Historical query
- Thread starter Operacast
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Dondi
Well-Known Member
What do you mean by 'was'?
I'm placing the U.S. within the broader context of the general sweep of history.
Cheers,
Operacast
The US held freedom in high esteem due to the oppression of the countries the folks left from and the country it was a colony of.
our declaration:
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. —
and the preamble to the constitution:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
our declaration:
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. —
and the preamble to the constitution:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
17th Angel
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Was/is it free?
While with the inclusions of the recent 'Patriot' acts we are less free than we have been, I'd still say relatively yes.
While they require a drivers licenses for travel, we don't have to show papers to travel around and we can travel for thousands of miles unencumbered.
We've been electing leaders and transferred power fairly successfully for over 200 years. We choose our course of living, where we live, work, education etc. We are pretty much free to be as poor as we want or as rich as we want, while some complain there are countless numbers of folks who have gone from poor to wealthy, it is a matter of choice and determination.
We've got our foibles, but frankly it is really all I know. I'm not that well traveled internationally.
Faithfulservant
Well-Known Member
I think both tbh... but I dont think we were "powerful" compared to the british army... I think we were blessed and helped by God.
I personally believe our troubles begin when we remove the foundation on which the country was created. But Im sure others would not agree..
17th Angel
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I'd say free is a state of mind but it is easier when you are a little less encumbered.
If I could, did get pulled over regular asking for my papers I wouldn't feel free.
If I was told where to work or where to live, I wouldn't feel free.
At least I say that because I have these things and it makes me feel free, free-er than not having them.
Dondi
Well-Known Member
Are the two mutually exclusive? What makes you think one was the cause of the other? Or vice versa? How do you know that other factors didn't enter in, like wisdom, morality, gritty resolve, Providence, or just plan luck?
Do you know how many incidences in the Revolutionary War that if circumstances were changed ever so slightly a totally different outcome of the war would have occurred?
Do you know how many incidences in the Revolutionary War that if circumstances were changed ever so slightly a totally different outcome of the war would have occurred?
To the latter question, I may quite possibly not know the full answer to that. So? My OP, among other things, is most definitely an invitation for any enlightenment on that score (and on others) which others here feel they might bring to this and to additional historic teasers. Consequently, my own discussion question in the OP remains perfectly valid.
Look, maybe the way I've framed the question inadvertently implies an either/or. That isn't necessarily intended, in fact, although I don't want to preclude that either. Above all, every ramification of this topic is up for discussion, or I would never have submitted the OP in the first place.
I will say that one of many reasons why I submitted this OP is because I've noticed that a number of surrogates for both candidates this year, ranging all the way from Congressional colleagues to various radio hosts, etc., have been making implicitly opposed claims -- on one side or the other -- as to whether or not freedom has trumped power throughout our history or power has trumped freedom throughout our history. Whether or not one has facilitated the other and/or vice versa remains a perfectly valid inquiry, therefore, given the U.S. climate here at home. And again, that naturally doesn't preclude the possibility that there may be additional factors at work when it comes to both freedom and power, factors well outside the parameters of one or the other influencing/facilitating the other or the one.
How about your giving us your own feel on how, specifically, freedom versus power seem to have or have not interacted with each other throughout U.S. history? I don't necessarily insist that one or the other has to have facilitated one or the other. But the public conversation today strongly implies two radically different conceptions of what has made this country "go" in the last two hundred years. And those two conceptions often (although not always) revolve around the concepts of freedom versus power. Consequently, the fundamentals of freedom versus power seem well worth pondering in a forum like this, regardless of whether or not one or the other has necessarily facilitated the other.
Sincerely,
Operacast
juantoo3
....whys guy.... ʎʇıɹoɥʇnɐ uoıʇsǝnb
The US almost got its @$$ whooped at the beginning, and 1812 didn't help much except squelch any inclination of jolly old Britain to regain its former colony. Prior to the first World War, the US was mostly isolationist (exceptions being Spanish-American War and Mexican War). The US darn near self-imploded during its Civil War.
The US couldn't really be considered powerful, defined as a world class leader on a global stage, until it saved Britain's butt and the rest of Europe in WWII. The atom bomb and the first man on the moon were just icing on the cake. And global finance tied to the American dollar in part because of the Marshall Plan and the relaxing of the gold standard helped feed the illusion of America being powerful.
But even giants fall, as Rome demonstrated.
Did I get the answer right?
The US almost got its @$$ whooped at the beginning, and 1812 didn't help much except squelch any inclination of jolly old Britain to regain its former colony. Prior to the first World War, the US was mostly isolationist (exceptions being Spanish-American War and Mexican War). The US darn near self-imploded during its Civil War.
The US couldn't really be considered powerful, defined as a world class leader on a global stage, until it saved Britain's butt and the rest of Europe in WWII. The atom bomb and the first man on the moon were just icing on the cake. And global finance tied to the American dollar in part because of the Marshall Plan and the relaxing of the gold standard helped feed the illusion of America being powerful.
But even giants fall, as Rome demonstrated.
Did I get the answer right?
Actually, there is no one right answer here, IMO. But what you've written is certainly cogent and thought-provoking. For now, I'll hold off on further responses of my own with the hope that what you've said may encourage others here to chime in first on aspects of what you've raised.
Many thanks,
Operacast
ar.
counting sky blue cars
Personally, I believe that at the beginning, the U.S. was powerful because it wasn't free. When we fought the Revolutionary War, we were, for all intents and purposes, being bossed around by Britain with little control over our own lives. Hell, they even taxed playing cards and cups of tea. We were totally downtrodden, and when we decided to do something about it, it was as a result of the fact that we'd had enough, we had an idea and we were willing to fight for it.
Obviously, we would never have won without the aid of the French empire, or the fact that Britain had it's hands in too many pots to really focus, and lots of really outstanding luck, but the point is that we took on a HUGE military force, arguably the strongest nation at that point in time, and we made them leave us alone. Because we were powerful in our own hearts, refusing to be the sunshine soldier, fighting for something that was greater than what we already had.
That being said, I think that in recent times, we've just forgotten what it meant to be really free. I'm living in Australia now, and I can't believe the differences. America's freedom is being squelched by it's own laws. We're afraid of everybody, and we push laws and taxes to keep us "safe" from an imaginary enemy. If we just stopped building nukes and fighter planes and tanks and all this national defence garbage for a week, we could pay for the 700 billion dollar bailout that everybody's been voting against without raping the tax-payers, but we blithely go along, convinced that we need those things, that they are important, because they keep us free.
I think we are less free today than we were in 1775. More powerful, maybe, but definitely less free.
Ar.
Obviously, we would never have won without the aid of the French empire, or the fact that Britain had it's hands in too many pots to really focus, and lots of really outstanding luck, but the point is that we took on a HUGE military force, arguably the strongest nation at that point in time, and we made them leave us alone. Because we were powerful in our own hearts, refusing to be the sunshine soldier, fighting for something that was greater than what we already had.
That being said, I think that in recent times, we've just forgotten what it meant to be really free. I'm living in Australia now, and I can't believe the differences. America's freedom is being squelched by it's own laws. We're afraid of everybody, and we push laws and taxes to keep us "safe" from an imaginary enemy. If we just stopped building nukes and fighter planes and tanks and all this national defence garbage for a week, we could pay for the 700 billion dollar bailout that everybody's been voting against without raping the tax-payers, but we blithely go along, convinced that we need those things, that they are important, because they keep us free.
I think we are less free today than we were in 1775. More powerful, maybe, but definitely less free.
Ar.
bob x
Well-Known Member
We were free and powerful because we were on a new continent, geographically remote from the other powers, with rich resources for which our only competitors were the sparse and technologically weaker Natives that we easily dispossessed. We beat the British because they had trouble conducting a war from long range. The citizens were not easily dominated by the government because there was always the option of pulling up stakes and moving West. We had a great advantage when we did start getting involved in the wars of the world because we had oceans on either side. Now that the frontier is closed and most of the resources are exploited and the ocean barriers don't matter as much, America's privileged position is naturally eroded.
I think that's a huge part of it. But I feel that there's a further dimension involved as well.
For well or for ill, the U.S. became a magnet of sorts for some rather considerable immigration. This led in turn to an image of the U.S. around the world as (not entirely accurately) a place of infinite opportunity. This image was also fed by the cultural impact of the ideas put out in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
Regardless of how hypocritically or inconsistently those Constitutional ideas were applied here at home, the ideas themselves had a possibly more powerful resonance abroad in pockets of the severest repression than at home, where they were often paid the merest lip service. The power of these ideas abroad played a part in much of the immigration and resulted in the most adventurous and persistent elements among those oppressed peoples arriving here. The wealth of innovative talent that arrived here easily augmented our economic engine even further, and it was that resulting augmented engine that in turn facilitated the enormous influence that (for well or for ill) the U.S. eventually attained.
I.
M.
O.:
We're now poised to lose that influence totally (which may or may not be a good thing) because of two sets of factors of equal importance: both those sets of factors that Bob X cites and also our own wanton and increasingly overt trampling on the last vestiges of constitutional principles for the world to see and shudder at. I sincerely wonder if we would have become the same magnet for such innovative immigrants in the past had there never been any constitutional principles set out at all. If we were to strip away those principles entirely from our history, had they never emerged from us at all (possibly emerging from some other place eventually instead), how far would those other factors that Bob X cites have taken us in terms of the degree of influence the U.S. has attained (again, for well or or for ill)?
Yes, those additional factors would have probably encouraged some of the types of development we've seen in the last two hundred years. But would those factors alone have taken us quite as far as we've come? I've spoken to some who have stoutly maintained that such factors alone were sufficient. Maybe. But would they alone have brought us quite so far as we came? Yes, they brought us far. But would they alone have brought us as far? Or would we have come just a bit shorter than we did? Are those constitutional principles (however laxly applied for part of our history) in fact an X factor here or not? Perhaps not significantly so; but absent them, would there really be no difference at all today, strictly in degree of influence?
Operacast
juantoo3
....whys guy.... ʎʇıɹoɥʇnɐ uoıʇsǝnb
I've got just a skinny minute:
You raise a good point; are we the sum of our parts, or something greater?
I think it is telling how a lot of American immigrants who make it good here are equally lauded at home. Alexander G. Bell was not only an American inventor, but a Scottish American inventor.
In my experience, it does seem to be the intrepid (entrepreneurial?) sort who are brave enough to dare immigrate, and it is that spirit that does underlie a lot of the American "can do" and "land of opportunity" mythos. At least until the next generations get a bit soft and comfy. Few Americans of my acquaintance are of the kind of intestinal fortitude that it takes to pull up stakes and leave to a foreign country now...it is so much easier to simply bitch about how bad it is here. And as long as you pay taxes, why should the gov't care if you bitch?
Maybe more later, really gotta go....
juantoo3
....whys guy.... ʎʇıɹoɥʇnɐ uoıʇsǝnb
I mean really...if America is so ****ing bad, how come people are lining up to immigrate here. I don't see people lining up to immigrate to, oh, Saudi, or Bangladesh, or Venezuela.