Only part of the article part you get the drift...
Frederick Bastiat or Auguste Comte who'd you support or neither?
June 30, 2007
by Clay Barham
One reason we call America the New World is that it's something new and different when compared to the Old [which was those parts known to Europeans, Asians and Africans before the discovery of America]. The people that landed in New England, almost 400 years ago, set the tone for what America was to become, after their short experiment with theocracy failed. They provided the pioneers who spread out west and south to shape and build their lives in a new way, free of the restrictions imposed by Old World monarchs and clerics.
As they spread out from New England, many Christian circuit and tent revival preachers followed. They reinforced the moral code of the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule that defined New England pioneers. A tradition took root, rising from beliefs, habits, customs and ways of doing things handed down from one generation to another. Those traditions resulted in positive behaviors by most everyone in society. Families were the core communities. As family members produced and gained levels of prosperity never realized in the Old World, the communities in which they prospered similarly prospered. They proved prosperity comes only from freedom, not dictatorship. Honor and personal responsibility prevailed.
Those pioneer Americans were free to think out of the bubble and act out of the box. They created what they needed. They traded with their neighbors. They invented, built and developed their lives without intervention by bureaucrats. They made their own laws, law enforcement officers, courts and jails all close to the centers of their communities. They established local home-rule government to prevent injustice. They built schools and insisted all children be educated to their own interests, skills, talents and aspirations. They kept their world close in.
When reading the Declaration of Independence, you can see the expression of a tradition of how society and government is structured. Jefferson and others did not discuss and formulate something people had to accept anew, but reflected established beliefs from the 150 years prior. The philosophers of the Enlightenment had nothing to do with the way Americans lived to that time. Americans created their unique Tradition. They stood on their own feet, supported their own families and their own communities. Those who prospered helped those who did not. They educated all the children. They encouraged creative thinking, invention and entrepreneurial dream chasing. That tradition built the wealthiest, most productive and creative nation in the world, the only one based upon individual liberty and freedom.
In the past 100 years, supporters of the Old World have been trying to alter the American society by altering its founding traditions. They are building new traditions based on individual weakness, fear, anger, envy and greed, to assure them of power for years to come, over a nation, which will result in poverty and misery.
Frederick Bastiat, said, "All men's impulses, when motivated by legitimate self-interest, fall into a harmonious social pattern." This was the nature of the American tradition. America proved free men and women are capable and have no need of dictatorship. Old World advocates disagree, believing men are incapable of living harmoniously without an iron fist guiding them. Auguste Comte, representing Old World thinking, did not believe anyone should pursue his or her own interests... He insisted that, "Community alone is the only reality and individuals simply an abstraction. The individual should not do what he or she wants to do." Comte, like most leaders of the Old World, yesterday and today, see men and women as bees and ants, none of whom could survive doing their own thing.
Frederick Bastiat or Auguste Comte who'd you support or neither?
June 30, 2007
by Clay Barham
One reason we call America the New World is that it's something new and different when compared to the Old [which was those parts known to Europeans, Asians and Africans before the discovery of America]. The people that landed in New England, almost 400 years ago, set the tone for what America was to become, after their short experiment with theocracy failed. They provided the pioneers who spread out west and south to shape and build their lives in a new way, free of the restrictions imposed by Old World monarchs and clerics.
As they spread out from New England, many Christian circuit and tent revival preachers followed. They reinforced the moral code of the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule that defined New England pioneers. A tradition took root, rising from beliefs, habits, customs and ways of doing things handed down from one generation to another. Those traditions resulted in positive behaviors by most everyone in society. Families were the core communities. As family members produced and gained levels of prosperity never realized in the Old World, the communities in which they prospered similarly prospered. They proved prosperity comes only from freedom, not dictatorship. Honor and personal responsibility prevailed.
Those pioneer Americans were free to think out of the bubble and act out of the box. They created what they needed. They traded with their neighbors. They invented, built and developed their lives without intervention by bureaucrats. They made their own laws, law enforcement officers, courts and jails all close to the centers of their communities. They established local home-rule government to prevent injustice. They built schools and insisted all children be educated to their own interests, skills, talents and aspirations. They kept their world close in.
When reading the Declaration of Independence, you can see the expression of a tradition of how society and government is structured. Jefferson and others did not discuss and formulate something people had to accept anew, but reflected established beliefs from the 150 years prior. The philosophers of the Enlightenment had nothing to do with the way Americans lived to that time. Americans created their unique Tradition. They stood on their own feet, supported their own families and their own communities. Those who prospered helped those who did not. They educated all the children. They encouraged creative thinking, invention and entrepreneurial dream chasing. That tradition built the wealthiest, most productive and creative nation in the world, the only one based upon individual liberty and freedom.
In the past 100 years, supporters of the Old World have been trying to alter the American society by altering its founding traditions. They are building new traditions based on individual weakness, fear, anger, envy and greed, to assure them of power for years to come, over a nation, which will result in poverty and misery.
Frederick Bastiat, said, "All men's impulses, when motivated by legitimate self-interest, fall into a harmonious social pattern." This was the nature of the American tradition. America proved free men and women are capable and have no need of dictatorship. Old World advocates disagree, believing men are incapable of living harmoniously without an iron fist guiding them. Auguste Comte, representing Old World thinking, did not believe anyone should pursue his or her own interests... He insisted that, "Community alone is the only reality and individuals simply an abstraction. The individual should not do what he or she wants to do." Comte, like most leaders of the Old World, yesterday and today, see men and women as bees and ants, none of whom could survive doing their own thing.
