The 3 Pillars of the American Idea
Posted by freedomforall 3 weeks, 4 days ago to Philosophy
Excerpt:
"Unalienable rights and self-evident truths are the two core ideas of the American founding.
Expand the number of core ideas under consideration to three and you get unalienable rights, self-evident truths, and free market economics.
You could call them the three pillars of the American Idea.
These three pillars are the direct gifts to America of three great thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment: Francis Hutcheson, Adam Smith, and Thomas Reid.
Their thinking — known today as “common sense realism” — took America by storm at precisely the right time to shape America fundamentally."
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Yes, rational white men are responsible for individual liberty and, later, for ending slavery.
Irrational traitors have been 'leading' the sheep toward their enslavement for 165 years.
Time to end that trend. D.C. NIFO
"Unalienable rights and self-evident truths are the two core ideas of the American founding.
Expand the number of core ideas under consideration to three and you get unalienable rights, self-evident truths, and free market economics.
You could call them the three pillars of the American Idea.
These three pillars are the direct gifts to America of three great thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment: Francis Hutcheson, Adam Smith, and Thomas Reid.
Their thinking — known today as “common sense realism” — took America by storm at precisely the right time to shape America fundamentally."
-------------------------------------------
Yes, rational white men are responsible for individual liberty and, later, for ending slavery.
Irrational traitors have been 'leading' the sheep toward their enslavement for 165 years.
Time to end that trend. D.C. NIFO
Article 1 "Section 1. That all men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety..."
Property rights are just as inalienable as Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of happiness.
Life, Liberty and Property.
But because Slaves were property, they changed their minds because they did not want this used to justify keeping slaves! Sounds good, but I don't know the truth of this. But it makes more sense than "Happiness"...
Socrates c. ?- ~399 B.C. "The unexamined life is not worth living."
(Some thoughts, not enough checking maybe.)
The set of two original pillars is a good way to put the definition, it states the need as deriving from the core of human awareness.
free market economics , suggest replace by, or add, the right to private property.
But note similar conclusions are reached by Ayn Rand from the premises of
existence, identity, consciousness.
The expression rational white men may raise an eyebrow, but facts must be faced. Slavery is found thru-out human history, in cultures that say they have not had it, I'd argue they had forced labor by different names.
Large scale intellectual opposition did not occur until the eighteenth century,
mainly in the US and England. Slavery was outlawed in England in 1815, that led to war. Looking again at the article, three great thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment, I said England, better to say UK.
Great wealth was created in UK from the slave trade, no wonder abolishing by law was so hard. In the US, the institution of slavery was even more embedded, in the south anyway, it took a nasty war to abolish. The argument that economic realities would have got rid of it has merit, but how long would it take?
Centralization of power in Washington and enslavement of the residents of the
southern states to support northern industrial elites was the goal.
Justification of Lincoln's war crimes has been a propaganda cult for 160 years.
Read The Real Lincoln by Thomas J. DiLorenzo.
support northern industry that could not compete with European factories.
In 1828, the northern manufacturers' congressmen passed the so-called
"Tariff of Abominations" and that almost resulted in several states leaving the
union, SC in particular objected, iirc. Those tariffs were reversed over the years
that followed.
Lincoln was supported to the presidency by the northern manufacturers and
ran on imposing the tariffs for their benefit, effectively stealing from other
Americans in the south.
It was clear that such tariffs would cause the south to refuse to consent to being robbed.
Lincoln knew that war would be the likely result.