More 1776, less 1984 [updated]

 

[Hat tip Stephen Hicks]

UPDATE:

“In fact, the American Revolution, despite all its obvious costs and excesses, brought about enormous net benefits not just for citizens of the newly independent United States but also, over the long run, for people across the globe.”

~ economist Jeff Hummel, from his article 'Benefits of the American Revolution: An Exploration of Positive Externalities'

"The principles enunciated in the Declaration of Independence were my principles. They spoke to me across centuries and across borders. The country of my birth, a good and decent place, could never be my country. From the time I was a boy, I knew my future was in America. Shortly after I graduated from high school, I left Canada to become an American.
    "For the last 42 years I’ve resided in America’s universities, first as a student and now as a professor. Shortly after my arrival I discovered, first to my amazement and then to my disgust, that serious people no longer think true the principles that brought me to this country. Those ideas—individual rights, limited government, capitalism, and the pursuit of individual happiness—were, I was told by my professors, old fashioned and irrelevant at best and the source of much evil at their worst.
    "For almost 100 years America's intellectuals have waged a war of attrition against the core values of American civilization. College professors regularly teach that reality is unknowable, that truth and intellectual certainty are a mirage, that there are no moral absolutes, and that all cultures and ways of life are of equal worth.
    "Since becoming a professor, I have seen firsthand the damage that our college professors have done to American culture. The reigning moral orthodoxy of America’s schools, from elementary to secondary and post-secondary is the doctrine of moral relativism.
    "It should come as no surprise, then, that many of today’s young people are not merely confused about what is right and wrong, but also that they have no sense that any real difference exists between the two....
    "The United States was founded on the self-evident truth “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.” As a consequence of putting into practice and living by these principles the United States has become the freest, most just, most prosperous and most powerful nation in the history of the world.
    "But “[t]hese are the times that try men’s souls,” as Thomas Paine noted in 1776. The question that now confronts us this: Do Americans still believe these principles to be true, and will they fight to defend them. What America needs most right now is a new moral clarity....
    " It is no longer sufficient to rely on filiopieties, flattering slogans, or folksy speeches of doughface conservatives. Philosophically rearmed, we will then be able to defeat the searing cynicism of those nattering nabobs who have been morally disarming America for several generations."

~ C. Bradley Thompson, from his 4 July post 'America, Seen from the Eyes of a Child'

"[John] Ridpath opens his essay [on George Washington] by considering America's fortune in so often having 'principled, moral leaders, directing this nation against history's tyrants and in pursuit of freedom and the rights of man' -- and I think he would agree that we could use such a leader now.
    "What I find so striking about this essay, aside from that very reverential awe is that Ridpath's words are radically different from those of so many today.
    "When is the last time, for example, you heard someone express authentic admiration for the character of someone running for President [or Prime Minister]? Who was the last political figure you heard touted as 'practical' that you would personally trust with anything important? When was the last time you heard someone famous held out as a moral example -- and wanted to live that kind of life here and now?
    "It's been quite a while for me, too."

~ Gus van Horn from his post 'Independence Day Inspiration'