The efforts toward freedom and liberty have been frustrated for centuries, and it was in the mid-late 1700s where such promise seemed at hand. The American colonies were left on auto-pilot until the British Empire was hoping for some ROI and decided to push for some taxes and control. Please note that human nature’s default is that those in power will push for control as well as compensation for their “management” of society towards orderly conduct.
It does seem to be that the people of this era were pretty well versed (no pun intended) in what they experienced and learned in nature as well as what wisdom could be found in the Bible. It was these kind of people (think Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine) that would help draft the Declaration of Independence.
There is a line in this document that does acknowledge ” the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” as well as “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” as well as “that all men are created equal”. That last quote never implies that we are to be made equal by man, but that God sees us each as equal, as in made on God’s image, uniquely.
So in God’s/Nature’s God eyes, we are all equal, BUT we are each unique and never equal while on this earth. We are born with different gifts and talents, with various thinking capacities as well as emotional and physical capacities. Men are not the same as women, but equal in God’s eyes.
The problem comes with the progressive always wants to play god and make plans to “make” everyone equal, to “make” the climate perfect and to second-guess God’s decision that we are either male or female. They think so highly of themselves that they feel they can improve on what God has created. I am guessing if they want to work on themselves, then I say let them. However, they are never content with that .. they want their ideas to be applied across society with force. This is where government enters.
The opposing force to these ideas used to be the church but it seems like there is so much in-fighting in those circles that there is little energy left to bring wisdom to the discussion. Another opposing force, or so I thought, were “conservatives”. Well, while we have heard for decades about the conservative (political) fight .. it is just smoke and mirrors because obviously there are zero principles involved.
The conservatives have not just recently let the people down in this regard, even in 1871 critical thinkers saw the GOP “conservatives” for what they are .. Robert Lewis Dabney here calls them out for what they were in his day:
“.. Northern conservatism. This is a party which never conserves anything. Its history has been that it demurs to each aggression of the progressive party, and aims to save its credit by a respectable amount of growling, but always acquiesces at last in the innovation..”
“.. It is worthless because it is the conservatism of expediency only, and not of sturdy principle. It intends to risk nothing serious for the sake of the truth, and has no idea of being guilty of the folly of martyrdom. It always—when about to enter a protest—very blandly informs the wild beast whose path it essays to stop, that its “bark is worse than its bite,” and that it only means to save its manners by enacting its decent role of resistance. The only practical purpose which it now subserves in American politics is to give enough exercise to Radicalism to keep it “in wind,” and to prevent its becoming pursy and lazy from having nothing to whip…” [source https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/equality-is-not-americas-founding-principle ]
In summary, it seems like the opportunity presented in 1776 birthed 13 free and independent colonies by 1783, but quickly was swallowed up by the political fears that led to 1787’s coup d’etat when the US Constitution was secretly birthed and ratified in the next two years. No longer was Nature’s God acknowledged until the Confederate Constitution was ratified in 1861.
The failure of the seven, eleven or thirteen states to secede peacefully from the United States of America would put an end of a reliance on “Almighty God” and His Word, the Bible, in trusting Him with our future as a people and as a country.
The future looks more and more like being first century Christians in the Roman Empire. Always in the minority and always despised until they see the love we can share from our Almighty God and then things may turn around.
-SF1