Tag: history

Liberty Or Death

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How many people, like me, are only familiar with little more than the final sentence of this speech by Patrick Henry? It contains very little in the way of political policy or ideas, but a very good sketch of the character of the men who built our nation. How many citizens today are too busy to be bothered with understanding or maintaining the liberty which those men held in such high regard?

. . . it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth . . . For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it.

As I read the words of the speech I began to ask myself, would we even recognize if our freedom were under assault today as theirs was then? It is especially important considering that our freedom is most likely to be abridged, not by a government based across the ocean from us, but one in our own land; one often held up as an example of government over what many call the most liberated society in history.

They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot?

If we do recognize a real danger will we have the courage to take action or is our character such that we would bow to the conventional wisdom which would undoubtedly tell us that we are too weak to make a change?

It should be no wonder to any of us that a patriot would say “give me liberty, or give me death,” if they have seen, as our founders had, that the war was already begun and that the options for an equitable peace had already been exhausted.

Tags documents, history

General

Magna Carta

I don’t intend to review these historical documents each day, but I do want to get started and I decided to go basically in historical order. Ever since I wrote yesterday I have been intrigued by the first of these documents – the Magna Carta or Great Charter. Prior to today I had never given more than a cursory look at the actual text of the Magna Carta, mostly for me it has just been an ancient document that helped establish the foundation of freedom upon which the Constitution was built. It appears that there were two versions, one given in 1215 and then a revised version – omitting some sections – in 1225.

The Magna Carta establishes the independence of the church from the control of the king although I would have to study my history to see what that meant in practical terms. It also addresses the laws pertaining to inheritance and the payment of debts protecting heirs (especially heirs under the legal age) and debtors from having their property taken unduly. It also established the rights of widows to own common property upon the deaths of their husbands.

Based on the 13th section (the original document had no such breaks) it appears that the people of the city of London had gained some freedoms that were unusual for the time. The Magna Carta dictated that all cities should enjoy the same privileges as London had obtained.

I find what appear to be precursors to a judicial system that allowed for standardized punishment, juries (four local knights were the prescribed jury here) and possibly a system for appeals. Free men were given the right of a trial by a jury of their peers before they could be imprisoned or stripped of their rights. Also included was a provision that fines should be “only in proportion to the degree of his offence[sic], and for a serious offence correspondingly, but not so heavily as to deprive him of his livelihood.”

Government officers are prevented from taking goods for the government without the consent of the owner and appropriate compensation. They were also required to produce witnesses besides themselves in order to put a person on trial.

Standards of measurement and value were to be established throughout the kingdom.

Except in time of war, merchants were to be allowed free passage into and out of the country – so long as they did not swear allegiance to another country.

A congress of 25 barons was to be established (perhaps a precursor to the House of Lords) which had the authority to seek redress if the king should break any of the provisions of the Magna Carta. They also had the authority to seize anything save the members of the royal family if redress was not given within 40 days after they notified the king of any offense against this charter. I particularly like this portion:

Any man who so desires may take an oath to obey the commands of the twenty-five barons for the achievement of these ends, and to join with them in assailing us to the utmost of his power. We give public and free permission to take this oath to any man who so desires, and at no time will we prohibit any man from taking it. Indeed, we will compel any of our subjects who are unwilling to take it to swear it at our command. (emphasis mine)

More historical information – such as the fact that it was renounced soon afterwards by the king and that many parts of it were repealed in the 18th and 19th centuries (no wonder the American colonies broke away in the late 18th century) – can be found in Wikipedia under Magna Carta and 1215. Another interesting fact was that it was (closely) based on the Charter of Liberties given by Henry I.

Tags documents, history

culture

A New Birth of Freedom

How do we rekindle the flame of liberty in the heart of all American citizens?

I have been thinking about that question. It continues to disturb me that high turnout in an election approaches 50% participation. That is evidence of the disengagement that indicates a passive (or absent) desire for freedom unlike the active desires of Americans at the founding of our nation. I have said before that I would be happy with the outcome of any election where turnout topped 70%.

As this has been churning through my mind trying to come to some approach to the question, I started doing some searching through the things I have written before. Most powerfully I found my Independence Day post from last year quoting American by Choice that “true American citizens are made and not born” and that “Americans, both natural and naturalized, must be trained–they must be made.”

I went on to talk about how to transmit this “made” American culture through the way we celebrate our national holidays. Naturally my focus then was on the 4th of July. The more I think about it though, we should be celebrating our American culture by participation in the rituals that made America what it is – that would be exercising our rights to vote and participate in the various levels of government.

A week later I revisited the topic after I had found a list of what could be considered the founding documents of our nation. To that list I would add the Federalist Papers which I found among my searching today. That gives me 103 documents to study and react to as I continue my search for how we make Americans so that we may experience an end to our Uncivil War and find – as Lincoln sought during our Civil War:

“. . . that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” (Gettysburg Address)

Tags discourse, history, liberty, patriotism

One Year

Post author By David
Post date August 14, 2007
3 Comments on One Year

Today marks one year since I started this blog. Considering that I had done significant blogging in the three years before that you would have thought it would be stable, but I have been through 2 blogging platforms, 3 name changes, and a variety of styles. In that year this blog has had:

311 posts
360 comments
1355 spam comments caught

That’s an average of 6 posts per week. I’m hoping for one per day in the future. I don’t anticipate any name changes or platform changes in the future, but I am working on making a new style that will not have the major bugs with Internet Explorer that this one has. Hopefully it will have all the functionality of my current style when I get it up but I expect it to have a nicer layout and improved navigation. I look forward to an even better second year than this first year was.

Tags history, site, themes

culture

American Greatness

While writing about Independence Day I began thinking about what makes a nation great. I thought about how we can become greater, and how we can lose our greatness. It seems to turn on our perspective. If we believe that we are great and spend our energy and time focusing on what we have to offer we become greater. If we focus on our perceived weaknesses we lose the greatness that we have.

There is value in admitting our imperfections, but if we focus on those imperfections and idealize what is happening in other parts of the world we will become like the rest of the world. If that is what we want then we must not be a great nation because the rest of the world has something that we want. Sadly on the 4th of July I found a post from a self described “Progressive” stating that we should do away with displays of national allegiance.

If we are to become greater we must recognize what we have to offer the world. What we offer the world is our demonstration of the responsibilities and rights that are inherent in individual liberty. The key is “individual.” Our greatness does not stem from our form of government – that has been copied and modified in many places with varying degrees of success. Our greatness lies in individuals striving to better themselves. We often talk about individuals and families striving for better economic situations, but that is a two dimensional picture. What we should be talking about is the individual liberty to make choices, wrong choices and right choices, and accept the consequences of those choices. We should be emphasizing the responsibility of people in our country to overcome discrimination, not the right of people to play the victim.

I am coming to believe that individuals striving to better themselves does not include individuals striving to use the law to make others participate in improving the economic situation of those around them. As John Stossel put it, “when people are ordered by the government to be charitable, it’s not virtuous; it’s compelled. . . . Moral action is freely chosen action.”

In my Independence Day post I concluded that remembering and reciting our historical founding were keys to becoming real Americans – Americans who have bought into the idea of America and American liberty. As I was looking for ideas on a new title I came across U.S. History.org with a list of 18 historical documents which help define America and what we stand for. These range from the Magna Carta in 1215 to the American’s Creed in 1918. Go have a look. I believe that familiarity with these founding documents will help to create a framework for common understanding of our historical context which then shapes our current issues and discussions.

Tags citizenship, history, liberty, patriotism

culture

Uncivil War

Today is the anniversary of the official surrender at Appomatox that ended the Civil War in 1865. That random tidbit struck home to me as I was reading The Passing of the Armies by Joshua Chamberlain (who officially received the arms and flags of the Confederate army in surrender). I had not realized until I was getting to that climax of the book that I was reading of the events on the day 142 years after this all happened. When I realized that, it really made me think about the results of that war and the example of humanity displayed during that surrender.

Now, a century and a half later, we are engaged in a war that is, in many ways less civil than that one. I am not talking about Iraq or Afghanistan – I am talking about America. Our political and social ideologies are every bit as divided as they were in the 1860’s. We have seen the same rancor and the same intensity of rhetoric for the last 13 years (or more) and it signals a deep rift in our nation. Like the war that brought about a rebirth in our nation, most of the citizens are able to live rather amicably with their neighbors, but our public discourse on ideas rages hotter and hotter when we feel free to express ourselves.

I ask myself, where is our Gettysburg, where the tide turns and we stop winding up our division and start winding down our conflict? Is it past? Or is it (more likely) yet to come? When we finally come to a resolution will we act with the dignity and honor displayed by the Union and Confederate soldiers? They honored each other with displays of respect and valued the courage displayed by their former enemies and forged again the bonds of national brotherhood even when they did not see eye to eye on some of the (semi)concluded issues.

Like the Civil War, I am confident that a resolution will come to the issues we face today which cause so much division among us. Will we be able to effect a better reconciliation than they did? We had to fight a second campaign after 100 years to bring further resolution to the questions of how all people should be treated and we still feel the effects of that divisive war.

Where is our President Lincoln or our General Lee who could fight so passionately and so honorably for the ideas they believed in and yet they held no malice for their opponent, only for the ideas they opposed?

What lies ahead for us? Is it possible that we can be passionate without being scurrilous?

Tags discourse, history, ideal, reactions, war

life

Anniversary

I should have been able to predict long ago what today would be like. I knew before I started reading the news today that there would be stories of memorial services where they would rehash the events of five years ago. What I failed to expect was how easily my own memories of that day would surface or the need I would feel to capture those memories.

I remember walking into work that morning and wondering why everyone was openly staring at a television set (I came in from behind the set so I didn’t see what was on). As soon as I got to my office and saw the headlines I was no longer surprised. I remember how nervous everyone was. I got jittery when the phone line went dead while talking to my wife that morning.

Nobody with a memory of that day would be surprised at the emotion tied to those events, but I still can’t figure out what is personally different between four years and five years. Socially I understand it. Five years is our second major chronological milestone, after 1 year and before 10, 25, 50 , and 100 years. It is an opportunity to look back and view events from an expanded perspective over the one we had in the heat of the moment. Personally I had expected that each anniversary would be a chance to reflect and that with each passing year the emotions would be a little less intense than they were the year before. Somehow I find that is not the case.

Last year, on September 11th, I was flying across the country on a plane. It was no big deal. I noted the significance of the date and remembered, somewhat mechanically, what had happened. I did not feel the closeness of memory that I have felt today. I find it interesting that five years distance has brought the memories closer to me than four years distance had done.

Tags history, reactions