Saturday, January 08, 2005

A Comparison.....

It is striking how opposite Americanism and Nazism are, in some ways. One seeks to destroy the "Jewish influence" and the other wanted to link up to it.

"Puritanism had two main elements: the Calvinist belief in predestination with associated religious doctrines, and what we might call a “political” doctrine. The “political” goal of Puritanism was to reach back to the pure Christianity of the New Testament—and then even farther back. Puritans spoke of themselves as God’s new chosen people, living in God’s new promised land—in short, as God’s new Israel."
Americanism—and Its Enemies
By David Gelernter

I came across this sometimes.

Example,
"Fellow-citizens, the ark of your covenant is the Declaration of Independence. Your Mount Ebal, is the confederacy of separate state sovereignties, and your Mount Gerizim is the Constitution of the United States. In that scene of tremendous and awful solemnity,narrated in the Holy Scriptures, there is not a curse pronounced against thepeople, upon Mount Ebal, not a blessing promised them upon Mount Gerizim, which your posterity may not suffer or enjoy, from your and their adherence to, or departure from, the principles of the Declaration of Independence, practically interwoven into the Constitution of theUnited States. Lay up these principles, then, in your hearts, and in your souls - bind them for signs upon your hands, that they may be frontlets between your eyes - teach them to your children, speaking of them when sitting in your houses, when walking by the way, when lying down and when rising up - write them upon the doorplates of your houses, and upon your gates - cling to them as to the issues of life - adhere to them as to the cords ofyour eternal salvation. So may your children'schildren at the next return of this day of jubilee, after a full century of experience under your national Constitution, celebrate it again in the full enjoyment of all the blessings recognized by you in the commemoration of this day, and of all the blessings promisedto the children of Israel upon Mount Gerizim, as the reward of your obedience to the law of God."

("The Jubilee of the Constitution," A discourse delivered at the request of the New York Historical Society in the City of New York, on Tuesday, the 30th of April, 1839, being the fiftieth anniversaryof the Inauguration of George Washington as the President of the United States, on Thursday,the 30th of April, 1789;
by John Quincy Adams

(entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1839, by Joseph Blunt, for the NewYork Historical Society, in the District Court of the Southern District of New York, at 56)

Notice the way he linked the Constitution to the Declaration and the Declaration to monotheistic religious roots. I am reminded of the way in which Lincoln would cite the Declaration more than the Constitution, as the Constitution was a political document of compromise. The modern Leftist judge, by contrast, is one step away from declaring the Declaration "unconstitutional." Actually, they essentially do that already. It is ironic, for it was constitutional compromises that defined some groups of people as three-fifths human, etc. For the tolerance of compromise!

I wonder if perhaps America did what America was raised up to do and now will decline. Or if there is more to do. It's something to think about.

1 comment:

mynym said...

If you talk to European socialists their hatred of America is linked to its monotheism.

The Democrats are sympathetic to European socialists because they tend to share their anti-monotheism tendency.

Tolerance and all that, you know....