Episode 5 Show Notes- Understanding American Exceptionalism and the Core Principles

Episode Description

In this Independence Day episode, we explore the increasing fascist movement attempting to silence debate within the United States. To understand the dangerous moment we currently live, it is vital to breakdown and celebrate the Declaration of Independence, and reacquaint the people with the precious Freedoms we have.  While the news media will focus on barbeques and fireworks, we provide a thoughtful analysis of current events and the principles that made America Exceptional. Visit The PAS Report website for show notes and sources.

Getting back to our ideals

As for today’s episode, one thing that you will begin to recognize with this podcast is that all issues discussed are intertwined with each other, and every episode relates to a larger message. In honor of Independence Day, I am going to explore the increasing fascist movement attempting to silence debate in the United States. I want to reacquaint the American people with the Freedoms we hold precious and the document that started it all- the Declaration of Independence. I want to explore the idea of American Exceptionalism- the idea that we are the greatest country in the history of the world, and I am not ashamed to say that. As always, if you would like the show notes or see the sources, I use, visit us at pasreport.com.

The Rise of the Fascists

If you have not listened to last week’s episode (click here), please do so as we are living through perilous times. Last week, I highlighted the five areas of censorship we are witnessing.

• Speech codes
• Banning people from speaking at events
• Corporate activism- Corporations taking stands on social issues and refusing to do business with those that disagree
• Boycotting- businesses who advertise on platforms we disagree
• Tech manipulation

More Examples of Censorship

Four events this week validate exactly what I was warning about:

• The group, Antifa, attacked several people, including Conservative journalist Andy Ngo (Wall Street Journal) based on political ideology
  • They call themselves Antifa and claim to be anti-fascists. They explain how they are warriors on the front line and use direct engagement tactics- bullying, harassment, assault, etc., to shut down and silence ideologies they disagree with. (while tactics different and not as deadly, reminds me of al-Qaeda- The idea of Holy Warriors doing something bigger than themselves in an attempt to create a system they deem as right and just.
  • Ironically, that is exactly what fascists do. They cannot debate the merits of an issue, so they use any means necessary to silence others.
    • Fascism is the forcible suppression of opposition and strong regimentation of society and the economy. Fascism is nothing more than power and control.

 

• Another event we witnessed this week was Congresswomen Frederica Wilson calling for the shutdown and prosecution of those who dare to mock members of Congress. (Washington Examiner)
  • Here is Congresswoman Wilson in her own words. (YouTube)
  • Perhaps we should give Congresswoman Wilson an exam on the Constitution, and I challenge her to take one of my exams with the agreement that if she fails, she must immediately resign from Congress.
  • If we begin to prosecute people for criticizing and mocking Congress, I’m a dead man as I routinely do this in my class.
    • It is my job to criticize Congress. It is my civic duty to question members of Congress. It is my right to call out, mock and ridicule members of Congress when I believe they are wrong. Both Republican and Democrat- equal opportunity.
    • Astonishingly enough, the media would be apoplectic if President Trump said this, yet there is a deafening silence from the biased media when it comes to Congresswoman Wilson’s remarks.

 

• Another example of the increasing censorship and sanitization of history occurred in Charlottesville, VA, where they announced they would no longer recognize and celebrate Thomas Jefferson’s birthday because of his history as a slave owner. (The Hill)
  • This is the author of the Declaration of Independence, which we will discuss in a little.
  • While they use the slaveholders as an excuse, remember when I discussed last week that it goes beyond being a slaveholder. It is disdain for what the United States and everything we were founded on.

 

• Finally, we saw Nike pull a shoe they created that honors July 4^th. The shoe design included the original flag of the United States, representing the 13 colonies, created by Betsy Ross. (NPR)
  • The pulled the shoe following a complaint from Colin Kaepernick that the flag represents slavery.
    • Nike should not take their cues from a moron who wore a shirt celebrating Fidel Castro with the caption “Like Minds Think Alike.”
    • Nike should not take their cues from this moron that depicts law enforcement officers as pigs.

Unfortunately, our education system has collapsed, particularly when it comes to teaching about American history, government, and politics. Stupidity is on the rise and it is having a devastating effect throughout our society. According to a Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation Survey:

• Only 27% of those under the age of 45 were able to demonstrate a basic understanding of American History.
• Four in 10 Americans can pass a citizenship exam
• 25% of Americans did not know Freedom of Speech was guaranteed under the First Amendment.
• 85% do not know the year the U.S. Constitution was written

This lack of knowledge about the United States has led to the oversimplification of important issues and has created open hostility towards the idea that America is a great, exceptional country.

• Many like to focus on the bad things the United States has done. (I.e., slavery, internment camps, Native Americans, segregation, etc.)
• Very little focus on what makes us exceptional and how we changed humanity forever.
• After years of this type of brainwashing, we are now seeing the effect.
  • A 2018 Gallup poll found only 47% of U.S. adults are “extremely proud” to be Americans. In 2013, 70% of Americans described themselves as extremely proud.

Sadly, companies like Nike and people like Colin Kaepernick are doing a disservice to the United States. Slavery is abhorrent in any form. There is no excuse or justification for slavery and it goes against what we stand for. However, America’s past issue with slavery is not black and white (pardon the pun), and it is much more complex than people realize. Slavery does not, and should not, define the United States.

Black Contributions in the American Revolution

Kaepernick’s ignorance that forced Nike to pull the patriotic shoe does a disservice to all the black people who died in the American Revolution and other American Wars. People like this have developed a hatred for a country they know nothing about.

As we celebrate Independence Day with the signing of the Declaration of Independence, it is important to recognize that blacks played an enormous role, yet our education system doesn’t teach that. (American Revolution)

• How many people are aware that 5,000 black American patriots took up the cause of independence against the British?
• How many people are aware that for much of the war, black and white soldiers were integrated?
• How many people are aware that the American Revolution began when Crispus Attucks, a black American, was the first patriot killed at the Boston Massacre?
• How many people are aware of the role other black patriots played, such as
  • James Armistead- American Spy and double agent
  • Peter Salem- a black patriot who killed the British leader Major John Pitcairn in the Battle of Bunker Hill
  • Lambert Latham- a black patriot who killed a British Officer after his American Commander was murdered by the British

Colin Kaepernick’s ignorance of American History and the ignorance of those that praise him does a disservice to these great patriots I just mentioned. They fought and died for the flag honorably, and I want you to consider this:

• Many of these individuals volunteered for the Continental Army. They were not forced to go to war.
• While the idea of freedom and liberty sounded nice, and while many were told they would be granted freedom if they fought for the cause, there were no guarantees, but they fought and died valiantly because of the idea of the United States. The idea of freedom and liberty.
• Some say slave-owners forced their slaves to join. This is a myth, and many slave owners did not want their slaves enlisting because slaves were expensive, and a dead slave was useless.

Debunking the Myth

Let’s explore some inconvenient truths to the narrative that the United States is a bad place and was built on slavery.

• While it is true that slavery was legal, not all states agreed with the concept (Thirteen: Media with Impact):
  • 1777- Vermont (although was not a colony) outlawed slavery
  • 1780- Pennsylvania- any child born to slaves was free
  • 1783- Massachusetts- All slaves immediately freed
  • 1783- New Hampshire begins the gradual abolition of slavery
  • 1784- Connecticut and Rhode Island began the gradual abolition of slavery
  • 1787- The United States passes the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 outlawing any new slavery in the Northwest Territories
  • 1794- The Slave Trade Act passed in Congress forbidding American ships from engaging in slave trade activities and exporting slaves to foreign ships
  • 1800- American citizens are banned from investment and employment in the international slave trade
  • 1802- Ohio State Constitution abolishes slavery (although not yet a state)
  • 1804- New Jersey abolishes slavery
  • 1806- Thomas Jefferson calls for criminalizing the international slave trade in his State of the Union address. He said, “…to withdraw the citizens of the United States from all further participation in those violations of human rights which have been so long continued on the unoffending inhabitants of Africa, and which the morality, the reputation, and the best interests of our country, have long been eager to proscribe. Although no law you may pass can take prohibitory effect till the first day of the year one thousand eight hundred and eight, yet the intervening period is not too long to prevent, by timely notice, expeditions which cannot be completed before that day.” (Yale)
  • 1807- Congress makes the international slave trade a felony and in 1808, the importation and exportation of slaves are made a crime.

 

• Another fact is how many of those who have disdain for the United States paint a broad brush and say the founding fathers were all racists. This is not even close to being true.
  • There was heavy debate surrounding slavery and the founders understood their hypocrisy.
  • Approximately 1/3^rd of founding fathers were slave owners.
  • Staunch opponents to slavery include:
    • Alexander Hamilton
    • Patrick Henry, who said, “I believe a time will come when an opportunity will be afforded to abolish this lamentable evil.” (Original Letter/NY Times)
    • Governor Morris of Pennsylvania gave a speech at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 now entitled the Curse of Slavery. (org)
    • While James Madison was a slave owner and never freed his slaves, he understood the wrongs of slavery. He stated, “It was a nefarious institution. It was the curse of heaven in the States where it prevailed.” (Yale)
    • George Mason
    • John Jay
    • Benjamin Franklin
    • John Adams

 

• Thomas Jefferson included a provision in the original draft version of the Declaration of Independence that called out slavery as evil. Delegates from Georgia, North Carolina, and some Northern States forced its removal. He wrote, “He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain.  Determined to keep open a market where Men should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce.  And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he has obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed again the Liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.” (Library of Congress)

Understanding the Declaration of Independence

In honor of July 4^th, I want to explain and celebrate what makes America exceptional. I want to reignite the patriotism that one should feel by being an American. I want to recognize why millions of people put their lives on the line to make it to the greatest country in the world. Most importantly, I want to focus on the American political philosophy that revolutionized the world and changed humanity forever.

So let’s explore the Declaration of Independence and the Tenets of the American Creed.

• Interesting trivia point, according to John Adams, we should be celebrating Independence Day on July 2^nd. Continental Congress voted to declare our independence from the British Crown. Adams said, “I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.” (National Archives)

 

• Reading of the first two paragraphs. The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

 

• The Declaration was not a legally binding document. What was forged with thought will have to be won by blood. However, this document would lay out the American political philosophy. It would set forth the Tenets of the American Creed.

 

• When people ask how does one become Americanized or consider themselves American or what is the melting pot, I always tell them it’s accepting the Tenets of the American Creed.

 

• We hold these truths to be self-evident– These tenets do not require human or government acceptance to give it its binding force of validity.

 

• That all men are created equal– Man was synonymous with all human beings. Some will argue that this is sexist. While it is true that we were a male-dominated society, man was used as a blanket term.
  • Our founding fathers did not literally mean we are all equal. They recognized human beings are different and unique in their own ways.
  • They were saying that as human beings, we deserve equal dignity and should be treated with such.
    • I recognize the hypocrisy of this while at the same time we have slaves but realize that the Declaration of Independence was used as the driving force to end the slave trade, but as I stated before, Jefferson did include a provision on slavery.

 

• That they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights
  • We do not derive these rights from the government.
  • We have these rights because we are human beings. Human existence is far greater than the government.

 

• That among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness
  • These are rights that no government should attempt to take away.
  • Life: Jefferson believed that the preservation of innocent life, not the destruction of it, is the first job of government.
  • Liberty: The natural condition of human beings where we exercise our free wills responsibly in accord with the dictates of right reason and natural law.
  • Pursuit of Happiness: We have a right to pursue what will make us happy in life as long as we are not harming/infringing on someone else’s rights.
  • We do not exist to serve government.

 

• That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed
  • Government exists to ensure and secure the rights of the people.
  • No government is legitimate without the consent of the governed.

 

• That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it
  • As citizens, we have a responsibility and obligation that government serves as a tool of justice.
  • As citizens, we must constantly question the government to try to keep it honest.
  • We are the line between Liberty and Tyranny.

 

• Governments long established should not be changed for light or transient causes
  • You don’t overthrow the government because you are unhappy with the policies that is what elections will be for

 

• When a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
  • When the government attempts to exercise absolute power, ruling oppressively by attempting to suppress/deny our fundamental rights, that government has become a tool of injustice
  • As people of this society, it is our duty to overthrow that government and institute new government that will respect the rights and value of its people.

I also want to look at the last line of the Declaration because what the founders did was amazing. They were unique and changed the course of human history. Imagine the United States never existed. Imagine we lived in China dominated world, a Russian dominated world, a Turkish dominated world.

• And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
  • There are some that argue that the founders did not care about liberty and only cared about making money. If Britain was out of the picture, they could be wealthy.
    • This is a flat out lie and the myth is easily dispelled.
    • The founding fathers understood that their chances of victory were relatively low. They were going against one of the most well-trained, well-equipped military in the history of the world. The best they hoped for was some incremental changes.
    • Many of the founding fathers were wealthy and well-respected in British circles. Why give that up? They didn’t have to worry under a British system.
    • They signed their names on the Declaration and sent it to England. What do you think would have happened to them if we had lost the Revolution? Would King George have pardoned them and let bygones be bygones?
    • When they signed this document, they were signing their death sentence.

What the founding fathers did cannot be cheapened or denigrated. This Fourth of July, we need to honor and recognize what they did, and how this led America being Exceptional. Something uncanny was going on. In every computer simulation, when you put in the variables, Britain wins nine times out of 10. This is why many view the victory as Divine Providence. We should never have won.

We are the most powerful country in the history of the world, yet we have abused our power less- sometimes to the detriment of U.S. interests. Every American living her today should be grateful. The world can be cruel and ugly, and no matter how bad your life may be, you are shielded from the horrors that take place each and every day.  Here are just some examples of what makes America exceptional:

• Remember, the United States has freed more people from abusive and tyrannical governments than all other nations.

 

• The United States single-handedly cut the newly infected HIV/AIDS rate in Africa by 50% and malaria by 75% under the Bush Administration. (National Institute of Health)

 

• We rebuilt nations destroyed in the war, and allowing them to become economic powerhouses in the international community- Japan and Germany are just two examples.

 

• We provide more aid and charity around the world then all countries combined. (The Times Herald)
  • In 2003, there was a devastating earthquake in Bam Iran. The United States provided aid and assistance.
  • Iran has been at the very least an adversary, many would view them as an enemy, since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
  • Name me another country that helps their enemy!

 

• We do not sanitize our history. We teach about the bad things the United States has done as a way to educate future generations and prevent these atrocities from happening again.
  • Most know more about the negatives of the United States, and they have never even been assigned to read the U.S. Constitution.

So, I want you to take a moment, reflect, and be proud of this great nation. Have a happy and safe Fourth of July. Enjoy the celebrations. As always, if there is a topic you would like me to analyze, send an email to podcast@pasreport.com. If you want to know the sourcing of my information, visit our website.

Please share this podcast with others, and please take a moment to write a review on iTunes. Enjoy the week and stay safe.

 

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