The revolutionary principles of 1776 - government derives its power from the consent of the governed; governments are instituted to protect our individual rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; these individual rights come from God - has not yet reached the salons of Europe.
Washington understood how contrary these principles were to the thinking of Europe, and so he warned us to avoid entangling alliances. The regimes of Europe were not based upon principles, but power. Revolutions in France, Russia and Germany replaced old tyrants with new and worse tyrants - tyrants unrestrained by Christian conscience.
The regimes of Europe have never met our higher standard of legitimacy. Our first foreign war, against the Barbary pirates, is no different from our current war against Saddam Hussein. Like Lenin, like Hitler, like Napoleon, like the Barbary pirates, Hussein has only the legitimacy of violence.
Americans know that only one true nation exists: the nation of mankind as creatures of God. We know that only one true government exists for this nation: obedience to conscience given each of us by that loving God. Legalisms beyond these truths have no intrinsic value.
Our war with ?Iraq? is simply a law enforcement action by those who have moral principles against a cruel and threatening thug who torments the fictional nation of Iraq, a geometric outline in the sand, whose boundaries were drawn by victorious empires at the expense of defeated empires after the First World War. The borders of ?Iraq? are defined by how far the lash of Hussein can sting. This has been the model of regimes throughout history.
America and Israel are the only nations purposively created by people longing for freedom above wealth or power. The Puritans, Quakers and Baptists of early America and the Jews of modern Israel were the best educated, most articulate and most determined pilgrims in human history. The smug notion of modernists that these pioneers intended to do just what they did reflects the sloth and ignorance of our times and does not dim the luster of a single brave Christian or Jew of the past.
Americans have finally reclaimed the moral high ground that we once graciously relinquished to the children of Nazis and Bolsheviks. This threatens the gangsters and psychopaths who are courteously called ?President? or ?Chairman? by other goons of other sad lands.
Leftists, of course, point out that many of the most vocal critiques of America are made by democracies with basic liberties and the rule of law. France, Belgium and Germany are functioning democracies. Why is our voice more important than the voices those countries?
Yet, democracy, by itself, means nothing. Winston Churchill once rightly noted that democracy was the worst form of government in the word, except for all the rest. Historians paper over the tremendous popularity of the Nazis. Hitler did not seize power, but won power constitutionally through elections. In most of the territories annexed to the Reich - Saar, Rhineland, Austria, Sudetenland, Memel and Danzig - the annexations were very popular with the people living in those lands.
The people of Germany, France and Belgium today - indeed, the people of most democracies - do not care about what is right. They seem to care more about making business deals with monsters than in any notion of human rights. This should make us discard outright the concerns of these democracies or the results of public opinion polls.
Hitler might have acquired Poland peacefully. He gained Austria and the Czech part of Czechoslovakia without war. There might never have been a Second World War, and the democratically elected and constitutional government of Germany might have legally murdered twelve million Jews, Poles and Czechs in these new possessions. Would that be legitimate? Could the Holocaust have been acceptable under international law? Grimly, yes.
What are nations? What are governments? What is war? What is law? There are only two true nations on Earth - America and Israel - are it is not coincidence that these two, true nations are so hated by the false nations and their gaggle of false leaders.
War is what Hussein, Arafat and bin Ladin wage now against us. As Patrick Henry famously warned the Virginia Convention of Delegates: ?It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry peace, peace - but there is no peace. The war has already begun!?
When Henry spoke those famous lines, America was not a nation in the eyes of diplomats, but even then it was a nation in the hearts of Americans, and in the mind of God. Like Israel, America is a moral construct, and so a true nation. Morality is everything.
The dreary list of parties and governments in the rest of the world are shadows of a Judeo-Christian faith rooted in the only two real polities on Earth. The world knows it; the world hates it; the world is wrong. Just as it was in 1776.
--------------------------------------------------------
Bruce Walker has had almost two hundred articles published in the Oklahoma Bar Journal, Law & Order, Legal Secretary Today, The Single Parent, Enter Stage Right, Citizen's View, The American Partisan, Port of Call, and several other professional and political periodicals.
************
Spend Passover with Arutz Sheva at a resort in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv or Kfar Pines (near Hadera). Click here for info.
Washington understood how contrary these principles were to the thinking of Europe, and so he warned us to avoid entangling alliances. The regimes of Europe were not based upon principles, but power. Revolutions in France, Russia and Germany replaced old tyrants with new and worse tyrants - tyrants unrestrained by Christian conscience.
The regimes of Europe have never met our higher standard of legitimacy. Our first foreign war, against the Barbary pirates, is no different from our current war against Saddam Hussein. Like Lenin, like Hitler, like Napoleon, like the Barbary pirates, Hussein has only the legitimacy of violence.
Americans know that only one true nation exists: the nation of mankind as creatures of God. We know that only one true government exists for this nation: obedience to conscience given each of us by that loving God. Legalisms beyond these truths have no intrinsic value.
Our war with ?Iraq? is simply a law enforcement action by those who have moral principles against a cruel and threatening thug who torments the fictional nation of Iraq, a geometric outline in the sand, whose boundaries were drawn by victorious empires at the expense of defeated empires after the First World War. The borders of ?Iraq? are defined by how far the lash of Hussein can sting. This has been the model of regimes throughout history.
America and Israel are the only nations purposively created by people longing for freedom above wealth or power. The Puritans, Quakers and Baptists of early America and the Jews of modern Israel were the best educated, most articulate and most determined pilgrims in human history. The smug notion of modernists that these pioneers intended to do just what they did reflects the sloth and ignorance of our times and does not dim the luster of a single brave Christian or Jew of the past.
Americans have finally reclaimed the moral high ground that we once graciously relinquished to the children of Nazis and Bolsheviks. This threatens the gangsters and psychopaths who are courteously called ?President? or ?Chairman? by other goons of other sad lands.
Leftists, of course, point out that many of the most vocal critiques of America are made by democracies with basic liberties and the rule of law. France, Belgium and Germany are functioning democracies. Why is our voice more important than the voices those countries?
Yet, democracy, by itself, means nothing. Winston Churchill once rightly noted that democracy was the worst form of government in the word, except for all the rest. Historians paper over the tremendous popularity of the Nazis. Hitler did not seize power, but won power constitutionally through elections. In most of the territories annexed to the Reich - Saar, Rhineland, Austria, Sudetenland, Memel and Danzig - the annexations were very popular with the people living in those lands.
The people of Germany, France and Belgium today - indeed, the people of most democracies - do not care about what is right. They seem to care more about making business deals with monsters than in any notion of human rights. This should make us discard outright the concerns of these democracies or the results of public opinion polls.
Hitler might have acquired Poland peacefully. He gained Austria and the Czech part of Czechoslovakia without war. There might never have been a Second World War, and the democratically elected and constitutional government of Germany might have legally murdered twelve million Jews, Poles and Czechs in these new possessions. Would that be legitimate? Could the Holocaust have been acceptable under international law? Grimly, yes.
What are nations? What are governments? What is war? What is law? There are only two true nations on Earth - America and Israel - are it is not coincidence that these two, true nations are so hated by the false nations and their gaggle of false leaders.
War is what Hussein, Arafat and bin Ladin wage now against us. As Patrick Henry famously warned the Virginia Convention of Delegates: ?It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry peace, peace - but there is no peace. The war has already begun!?
When Henry spoke those famous lines, America was not a nation in the eyes of diplomats, but even then it was a nation in the hearts of Americans, and in the mind of God. Like Israel, America is a moral construct, and so a true nation. Morality is everything.
The dreary list of parties and governments in the rest of the world are shadows of a Judeo-Christian faith rooted in the only two real polities on Earth. The world knows it; the world hates it; the world is wrong. Just as it was in 1776.
--------------------------------------------------------
Bruce Walker has had almost two hundred articles published in the Oklahoma Bar Journal, Law & Order, Legal Secretary Today, The Single Parent, Enter Stage Right, Citizen's View, The American Partisan, Port of Call, and several other professional and political periodicals.
************
Spend Passover with Arutz Sheva at a resort in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv or Kfar Pines (near Hadera). Click here for info.