American Revolution: The Practical Power of Principles
Happy Independence Day
Thoughts About the Amazing 250 Years – #2
John Adams famously wrote to Thomas Jefferson on August 24, 1815:
> “But what do we mean by the American Revolution? Do we mean the American War? The Revolution was effected before the War commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments of their duties and obligations... This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people was the real American Revolution.”
The excerpt above was written by a hero who believed that concepts, principles, logic, intellect, and philosophy had a primary role in the revolution.
It was by acting on ideas produced through their intellectual brilliance that the Founding Fathers laid the foundations for a country in which many people all over the world would leave everything behind to come to for a better life.
The political system they devised was created precisely to protect those who wished to live in peace through the products of their own independent thinking and action. It was devised to protect those possessing the Founders attitude. The remarkable civilization created after was its consequence. The same way the revolutionary War that made freedom within man’s reach possible.
The attitude of the anti-intellect violent man says: “To heck with principles. They do not work. They never worked. I want results. I want to be practical. I'll decide things by rule of thumb and hope for the best. Let those who use facts and logic to think, discuss, and discover principles worth living by talk to the hand while I do whatever is necessary to achieve my immediate goals, regardless of where those actions lead. After all, where they lead lies in the future. Who cares about the future?”
I ask: what kind of attitude brings hope back to mankind, especially in one's own personal life?
What does it take to build a good future for a single man or even civilization ? The Founders' attitude, or that of the ordinary person who believes principles are admirable in theory but useless in practice?
Is a good future a matter of good choices made through thinking or a matter of luck?
Were the 250 years that followed—years that brought unprecedented abundance, the abolition of slavery, and produced the greatest civilization ever built by man—the result of sheer luck, or of the relentless effort to discover good ideas and act upon them?
I think history and daily life offers some support evidence for the practical superiority of the Founders Attitude for a human being to live well in Planet Earth.