impose capital punishment when execution is the morally appropriate punishment.

And the categorical refusal to impose capital punishment when execution is the morally appropriate punishment is the logical end-result of that holier-than-God (and, ultimately, dehumanizing) attitude which replaced punishment with therapy.

compounded of things like Thomas Jefferson's highly unfortunate admiration for the French Revolution, for example

But Lydia, didn't the French Revolution come 13 years after our own? And wasn't the important French assistance rendered to us at the pleasure of the French crown?

Our current state of affairs is considerably better than that of Europe, but is still greatly damaged from where it ought to be. I agree that the courts fail to use the 10th amendment and this is causing a great deal of the problem. Three other problems have reared their heads: (1) the states gave up a significant part of their exercise of sovereignty when they agreed to the amendment replacing election of senators by state legislature to election by the people themselves. Election by the state legislature ensured (at least a little) that the senators' view on matters was to reflect the state itself as a party to the federal order, not just the citizens. We have now proven that without this check on the federal gov., there is nothing that prevents the 3 branches from continual power grabs at the expense of state government powers.

(2) The Supreme Court, and lower courts, ceased to view the Constitution as a written law, and instead act as if it is an unwritten law and therefore does not have a determinate meaning already given to it. This goes hand in hand with the failure of judges to view law as a restraint upon government, and the Constitution itself as the basic cornerstone for limited government altogether.

(3) The Marbury v Madison result of accepting the Supreme Court as the ultimate arbitrator of law. This has erected the SC as the supreme body of government. The Constitution intended for their to be 3 co-equal bodies so each could check the others. There is nothing in the Constitution, or in the oath that the President takes, that provides that the President should, or even may, give executive force to a law that he confidently believes violates the Constitution, regardless of what the SC says. And Congress should long ago have impeached jurists who judge cases by acting as if they were legislators - that is clearly the kind of check power the Constitution granted to Congress, but they don't use this power.

Taking (3) together with (2), the we have been operating not under a regime of law as determined by legislators within limits set by (a) the ultimate written human law in the the Constitution, and (b) the Divine law, instead we operate under a smorgasbord patch-work of "case 'law' " as if judges give law, and with judges' whims about what the law should have been written to be instead of what law actually is, without restraint of either the Constitution or Divine law.

I have been reading some libertarian - anarchic blogs about how the Revolution and the founding of America was evil through and through, and their analyses just don't cut it - they are biased and weak-argued all over. While in some measure the Framers of the Dec. of Independence may have inflated some of their claims, they did not inflate the issue that the British crown and Parliament, both, saw fit to treat the colonies as second-class citizens/subjects, and to disregard the colonies' legislatures whenever it did not fit their view of things. So they effectively were trying to rule the colonies (a) not for the best interest of the whole conglomerate, but for the best interest of the home island, and (b) tried to do it from 3000 miles away as if they could judge local matters.

Yes, yes, of course the French revolution was later. But what was T.J. doing lauding it?

I agree with your last para., btw. It's just that I think things are worse now. Yet I don't recommend revolution.

Actually, the Constitution does not establish 3 co-equal branches of government. That belief is a Civics 101 myth which is intended to paper over the fact that the federal courts have usurped an authority and status which the Constitution does not give them.

Constitutionally, the federal courts – all of them, including the top court – are creatures of Congress.

Constitutionally, the President is the executor of the laws Congress enacts. The presidency is a powerful office, but it is not a kingship.

Constitutionally, The People are to keep Congress in check.

Sadly for constitutional government, The People have become accustomed to the promise of the politicians that everyman can live at his neighbor's expense.

Jefferson was lauding the French Revolution because Jefferson was a sleaze.

Anyone willing to go so far as to suggest that, under modern Just War Theory, the American Revolution was not a just war? It looks highly questionable to me, but I'm not a historian.

Wasn't the point of the DoI to make the case that the rebellion did meet Christian criteria of justice?

Yes, I think that was the point of it, although it was not, perhaps, designed to meet each just war criterion point by point.

I have read a couple of different arguments that the Revolution was not just, or was pushed for reasons of political power or financial gain, but I don't think those arguments work very well. And even where they throw up issues that seem doubtful to use here and now, concerns that might make us wonder whether the founders were quite correct in their decision process, I don't think they are sufficient to dislodge what I hold to be a presumptive assumption in favor of the founders:

Take men who are wealthy and had much to lose in rebellion - they generally will not rock the boat of state if not necessary (most of them did in fact suffer greatly in the war, and many never recovered their fortunes or former lives). These men should have been the most staunch supporters of the status quo, all else being normal. Take men who could, if they were so inclined, have grabbed much more power (e.g. Washington, who quelled a military coup designed to put him in charge) - they generally are not open to the charge that they were in it mainly for obvious nefarious reasons. So these men, clearly the most intelligent and capable around, neither were in it for profit & gain, nor for power. Therefore, it seems more likely than not that their motives were, roughly, just what they claimed. And if the most intelligent, thoughtful, informed and prudent men of the day judged revolution necessary, I think their judgment on the spot probably more trustworthy than ours from 230 years later.

Unless someone comes up with historical facts that are not generally known, I don't see a reasonable argument for the notion that the Revolution was unjust.

Thank you, Tony. I'm wondering, however, whether one could use the same logic to conclude that the Confederacy was likewise just in declaring its own independence.

Jefferson claimed that his support of the French Revolution was shared by the vast majority of the American people:

"I have expressed to you my sentiments [of support for the French Revolution], because they are really those of 99 in an hundred of our citizens. The universal feasts, and rejoicings which have lately been had on account of the successes of the French shewed the genuine effusions of their hearts."

That same letter of Jefferson's contains some related, disturbing sentiments as well. I hadn't quite realized the utopianism in Jefferson. I wonder if he had been alive in the 1920s through the 60s or 70s, would he have been one of those misguided intellectuals who found enthusiasm and hope in the Russian Revolution and who continued to repress their ambivalence in the face of ever more information about Stalin?

"The liberty of the whole earth was depending on the issue of the contest, and was ever such a prize won with so little innocent blood? My own affections have been deeply wounded by some of the martyrs to this cause, but rather than it should have failed, I would have seen half the earth desolated. Were there but an Adam and an Eve left in every country, and left free, it would be better than as it now is. I have expressed to you my sentiments, because they are really those of 99 in an hundred of our citizens."

The point, of course, is not the "freedom" Jefferson is erecting into a sine qua non, but the definition of that freedom by those who would "desolate half the Earth" in order to realize a Heaven on Earth that turns out to be a Hell whose road is paved with good intentions.

http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/592/

Thank you, Tony. I'm wondering, however, whether one could use the same logic to conclude that the Confederacy was likewise just in declaring its own independence.

The common pro-South claim today is based on the fact that the secession was about "states-rights". Although it was more complicated, the primary reason that states' rights were an issue, though, was slavery. I have a lot of trouble seeing that each individual state should have had the right to retain slavery as a way of life as a just cause for war.

In any event, even if I were wrong about that, it is still the case that the South went about their secession in a quite aggressive manner - e.g. they just plain took the federal forts on their territory, without (except in the case of Ft. Sumter) even an attempt to negotiate the issue. As far as we can tell from their actions, they wanted to be offensive and push the envelope to the very brink of war. This is not the attitude of people "just mind their own business" and trying to live within their own sphere of rights.

Hesperado,

That letter was written about a good 6-7 months before the reign of terror.

"That letter was written about a good 6-7 months before the reign of terror."

Lots of men of that day were positive about the French Rev. to one degree or another, before things got out of hand (Wordsworth is a famous example).

There are two sides or aspects to Jefferson's thought; one side is the liberal, freethinking one, while the other is the small government, agrarian, local emphasis. The two are not necessarily in conflict, but neither are they dependent on each other. In the South, for instance, the agrarian, localist side of Jefferson's thought took root, while his freethinking liberalism never gained much of a foothold.

Ilion: "Wasn't the point of the DoI to make the case that the rebellion did meet Christian criteria of justice?"

Tony: "Yes, I think that was the point of it, although it was not, perhaps, designed to meet each just war criterion point by point. ..."

And thus the care with which I phrased the question.

Jefferson was the bad sheep of the "founding brothers."

Lots of men of that day were positive about the French Rev. to one degree or another, before things got out of hand (Wordsworth is a famous example).

And to my knowledge, Jefferson didn't continue to support the French Revolution once it became clear that it produced a murderous state. Hesperado is free to prove me wrong on that point, but I have never heard any inkling about Jefferson continuing to support the French Republic once the Reign of Terror started. In that sense, he was like the few leftists who saw the Soviets begin to torture and murder their own people and who actually turned against the Soviets.

Mike T,

According to this study on Jefferson:

"...when the execution of the French king (Louis XVI) brought with it a spreading Reign of Terror in Paris and the excesses of the jacquerie in the rural areas, Jefferson at first suspected that the reports had been exaggerated by the anti-French groups in Britain and America. When he could no longer doubt the extent of the revolutionary bloodshed, he fell back on his basic position -- that while he deplored any aspects of the violence, it was better in the total span of history to have some deaths and injustices happen, and get them over and done with, than to have the mass of the people continue to suffer under despotism."

http://books.google.com/books?id=ITB4S9WfHqMC&pg=PA51&lpg=PA51&dq=french+revolution+reign+of+terror+thomas+jefferson&source=bl&ots=wB_gDQrs5Y&sig=vCNvmG8pwQ_HVyW1HioQnXmHX8g&hl=en&ei=GkZSSoHBEcK0tgekm-SuBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2

In this one respect at least, Jefferson was the opposite of a visionary -- actually blind to the new utopian Gnosticism that the French Revolution unleashed, later to unfold in worse deformations in the Communist and Fascist revolutions of the 20th century.

I actually think that Jefferson had gotten more severely critical of moderate methods as time went on, so that that the Jefferson of 1776 was less bent on total re-organization of human society than the Jefferson of 1796. And after his presidency, during his long retirement (and in the course of long discourses with John Adams), he again modified some of his views. So one would need to be careful of "which" Jefferson one spoke of. Generally, we grant a thinker the right to develop his ideas, so the most quintessential Jefferson position should be that taken from his later life. In some cases he sounded very much like the rabble-rousing Thomas Paine, a true social revolutionary (nearly an anarchist), but in practice he did not actually govern that way.

Lydia: The British colonies sound like pretty laissez faire places by comparison.

It's nice to think that the US might have been better off had they not revolted, but we need only look at the UK to see how things might have turned out. On the other hand, Roman Christendom has done a pretty good job analyzing the justice of the revolution.

Paul: By contrast, in America such a crime will expose you to at least 50 or 60 years, or in most cases, life with parole or capital punishment.

Yeah, you can go to jail for a decade for failing to pay your taxes, too. Or have your door knocked down and your spouse killed by a militarized swat team. Or have your car or home searched without cause or warrant, and your property confiscated. You're kidding yourself if you think you're safer in the US than in Europe. Government poses a far greater threat to your liberty and physical security than the random criminal. Google the blog Pro Libertate for some examples and analysis of this.

Illion: Jefferson was the bad sheep of the "founding brothers."

I cannot think of a President we have had since who has been better. Jefferson Davis, perhaps.


Or have your door knocked down and your spouse killed by a militarized swat team.

And the best part is, they can terrorize or even kill you and your spouse over bad information and they get a "good faith pass" on being held criminally responsible. Anyone who reads up on the state of law enforcement and isn't absolutely sickened by what they can get away with is a sick human being.

It's nice to think that the US might have been better off had they not revolted, but we need only look at the UK to see how things might have turned out.

That puts my point in the main post in a nutshell, so I'm glad we're in agreement.

However...

You're kidding yourself if you think you're safer in the US than in Europe. Government poses a far greater threat to your liberty and physical security than the random criminal.

There I disagree and think you are letting your libertarianism run a bit wild. Especially when you include "physical security." All you have to do is read up about gang violence and thuggery on, for example, the Brussels train system, or knife violence in the UK, the growth of Muslim gangs, and so on. Certainly we have _very_ dangerous cities here in the U.S., but we also have a much stronger notion of the right of self-defense, which comes in useful quite often. I just heard last night of an attempted armed bank robbery in some Western state which was immediately stopped by armed citizens on the spot. Numerous such stories could be related. In the European countries the crazy pacifist notion that you are to blame if you resist evil is a good deal stronger. Now England is thinking of trying to *outlaw ordinary knives* and force everyone to use "safety knives" in order to try to stop the rash of knifings. That sort of thing used to be a reductio of gun control ("Are you going to blame the kitchen knife for knife crime?"), but you can't do a reductio on liberals. They are always one step ahead. And w.r.t. self-defense and, as Paul points out, punishment of serious crime, the liberals are several steps ahead in Europe and the UK.

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