IS AMERICA STILL
A NATION?
Pat Buchanan: “Are we passing on
the house we inherited –– or
observing its demolition?”
by Patrick J, Buchanan
[NOTE: Pat Buchanan was twice a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination and the Reform Party's candidate in 2000. He is also a founder and editor of The American Conservative. Buchanan served three presidents in the White House, was a founding panelist of three national TV shows, and is the author of 11 books. His latest is ”]
In the first line of the Declaration of Independence of July 4, 1776, Thomas Jefferson speaks of “one people.” The Constitution, agreed upon by the Founding Fathers in Philadelphia in 1789, begins, “We the people …”
And who were these “people”?
In Federalist No. 2, John Jay writes of them as “one united people … descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs. …”
If such are the elements of nationhood and peoplehood, can we still speak of Americans as one nation and one people?
We no longer have the same ancestors. They are of every color and from every country. We do not speak one language, but rather English, Spanish and a host of others. We long ago ceased to profess the same religion. We are evangelical Christians, mainstream Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Mormons, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists, agnostics and atheists.
Federalist No. 2 celebrated our unity. Today’s elites proclaim that our diversity is our strength. But is this true, or a tenet of trendy ideology?
After the attempted massacre of Republican congressmen at that ball field in Alexandria, Fareed Zakaria wrote: “The political polarization that is ripping this country apart” is about “identity … gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation (and) social class.” He might have added – religion, morality, culture and history.
Zakaria seems to be tracing the disintegration of our society to that very diversity that its elites proclaim to be its greatest attribute: “If the core issues are about identity, culture and religion … then compromise seems immoral. American politics is becoming more like Middle Eastern politics, where there is no middle ground between being Sunni or Shiite.”
Among the issues on which we Americans are at war with one another – abortion, homosexuality, same-sex marriage, white cops, black crime, Confederate monuments, LGBT rights, affirmative action.
Was the discovery of America and conquest of this continent from 1492 to the 20th century among the most glorious chapters in the history of man? Or was it a half-millennium marked by mankind’s most scarlet of sins: the genocide of native peoples, the enslavement of Africans, the annihilation of indigenous cultures, the spoliation of a virgin land?
Is America really “God’s Country”? Or was Barack Obama’s pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, justified when, after 9/11, he denounced calls of “God Bless America!” with the curse “God Damn America!?”
With its silence, the congregation seemed to assent.
In 1954, the Pledge of Allegiance many of us recited daily at the end of noon recess in the schoolyard was amended to read, “one nation, under God, indivisible.”
Are we still one nation under God? At the Democratic Convention in Charlotte to renominate Barack Obama, a motion to put “God” back into the platform was hooted and booed by half the assembly.
With this July 4 long weekend, many writers have bewailed the animus Americans exhibit toward one another and urged new efforts to reunite us. Yet, recall again those first words of Jefferson in 1776:
“When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them …”
Are we approaching such a point? Could the Constitution, as currently interpreted, win the approval of two-thirds of our citizens and three-fourth of our states, if it were not already the supreme law of the land? How would a national referendum on the Constitution turn out, when many Americans are already seeking a new constitutional convention?
All of which invites the question: Are we still a nation? And what is a nation? French writer Ernest Renan gave us the answer in the 19th century:
“A nation is a soul, a spiritual principle. Two things … constitute this soul, this spiritual principle. One is the past, the other is the present. One is the possession in common of a rich legacy of memories; the other is present consent, the desire to live together, the desire to continue to invest in the heritage that we have jointly received.
“Of all cults, that of the ancestors is the most legitimate: our ancestors have made us what we are. A heroic past with great men and glory … is the social capital upon which the national idea rests. These are the essential conditions of being a people: having common glories in the past and a will to continue them in the present; having made great things together and wishing to make them again.”
Does this sound at all like us today?
Watching our Lilliputians tearing down statues and monuments, renaming buildings and streets, rewriting history books to replace heroes and historical truths with the doings of ciphers, are we disassembling the nation we once were?
“One loves in proportion to the sacrifices that one has committed and the troubles that one has suffered,” writes Renan, “One loves the house that one has built and that one passes on.”
Are we passing on the house we inherited – or observing its demolition?
Happy Fourth. And God bless the USA.
~ § ~
We ask you please to CONTINUE sending your prayers, best thoughts, and fondest hopes for the recovery of our friend
JERSEY McJONES
now suffering with advanced,
metastatic cancer.
THANK YOU!
GOOD NEWS!
I know for a fact that our concern for him has encouraged Jersey, and is much appreciated both by him and his wife.
We are no longer "one nation and one people," and I say that as the grandson of Slavic immigrants who integrated and became part of that "one nation and one people."
ReplyDeleteThe banishing of words, toppling of monuments and revising history are right out of Mao's Little Red Book.
A veneer of civility and a still functioning system of laws supported by police are all that keeps the leftist rabble from becoming the avatars of Pol Pot.
The American Mansion is not being destroyed. A more apt metaphor is conjured by picturing driving through a once-prosperous part of town that is now run down. Our American Mansion stands there, sagging on its foundation, grand room threadbare and peeling, its many rooms sub-divided into a welter of tiny apartments, each blaring its own discordant sounds and odors.
It does look that way when we pay too jay attention News Reports from the ENEMEDIA but I've kept optimism alive because The People –– the REAL people of this nation –– those who do the heavy lifting that keeps the Engine of our Economy running, while provideing needed good and services –– NOT the dropouts the drifters, the druggies, the third generation, parasitic ghetto-welfare class, the acadenics, the bureaucrats, the "activists," most politicians, the ENEMEDIA, and those in the so-called "helping professions" who in truth PREY on the weak and unfortunate –– not any of THEM, but those who do REAL work, raise famiilies responsibly, and have a strongly developed sense of DUTY to their families, their communities and their country, and most of all those who derive JOY from doing well in any field of endeavor.
DeleteThe majority are good or at least well meaning, and it is they who got Donald J. Trump into the White House –– the first president since Ronald Reagan. with a positive, vigorous, can-do, "damn-the-torpedoes-full-speed-ahead" attitude. –– the atti]tude that MADE the USA great to begin with.
We can't go back in time, –- nor should we want to ––, but we CAN relearn the lessons of the Past, cherishing what was best, and discarding policies and developments that led to dissatisfaction and degeneracy.
We must RESIST any mode of thought –– or individual –– who advocates increased Centralized Power, and do our best to reverse the trend toward globalization.
ISOLATION is not the answer, of course, greater COOPERATION among sovereign nations should be the goal, but NEVER a pokucy of CAOITULATiON to the loss of our SOVEREIGNTY –– or that of any other country except those who qualify as Failed States or Rogue Nations.
Positive Thinking may seem "naive" or "unrealistic" to many who tend to look on the dark side –– always a temptation ––, but the sedulous development of a determinedly sanguine outlook is our only hope of overcoming the satanic negativity the seems now to dominate Education and all forms of Mass Communication.
"RESIST the DEVIL, and HE WILL FLEE from YOU."
Watching our Lilliputians tearing down statues and monuments, renaming buildings and streets, rewriting history books to replace heroes and historical truths with the doings of ciphers, are we disassembling the nation we once were?
ReplyDeleteThey will never build a new nation that even begins to equal the county which our Founders intended.
The Lilliputians are uninterested in history. In fact, they have been taught to focus on only the negative aspects of America's history -- every nation has negative aspects, BTW -- and the result is that they want to erase history. Social justice!
Yesterday I was reading about the financial woes of Colonial Williamsburg, one of my favorite places to visit. It is apparent that visiting Colonial Williamsburg is not of as much interest now as 30 years ago. Visiting Colonial Williamsburg is down by over 50%. Sad.
Please review my polemical poem Kipling's Little Man - or - Bolshevism Revisted. It begins: "A leftist caught in doubt lifts up his head to shout ..."
DeleteI believe it outlines accurately and succinctly the belligerent, short-sighted, self-defeating mentality of these so-called "Lilliputians."
Im afraid many people see a piece of verse, and react to it the way I tend to respond to a page of statistical grapgs and charts –– the SKIP right OVER IT! ;-)
As a sometime poet and maker of verse, myself, I believe poetry may have the capacity to convey profound thoughts and home truths more compactly and succinctly than acres of dense, academic prose larded with large patches of dry, uninterpreted "data."
[On a personal note I have to say i appreciate your takng time in your teaching to explore poetry in some depth –– something I doubt very much that modern "educators" even dream of doing anymore in this dreary, technology-driven age where "speed" is considered a primary goal to such an extent that it often severely diminishes the quality of what we attempt to communicate.]
Important words to remember:
ReplyDeleteThe greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.
-- Alexis de Tocqueville
I wonder if the Lilliputians have even heard those words!
Note: more words from Alexis de Tocquiville.
Thanks for giving us easy access that the great treasure of wisdom from de Tocqueville, AOW.
DeleteThe following stood out to help remnd us once again that "The more things change, the more they remain the same."
"An American cannot converse, but he can discuss, and his talk falls into a dissertation. He speaks to you as if he was addressing a meeting; and if he should chance to become warm in the discussion, he will say 'Gentlemen' to the person with whom he is conversing."
~ Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859)
PS: I never realized before that de Tocqueville's life had been so short –– only 54 years.
out!
ReplyDeleteDuring a speech President Trump delivered before thousands in Warsaw’s Krasinski Square, the crowd repeatedly broke into chants of USA, USA, USA!
Yes, Doris. Wasn't that great?
DeleteBut tell me, what did yu mean by starting with the wourd "out" with no capital letter or any modifiers?
Believe it or not we prize clarity here more than we do agreement.
Thanks for the update on Jersey, FT! He's missed!
ReplyDeleteThank you for caring, Thersites. I know for a fact that it has helped Jersey's morale to know that some of us feel affection for him and empathize with him in his present plight.
DeleteThe current pack of Liberals/ Progressives are not just a sad collection of shameful Lying,
ReplyDeleteCrooked, hypocrites, they're also rotten bunch of cowards afraid of seeing the creeps in their party that they constantly vote for as the frauds, and Incompetent "leaders" that they are.! Take that old Bitch Nancy Pelosi for example, who is hated and mocked all around the country. And that ugly fool Maxine Waters, or Loretta Lynch, Susan Rice, Chuck Schumer, and the creepy dumb ass Al Frankenstein, and throw in Crooked Hillary and Bill Clinton, and you have a party of imbeciles!
Sal, I wish you –– and many many others –– would turn away from indulging in such outbursts of bitter vituperation –– not because I disagree necessarly with your opinion, but because I think vituperation is not only uncharitable it is DESTRUCTIVE –– the polar opposite of CREATIVE, INGENIOUS and PRODUCTIVE.
DeleteI too feel frustrated and disappointed with the quality of governance that currently burdens us, demoralizes us, and drains our energy as well as our fiscal resources with fruitless endeavor, BUT constantly moaning about it with spiteful rhetoric will not advance the cause of liberty and justice one iota.
Don't be like Miniver Cheevy.
... Miniver Cheevy, born too late,
Scratched his head and kept on thinking;
Miniver coughed, and called it fate,
And kept on drinking.
~ E. A, Robinson (first published 1910)
Now, let's modify it, and make it particular to you –– and the many others who do little but constantly cast aspersions.
Sal of the Blogs, expressed much hate,
Scratched but could not stop the itching;
Sal lashed out, and cursed his fate,
And kept on bitching.
I'm not putting you down, Sal, I'm only trying to jog you out of a RUT, so you can get moving and help make America great again.
FT, someone has to counter punch what the Lefties, and the Progressives publish, I can't blame Sal for doing so... I have done it myself and I will continue to.
ReplyDeleteWell go right ahead, Tom, that's your right and privilege, but I am POSITIVE it's a BIG waste of time.
DeleteI don't want to appear hostile to you or Sal or any of the many who do little but LITANIZE endlessly, but I won't allow much of it to appear at this blog, because of the reasons I gave Sal above.
Far be it from me to tell anyone else how or what ti think, butr I firmly bekuieve in The POWER of POSITIVE THINKING.
The Left built its case on –– and draws it strength from –– NEGATIVITY, CYNICISM, BELLIGERNCE and DESTRUCTION. If WE do the same, it naturally follows that WE will become just like THEM.
THAT means that THEY will have WON.
I don't believe you want that.
THINK about it, please.
Trump continues stacking up the wins while the left's attacks fail. Hell you had the president of Poland calling FAKE NEWS on the media yesterday that's outstanding seeing other presidents follow Trump's lead. Liberals are in real trouble here, president Trump is their worst nightmare good job Mr. president
ReplyDeleteTRUTH may be stranger than fiction, TOM, but it is also STRONGER.
DeleteI think it helps a great deal always to keep that in mind.
Great Point Tom, and a very good Blog Mr Thinke
DeleteThank you.
We keep trying to improve, but have to admit it's an uphill battle
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ReplyDeleteIf you're going to repeat something someone else has already said in the SAME thread, yu should least ACKNOWLEDGE doing it, and explain WHY.
DeleteIf you hope to participate here, the very least you could do would be to READ what the OTHERS have said before putting in your two cents.
We all need to LISTEN more and SPEAK LESS.
Please talk WITH us, and avoid talking AT us. It makes for much better conversation.
We are still a nation, but just barely. We have to take education back over these next 4 years.
ReplyDeleteIt's probably going to take much longer, Kid, but we have start somewhere, and theres no time like the present.
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DeleteLeonora Van Dusen
ReplyDeleteWas Pat Buchanan ever that good looking? That picture must be a hundred years old.
Comey gives clinton aides immunity without getting even a dust bunny for it. Then he has their laptops destroyed. Then he agrees with Lynch to call the investigation a 'matter'. Then, he clears clinton of any wrongdoing which is not in his job description protecting clnton and lynch.
ReplyDeleteWho was comey working for? He has been working for the clintons since the early 90's.
Imagine the clintons have the freakin FBI chief in their pocket. Al Capone would give them both blowjobs out of respect.