05 Jul America’s 250th Birthday – A Collection of Wisdom for America…and for Dealing with Islam
Clarity and moral courage are needed
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
Till it’s gone
—Joni Mitchell, 1970
Though written in protest of a parking lot built in a beautiful part of the ‘paradise’ of Hawaii, Mitchell’s sentiment resonates as a universal call for moral and spiritual awakening in the context of celebrating America’s 250th birthday.
The United States of America has been the most powerful and most prosperous country in the history of the world because her greatness is found in her goodness. And her goodness is found in her Judeo-Christian foundation: the American birth certificate that is called the Declaration of Independence.
Younger generations of Americans seem to be in extreme danger of not realizing what they’ve got (in the privilege of living in America) till it’s gone…swept away in a new frenzy over the latest iteration of socialism and communism that promises everything but inevitably and always delivers nothing but misery.
But there is hope.
The meaning of the call to awakening has been understood throughout the world long before the recent decades of leftist/Marxist/communist and now Islamist propaganda have brought America and freedom to the precipice of being lost to history. Consider these words from 1920, written by French author Hilaire Belloc:
“The modern world imagines that it has outgrown religion. It has done nothing of the kind. It has merely forgotten it. And because it has forgotten it, it no longer understands itself. Men do not realize that the whole framework of their moral judgments, their political habits, and even their intellectual methods were formed within a Christian society and cannot exist long outside it. When that framework breaks, they will not find themselves enlightened, but bewildered; not free, but enslaved; not rational, but confused.”
Not long after Belloc wrote those words, US President Calvin Coolidge weighed in with profound insight…exactly 100 years ago today:
“. . . About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. … If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.
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Our forefathers came to certain conclusions and decided upon certain courses of action which have been a great blessing to the world. Before we can understand their conclusions, we must go back and review the course which they followed. We must think the thoughts which they thought. Their intellectual life centered around the meeting-house. They were intent upon religious worship. While there were always among them men of deep learning, and later those who had comparatively large possessions, the mind of the people was not so much engrossed in how much they knew, or how much they had, as in how they were going to live. While scantily provided with other literature, there was a wide acquaintance with the Scriptures.
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…the Declaration of Independence…is the product of the spiritual insight of the people. We live in an age of science and of abounding accumulation of material things. These did not create our Declaration. Our Declaration created them. The things of the spirit come first. Unless we cling to that, all our material prosperity, overwhelming though it may appear, will turn to a barren sceptre in our grasp. If we are to maintain the great heritage which has been bequeathed to us, we must be like-minded as the fathers who created it. We must not sink into a pagan materialism. We must cultivate the reverence which they had for the things that are holy. We must follow the spiritual and moral leadership which they showed. We must keep replenished, that they may glow with a more compelling flame, the altar fires before which they worshiped.” (italics added)
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A direct threat to the enduring power and protection of the Declaration of Independence—i.e., to the survival of human freedom in America and the world today—is the presence and rise of Islam in America.
Islam is a brutal totalitarian ideology obscured by the label of religion. The explicit teachings of this ideology effectively deny that men and women are created equal by God; they deny that men and women have God-given rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; they deny that free men and women are capable of and entitled to govern themselves.
Islam’s totalitarian ideology calls for Islamic conquest of the world; for a world governed by Islamic sharia. This is not hyperbole or interpretation or extrapolation; this is the doctrine of Islam. And while there are moderate Muslims, there is no moderate Islam.
Consider for a moment just how radically different the future of the world looks if driven by the ideology of Islam.
At the conclusion of World War II, America could have conquered the world. Germany and Japan were utterly defeated and could have been permanently taken over; and the threat of the use of more atomic bombs would have brought every other nation earth into ‘submission’ to America. America could have been the most all-encompassing global empire the world has ever seen or even contemplated. But that is not what happened.
America engineered the Marshall Plan to help these now former enemies and allies of Western Europe to rebuild after the war and, as General Colin Powell and many others have noted, all America asked for from these countries was enough land to bury the American soldiers who died in the effort to liberate them. America provided similar post-war assistance to Japan.
This conduct of America is in exceedingly stark contrast to the behavior of Islamists, whose mission is to conquer. Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon—to name a few—are all historically Christian countries conquered and now controlled by Islam. The people of those countries are killed, converted or taxed as subordinated subjects—i.e., in every case, they submit to Islam.
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The good news is that Texas is stirring and awakening and beginning to lead the nation and the world in resisting Islam. This stirring is being led by thousands of informed, patriotic Texans, and some elected officials, though many more elected officials need to stop focusing on the short term—i.e., the next donation for the next election—and instead come up the learning curve quickly and join this existential fight. This is truly a make-or-break America issue, a threat worthy of pledging today’s equivalent of ‘our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor’ to protect and preserve America as founded.
There is an American ‘base’ that does understand what is at stake, and the spirit and unity of that base is what actually delivered America in 1776, in 1865 (the conclusion of the Civil War), in 1918 and 1945 (the conclusions of WWI and WWII), and in 1989 (the conclusion of the Cold War and the eventual, related dismantling of the Soviet Union). It endures to this day.
One signal of how it endures in Texas is found in the recent release of the movie “Remember the Alamo—Don’t Sharia My Texas”, and more specifically, with the concurrent release of “The Alamo Pledge”, which reads as follows:
I pledge to God the Father and to Jesus Christ the Son that I will never retreat, I will never surrender, and Texas will never become an Islamic State, so help me God.
Serious, patriotic students of American history recognize and feel the spirit of that pledge. It’s not about politics. It transcends politics and is beyond the control of politicians. It’s about America and Christianity, and the blessing of human freedom found in them.
The Americans who embrace it are still a majority. And to reprise Joni Mitchell, these Americans are well aware of what they’ve got. They are not going to stand idly by until it’s gone.
Eric Georgatos