Renewing American Leadership

I would argue 2+2=4 is the most important political-governing slogan of our lifetime.

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Consider these examples. Camus wrote in his novel The Plague there are times when a man can be killed for saying 2+2=4 because the authorities can't stand the truth. Camus applies perfectly to our current elite and its desperate refusal to tell the truth about those who would kill Americans and destroy America.

Part of the power of 2+2=4 is that it is hard, definitive, and not changeable by situation ethics.

In effect a society which insists on 2+2=4 is a society which will reject elitist efforts at social engineering and political dishonesty.

I believe 2+2=4 is so important American Solutions has produced a bumper sticker with that slogan.

Let me give you an American example of 2+2=4. I am going to say half a sentence. I want you to tell me the other half.

 If you can't afford to buy a house... Raise your hand if you agree the complete sentence is “if you can't afford to buy a house, don't buy one.”

What you have just said is that the United States government has been lying for over 30 years.

If after waiving your credit, your down payment, and your payment on principle you still can't afford to buy a house then the government will also give you a subsidized lower interest rate.

The result has been a disaster because when people can't afford to buy a house something happens—the roof leaks, the plumbing goes bad, appliances fail, the electricity goes out—and then people can't afford it.

If you lie to one family you create a personal tragedy and the family goes bankrupt. When you lie to millions you create a national economic disaster.

Yet have you heard a single national leader say that our current economic mess is a cultural-ethical-moral problem with financial consequences?

Of course not.

"We have not had such an important national conversation about basic realities and basic truths since the late 1940s. In the period 1946-1950 Americans had to come to grips with an existential threat to their very survival as a free people."

We have not had such an important national conversation about basic realities and basic truths since the late 1940s. In the period 1946-1950 Americans had to come to grips with an existential threat to their very survival as a free people.

The Soviet Union and its spies and advocates inside the United States were a mortal threat to our very survival. Yet many of our most prestigious leaders and our most distinguished intellectuals and news media analysts and reporters refused to see the Communist threat for the danger it was.

In fact the elites attacked those who were accurate about the threat of communism and sought to discredit them and even destroy them. There was a deep and bitter argument over the nature of the Soviet threat, the requirements of American internal security and the strategies to be employed to contain and ultimately defeat the Soviet Empire.

Today we face a similar rejection of reality by our elites and a similar determination by our elites to attack those who would defend America.

With that precedent let me turn now to the issue of American Exceptionalism. The American history of freedom based on faith is what made President Obama's explanation of American Exceptionalism truly alarming.

He was asked in Europe if he subscribed to the American exceptionalist approach. President Obama responded: "I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.”

This answer proves that President Obama did not understand the question and did not have any idea what American Exceptionalism is.

"This is not a term which refers to our ego as a country, our pride in our achievements, or our economic and military power. This is a term which relates directly to our unique assertion of an unprecedented set of rights granted by God. It could not be parallel to British, Greek or any other „exceptionalism” because their citizens do not claim to have rights which come directly from their Creator."

This is not a term which refers to our ego as a country, our pride in our achievements, or our economic and military power. This is a term which relates directly to our unique assertion of an unprecedented set of rights granted by God. It could not be parallel to British, Greek or any other „exceptionalism” because their citizens do not claim to have rights which come directly from their Creator.

American Exceptionalism refers directly to the grant of rights asserted in the Declaration of Independence.

This document is not a theory. It is a fact. Like 2+2=4 the words of the Declaration of Independence are clear, plain and factual.

Every critic of my interpretation can go to the National Archives and examine the original document. Furthermore the Declaration of Independence is not a theological document. It is an historic document. It was signed by the elected representatives of the American people. It is a statement of their understanding of reality and the principles on which they based their decision to fight the greatest, most powerful and wealthiest Empire in the world.

First of all, just as with 2+2=4, the Founding Fathers began with an assertion of truths. They did not assert ideology or propositions or theories. They asserted “we hold these truths to be self evident.”

They believed they were basing American freedom on truths because they had sought to understand God's will and God's truth.

Therefore the Declaration of Independence is stating rights which are universal, timeless, and precede the Constitution. That is a major reason the modern Supreme Court willingness to rewrite the Constitution is fundamentally wrong. The rights of Americans precede the Constitution and it must be analyzed within the context of those God given rights.

The Founding Fathers then asserted : “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.”

There are four powerful lessons to be drawn from this simple phrase. First, we are all born equal, but there is no suggestion that we will achieve equally or have equal outcomes. Indeed none of the founding fathers would have believed such a goal was possible. They would have thought a government strong enough to coerce equality of outcome would be strong enough to be a dictatorship.

"Second we are endowed by our Creator. This is the heart of our argument with the secular socialists. We believe there is a Creator. We believe that Creator granted us rights. This is the most radical statement of political rights in human history. We literally assert that power comes from God to each of you, personally, rights which make you sovereign. Since you are sovereign you loan power to the state. The state does not loan power to you. That is why the Constitution begins “we the people”. It does not begin we the politicians, we the judges, or we the bureaucrats."

Second we are endowed by our Creator. This is the heart of our argument with the secular socialists. We believe there is a Creator. We believe that Creator granted us rights. This is the most radical statement of political rights in human history. We literally assert that power comes from God to each of you, personally, rights which make you sovereign. Since you are sovereign you loan power to the state. The state does not loan power to you. That is why the Constitution begins “we the people”. It does not begin we the politicians, we the judges, or we the bureaucrats.

We believe it is impossible to explain America without reference to the Creator. Therefore the concept of driving God out of the public square is a concept which would destroy America and replace it with a secular system alien to our entire history.

Third, these rights are unalienable. That means no judge, no politician, no government official, can come between you and God or can take away your rights.

Fourth, among these rights “are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The entire right to life movement can stake its claim to legitimacy on this phrase in the Declaration of Independence. If we are endowed by our Creator, no politician can take away our right to life, whether very young or very elderly. Expert decision makers deciding on life is an explicit violation of our God given right to life.

The pursuit of happiness deserves special mention in the context of the Obama philosophy of redistribution by politicians.

First, the term happiness in the Scottish Enlightenment, where Jefferson got the phrase, means wisdom and virtue not hedonism and acquisition. All the founding fathers believed freedom required a wise people and a foolish people would soon find themselves governed by a dictator.

Note that the key word is “pursuit.” God has given us the right to pursue happiness. There is no suggestion of an entitlement to happiness. There is no proposal for a Federal Department of Happiness. There is no thought given to establishing “happiness stamps” so the under-happy can be compensated for their failure to pursue happiness. Nor is there any suggestion of a right to sue if you find yourself unhappy.

Finally, none of the Founding Fathers would have thought it made any sense for a politician to enter this great convocation and start redistributing happiness—taking from those the politician deems overly happy and redistributing happiness to those the politician deems underly happy in an effort to create equality of happiness.

Measured by the standard of the Declaration of Independence it is clear that President Obama's secular socialist philosophy is profoundly in conflict with the heart of the American system and is a repudiation of the core lessons of American history.

The secular socialist assault on historic America has been growing for more than two generations among our intellectual elites in schools and news rooms and the entertainment industry and increasingly among judges, bureaucrats, and now elected officials.

The first decisive assault on religious liberty came in 1962 when the Supreme Court ruled that school prayer was unconstitutional. This was a decisive break with American history. Liberal Justice William O Douglas had asserted a decade earlier “We are a religious people and our institutions presuppose a supreme being… When the states encourages religious instruction or cooperates with religious authorities by adjusting the schedule of public events to sectarian needs, it follows the best of our traditions. We cannot read into the Bill of Rights a philosophy of hostility to religion.”