I think I have identified the core issue of our time. I don’t mean this as a disparagement, just an observation, but the people on the political Left are not really “Americans”. At least not in the traditional and historical sense of the word.
I say this because Americans have always had certain values and today’s Leftists believe the polar opposite of most of these values:
- Personal liberty (Freedom of religion, speech, press, to bear arms/defense, etc.).
- Leftists want to shut down free speech. They have been trying to suppress free speech on campus, on social media, on the TV news, and they do not fight for free speech with all their might as I do for them. There’s an old saying by true Americans “I do not agree with your opinion, but I will die defending your right to say it”.
- Self-Government (We are responsible enough to determine our own future, govern our own affairs, we are not subordinate to the government in any way, like in a monarchy, and want only the smallest government possible).
- Leftists want the largest government possible and believe that we should rely on the government for every solution.
- Equality (All individuals must be treated fairly and should have equal opportunities in the pursuit of happiness, but this in no way means equality of outcomes like income).
- Leftists mistakenly believe equality means equal outcomes without equal effort, talent, or skill.
- Individualism & Self-reliance (The core unit is the individual, people are important for who they are as individuals, and what they contribute, not from which family they come from or which group they belong to, or their skin color). Leftists value the group identity most, often based on race, political affiliation, or biological sex.
- Capitalism & Competition (Brings out the best in people, leads to the best solutions, innovations, and prosperity, the opposite of socialism).
- The Left believes in socialism.
- Morality (Americans place a high value on morality from our foundation as a place of religious freedom and view the world in terms of right and wrong, good and evil.)
- One of the most important values the Left has is secularism (non-religious/atheistic), and often and harshly demean and make fun of Christians. They do not hold the traditional Judeo-Christian values and morality, the glue that has held our nation together for so long. This lack of a solid moral grounding puts the entire American system at risk.
In fact, there are many examples of our founding fathers talking about morality explicitly and repeatedly because it is so important:
John Adams:
“We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.“
“Public virtue cannot exist in a nation without private virtue, and public virtue is the only foundation of republics.”
“With respect to the vital need for virtue in order to establish and maintain a republic, the founders were in complete harmony.”
Benjamin Franklin:
“Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom.”
Samuel Adams:
“Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt. He therefore is the truest friend of the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue.”
George Washington:
“Virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government.”
“Human rights can only be assured among a virtuous people.”
Thomas Jefferson:
“No government can continue good but under the control of the people; and … their minds are to be informed by education what is right and what wrong; to be encouraged in habits of virtue and to be deterred from those of vice … These are the inculcations necessary to render the people a sure basis for the structure and order of government.”
James Madison:
“To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical [imaginary] idea.”
Patrick Henry:
“A vitiated [impure] state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, is incompatible with freedom.”
Unfortunately, the realization that Leftists do not share American values means that it is they who should change or else America, and Americans will become something much different than they have historically been. And that, as some are beginning to see, is a country with less freedom and more tyranny.