RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270616/america-america-bruce-bawer

I missed Darkest Hour when it played Norway, and The 15:17 to Paris never made it to my town, so I pre-ordered the DVDs of both films and watched them back-to-back the day they arrived. Both proved to be masterpieces. And thematically they made for a perfect double feature: Joe Wright’s movie about the early days of Winston Churchill’s prime ministership and Clint Eastwood’s picture about the three young Americans who took down a would-be terrorist on a French train in August 2015 are both about the existential threat posed to Western civilization, then and now, by two different varieties of totalitarianism – and about the massive difference that one man (Churchill), or three men (Spencer Stone, Anthony Sadler, and Alek Skarlatos), can make in that struggle.

They’re also about something else, which is relevant to this 242nd anniversary of America’s founding. At the end of Darkest Hour, Churchill addresses the House of Commons on June 4, 1940. Faced with a considerable number of colleagues who – after a period of weeks during which the Nazis have conquered Denmark and almost completed the occupations of France, Norway, and the Low Countries – think that Britain doesn’t stand a chance and should work out a deal with Hitler, Churchill delivers his classic “We shall fight on the beaches” speech, the most celebrated passage of which reads as follows:

We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender….

Only slightly less famous are the words that immediately follow these, and that form the speech’s conclusion:

…and if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270626/independence-day-and-recovery-true-freedom-bruce-thornton

We are celebrating this Independence Day in the midst of a conflict over what freedom really means. Whatever the crisis du jour that dominates the news cycle, whatever the conflicting policies and clashing ideologies, look deep enough and you’ll find the ancient war between those who believe in true freedom and citizen autonomy, and those who have reduced it to just doing what one wants subject to the intrusive power of Big Government guardians.

Start with the origins of today’s holiday, which were the American Colonists’ desire for political freedom and autonomy. The thirteen colonies, their customary rights for self-rule violated by England, took the momentous step of creating an independent state that empowered citizens to debate and decide how they would collectively chart its course and pursue its aims. This political community would be free and sovereign because it would not be subjected to any earthly power beyond the collective consent of the citizens as expressed through laws and political institutions to which politicians could be held accountable.

Yet this idea of freedom was dependent on citizens’ knowing how to use this freedom responsibly and for the proper aims. For freedom is not “doing as one likes,” which is not true freedom, but what the 18th century called license, a selfish indulgence that cares nothing for the good of the state as a whole, but everything for the needs and ambitions of one faction or ideology. This selfishness breeds tyranny and the loss of freedom, for to act on whatever selfish appetites and passions that arise in one, is to enslave the soul to them and subject the self and the political community to their destructive effects. As Russell Kirk wrote, “The worst enemies of enduring freedom for all may be certain folk who demand incessantly more liberty for themselves.”

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The birth of a nation like the birth of a child celebrates unity and separation simultaneously. The child is born and exists outside the mother’s body as a separate entity and at the same time becomes a part of an expanded family unit. So it is with countries. When America was born in 1776 she became a separate entity existing outside of Great Britain. America’s Declaration of Independence celebrated the country’s separateness at the same time it established the unity of an extended family of American citizenry.

Most discussions focus on the benefits of unity – few examine the advantages of separateness. Our country is young but our Founding Fathers had centuries of European history to teach them the value of separateness.

In trying to form a more perfect union our Founding Fathers examined the political systems of their day and rejected them all. They said NO to monarchies, NO to totalitarianism, NO to authoritarianism, NO to theocracies, and NO to every form of collectivism that prioritizes the group over the individuals in it.

Separateness from Great Britain, separation of church and state, and the separateness of the individual were essential to American freedom, liberty, and upward mobility. On July 4, 1776 the Continental Congress voted to adopt the Declaration of Independence and declared their separateness as the United States of America.

For almost two centuries people came to America in search of religious freedom and the opportunity for upward mobility that was the American dream. Coming to America was a chance to be free of monarchies, theocracies, caste systems, and authoritarian, totalitarian political systems demanding subservience to the state. America was the land of opportunity because it was the land of individualism, the meritocracy, and upward mobility.