The Critical Critic Loc: Turtle Island

In the strange dialectic of Rous­seau the mystery of freedom lies in the forcing of others to be free: a perversion so immense that it has captured many minds in its beguiling grasp.

The Founding Fathers of the United States suffered no such il­lusions, for they believed man ca­pable of self-responsibility. As Dr. Felix Morley expressed it in The Power in the People: "To put the power in the people implies faith. It implies that the component in­dividuals are, for the most part, already endowed with self-control. This Republic is grounded in the belief that the individual can gov­ern himself. On the validity of that belief it will stand—or fall."

This is a recognition of the es­sential nature of freedom: that it cannot be imposed from without; it must exist and thrive in the minds and hearts of men or not at all. It is on this foundation that the Founding Fathers sought to construct a nation. Though the structure is important, they knew, and we must remember, that free­dom can only survive if men cher­ish and prize it above all else.

James Madison wrote in The Federalist (No. 39) of "that hon­orable determination which ani­mates every votary of freedom, to rest all our political experiments on the capacity of mankind for self-government."

Benjamin Franklin voiced this same thought. The story is told that he was asked shortly after the Philadelphia Convention concern­ing the nature of the product which their labors had produced.

"We have given you a Republic, madam, if you can keep it," is re­puted to have been the old gentle­man’s reply.

Usually this anecdote is recalled to emphasize that our government was conceived as a Republic, not a democracy, suggesting that the key to the continuity of our concepts of liberty and individual freedom lies in the preservation of this governmental structure. This accounts for much of the ef­fort to protect the integrity of the Constitution by detailed an­alysis, laborious research, and scholarly writing, and explains why such importance is given to the balancing of power among the three repositories of Federal au­thority and between the national and state governments.

That this structure has contrib­uted immeasurably to the preser­vation of liberty is not to be de­nied. Yet, there was more, an es­sential ingredient—present in the past, but fading today.

This ingredient is the spirit and vision of freedom captured by the Declaration of Independence and manifested in the Constitution, the fire of liberty which burns in the minds and hearts of individ­uals. Here is the foundation upon which this nation was built, and the only foundation upon which it can endure.

Thomas Jefferson knew that the strength of our Republic lay in the people’s fidelity to the vision of 1776, to the spirit of freedom: "When that is lost," he wrote, "all experience has shewn that no forms can keep [people] free against their own will."

Thus viewed, Franklin‘s "if you can keep it" assumes greater sig­nificance than is usually attributed to it. The structure was only as strong and enduring as man’s will to be free.

As Judge Learned Hand phrased it: "Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no con­stitution, no law, no court even can do much to help it."

Here then lies our challenge. The governmental framework is important, perhaps vital; but even the best governmental structure is merely a paper barrier against tyranny unless there are those who value freedom.

Madison, Jefferson, Hand, and Franklin, among many others, have clearly seen this. They knew that freedom lives and breathes in the hearts of men, not in a con­stitution nor a formal code of law. At best these forms can only serve to preserve the conditions propi­tious to the continued life of the vision.

But when the vision goes, the structure soon follows. Our pri­mary task is to rekindle that vi­sion. Should we succeed, we need worry little about the structure. For the will to be free provides its own structure; and where free­dom is found, men manage to cre­ate and preserve the framework around which it can grow.

By :Wyatt B. Durrette Jr. (1965)

(Mr. Durrette [was] pursuing graduate studies in Political Science at Johns Hopkins University.)

Radiance3

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The vision of the Founding Fathers was brilliant. They created a constitution perfectly meeting the needs of freedom that day, today, and forever. We must be vigilant to defend as it travels down to the later generations.

Now, beware of the democrats vision to change our country to socialism. Our constitution won't function effectively that way, because our freedom is taken, replaced to enlarge the power of the government as we become subservient to their desires to enslaving us.

Please continue to vote all RED in 2020, to preserve our constitution.

Rose42

Another good one CC!

I fear people are losing the will to be free especially the young as they look more and more to government to take care of them and solve their problems.

The Critical Critic Loc: Turtle Island

The Critical Critic Loc: Turtle Island

Thank you, Rose. And I agree... I’m convinced it’s by design. A decent example would be AOC... college educated but, totally clueless as to how our government is to operate. Dumb everyone down, and change government without anyone being the wiser.

Lonewolf

The sad part of all of this the white man has never known true freedom. And most likely never will.
The only free man to walk this Earth was the North American Plains Indian and when you found him you couldn't wait to exterminate him. One thing that has always pissed me off about civilians is simply this while our troops are in the four corners of the planet fighting for our freedom the Cowardly civilians left behind give our freedom away without a fight without a struggle without even a protest.

Big Kahuna

Obviously, even Indians of other tribes hated each other and went to war to erradicate them. They would have exterminated themselves if given half the chance. The only free people in this world were Adam and Eve until they sinned and forfeited their freedom. All others have been slaves to a sin filled nature. You can see that nature all around us and it includes every individual on Earth. Start with yourself , lonely one, and clean your act up 1st before pointing fingers at the white race, black race, Asian race or some fictitious race.

Lonewolf

Indians raided other tribes to get women!
While the civilized white men in Europe marched 50,000 men onto battlefields stood toe-to-toe and shot each other until their generals were too tired of drinking cognac and decided to call it a day when shooting each other was not enough then they would order bayonet charges!
and these after these battles thousands laid dead. and they did it over and over and you call these people civilized I'm a hell of a lot freere then you'll ever be

working class stiff Loc: N. Carolina

Had to give this some thought. So, as usual, thank you.

It would be foolish to argue against the likes of Franklin and Madison. So I won't. Given the times in which they lived, it makes perfect sense that they would locate the source of freedom within the individual. Their experience with kingship, aristocracy, and papacy would necessitate a realization that true freedom is inherent in individuals.

My issue is that times change and that the environment that led to their reasoning no longer exists. An eastern seaboard with 13 colonies and about 3 million people is a totally different United States than the one we inhabit today. They lived in an agricultural environment with yeomen farming dominating the country. We live in a different environment, with industrial scale agriculture, transportation, communications, and manufacturing.

I think we are much more inter-dependent than in their times and that that inter-dependence might lead to a different understanding of the 'will to be free'. For example, let's take a drive down a crowded interstate highway. I have often observed that an individual car whose driver expresses their freedom by speeding and frequent lane changes leads to a continuous display of brake lights by those around that car. So while that driver may be getting where they are going faster, they are also slowing down all the traffic around them. If that driver were to drive the prevailing speed (let's say the speed limit) everyone else would be getting where they are going faster and more safely.

I suspect our founders had no way to visualize the industrial scale pollution of our society. How, in their times, could rivers catch on fire, or one of the Great Lakes not produce edible fish? Or the removal of mountain tops for coal? In their time, individuals could only do a limited amount of damage , if it could be called damage at all. But we are able to clear cut whole states of their forests, or plant industrial scale mono-culture that can lead to desertification. Could they have foreseen air pollution on such a scale that everyone who breathes in a certain area is subject to respiratory concerns?

In short, it's not that I think the founders were wrong. In fact I think it is very important for Americans to remember that individual freedoms are important and that we must exercise them. But, I don't think it a fault, or something to be avoided, to recognize that we are inter-dependent and part of a larger enterprise. The definition of 'the will to be free' might also do well to change with the times. Just as the founders recognized that in their own time.

Hope you are well. I look forward to your response.

Big Kahuna

So the moral Indians raided the other tribes to get their women? And just what were they going to do with these stolen Indian women? Bake cherry pies?? Your mind is warped lonely one. Why do we not raid other communities around our neighborhoods and take their women? Could it be that our culture has a higher moral code? Western civilization ushered in the greatest advancement in human history. Apparently you were left behind.