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The Celebration of a Progressive Holiday
On this holiday celebrating the courage of America's brave revolutionary founders, all Americans can celebrate. But progressives should take special pride in this holiday, for it was the ultimate achievement of progressive values that brought us this day.
As I discuss in my book, The Progressive Revolution: How the Best in America Came to Be, the Tories who opposed American independence were the conservatives of their day. They revered tradition, and proudly followed orders from the king and the aristocracy in London. They hated and feared the idea of democracy, and thought the idea of equality was laughable. As Tory Samuel Seabury, the first Bishop of the American Episcopal Church, argued:
If I must be enslaved, let it be by a king at least, and not a parcel of upstart lawless committeemen. If I must be devoured, let me be devoured by the jaws of a lion, and not gnawed to death by rats and vermin.
In a letter to the editor of a British newspaper, another American Tory argued that the colonists had shown:
...an extravagant zeal for liberty without considering...that nothing is as essential as a due obedience to the government they live under.
The Tories valued tradition over justice, feared the unintended consequences of change, and hated the idea of being "gnawed to death by [the] rats and vermin" of democracy.
Our progressive revolutionary founding fathers like Thomas Jefferson and Tom Paine argued that we should "make the world new again." Paine's pamphlet Common Sense lit a fire under the American people, reaching working class and poor people as well as the elites, and fundamentally changed the debate. Before Common Sense was published, most Americans were debating how they could best claim their rights as Englishmen. Afterwards, the debate was about revolution itself.
And make no mistake: the ideas we take for granted today were truly radical in 1776. Before our revolution, every country on earth was ruled by some kind of king and aristocracy. Ideas like democracy and equality were shocking and terrifying to the conservatives of the day. Even among the brave leaders who came together in Philadelphia, their list of grievances with the king and Parliament were pretty basic. But in Jefferson's stunning opening paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, he blew away thousands of years of assumptions about government -- the divine right of kings, citizens owing obedience to whatever government they lived under, adherence to tradition, rule by aristocracy. And he set the stage for an American debate about the progressive values of equality and justice that have inspired our debates ever since.
Listen to the words again with fresh ears. Think about how radical they were then, and how their values should inform our modern debates:
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 pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just power from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their Safety and Happiness.
Those ideas are progressive ideas. Those values are progressive values. So as we are fighting today's battles -- to expand our definition of equality to all of our people, to protect our rights as free citizens, to make sure all of the children growing up in a great country have a legitimate chance at their own pursuit of happiness -- let's remember and embrace that history.
Happy Independence Day.
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Now the "progressives" are trying to plant their flag on the Founding Fathers?
Now I've heard everything.
Our Founding Fathers were all about LIMITED GOVERNMENT, the free market and private property, which are conservative values. The Bill of Rights were all about what the government CANNOT do to it's citizens.
Early "progressives" like Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson and FDR were all about expanding government and FDR's "2nd Bill of Rights" was a list of what government "should do on our behalf".
Our Founding Fathers said that "all men are created equal", but that doesn't mean that all results should be equal as well. That is up to the individual, NOT the government.
We are granted "Life, Liberty and the PURSUIT of Happiness. We are not guaranteed happiness, nor should we be.
Nice try.
July 4th is just a day to make noise for most Americans. It should be spent contemplating, celebrating and appreciating a heritage that is the envy of the world and is still the best hope for it.
I like how they say this country was found on conservative values.
Breaking away form Greta Britain (not radical)
Have fun watch 1776-Congress was still split the way it is now
The War for Independence was fought because a government wanted to tell free citizens that they didn't need to represented in the government. The Founding Fathers decided that we must break with a government that chose to over-ride the natural rights of all men, thinking that it knew better than the people did what was in their best interests.
The response from members of Parliament to requests for a voice for the colonies was that we were better off not being troubled by participating in the government.
Today, our Liberal Progessive government takes over private corporations, undermines free trade, and intends to impliment a healthcare system that will effectively remove our freedom to choose our health plan. Conservatives want the government to stop trying to determine our best good for us, and we insist on having a voice in the process. Which ideology sounds like the true spirit of '76?
"Which ideology sounds like the true spirit of '76?"
The one that believes the people, not the healthcare, oil, and military-industrial lobbyists, should run the country.
This country is for lobbyists and lobbyists only.
Modern Day Progressives are the furthest from our Founding Fathers as possible. They want Americans to give up their liberties and freedoms to an elite "enlightened" few in Washington. They want to control other Americans "for their own good". It's the 21st century tyranny.
Last year, the will of the majority of the American electorate spoke after 8 years of YOUR party having its way. And t wasn't for "more of the same, please."
Move on. Be a real American instead of a useless sore loser.
Please instruct me on what car I can drive, who I can hire, what beliefs I must have, what I can eat, what I can smoke, what words I can say, what words I can hear, what light bulbs to put in my house, how many trees I must plant.
I don't think there's a single thing that liberals don't want control over.
I am sorry Mr. Lux but you cannot compare the Progressives of today with those of our founding fathers. Our founding fathers believed in small government that the people were the power in the nation not the government. Today's Progressives believe the government must be big to take care of the people because the people cannot take care of themselves. The founding fathers put checks and balances in the government today the President is doing away with those checks and balances with all his Czars. Our founding fathers believed that free enterprise and business was the engine that ran this economy Progressives today believe the government is the engine that runs the economy. Our founding fathers believed everyone should have the opportunity to go as far as his talents would take him or her. Progressives believe everyone should be the same no matter what talents they have and if they do make it somewhere they should give it up to someone that did not strive as hard as them. So Mr. Lux the only way these two progressives are the same is they both want to destroy the current country and make a new one.
When I am thinking this 4th of July of our founding fathers I am grateful for all they gave us. Those words Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of happiness always ring true. Today we are fighting for those rights again. It was those same founding fathers that knew it would be the people that make this country great not the government. This is a country that gives us the opportunity to do great things. My mind goes to two men who started a business in a garage because they had a great idea. Those two men created Microsoft and Apple. llook at Donald Trump who filed bankruptcy 3 times yet he is one of the most successful business men in America today. We have the right to take risk and we have the right to fail because when we fail we learn what not to do next time.
Today we have a president and a government that wants to make all men equal. They do not want people to dream or get a head they want them the same. They do not believe in the American people or that the American people can take care of themselves. They believe that government is made to take care of all our needs and to see we do not fail. This is what they have in Europe and how many self made men or women do you see there. ON THIS 4TH OF JULY DON'T LET THEM TAKE OUR AMERICAN DREAM AWAY
Today's American progressives/liberals stand diametrically opposed to the tenets of the Founding Fathers. From political correctness (which has smoothly been transferred to attack the First Amendment), to reverse discrimination (which is denied by the perpetrators, but known to be factual by rational thinkers and VICTIMS of the abuse), to the creeping centralism that is crushing federalism - a main DEMAND of the founders - the progressive movement has betrayed the independent spirit of those who bore arms against England and fought for freedom, many to their deaths. That's right, progressives, the people of the day, led by the ideas of Jefferson etc., had firearms of their own and killed those who would have enslaved and/or killed them. Your version of freedom would have a disarmed and vulnerable populace.
Mike Lux has spent too much time in his own world, theorizing and feeling how much he and his fellows are soul mates of those who broke ground in 1776. His book is the product of his indoctrination and his naivete.
Progressives are real Americans. We stuck by our country through 8 years of a disastrous Republican presidency. No calls for secession from us; no attempted assassinations. Now we're working hard to fix things, to re-balance taxes with spending, get us out of a disastrous war, and figure out a way to help everyone get access to health care. THAT's what I call patriotism.
Great post!
There are always two sides to history.
And the side less often expressed is often the more accurate
The biggest gap in the argument is the native americans, who were mostly on the side of the british because the americans did not want to recognize previous treaties that had been signed and wanted to have a more expansionist policy.. There was massive ethnic cleansing following the revolution, obviously there aren't very many indigenous people left on this continent at all anymore. I've heard people argue that it was the largest genocide in all of human history
Then the next thing that comes to mind is african slaves. many, I believe, actually fought with the british.
And then of course its important to look at the leaders of the revolution. They were by and large, the rich aristocrats and secondarily the merchant class. They wanted independence for tax reasons. Rich people opposing taxes, again not very progressive.
The constitution itself is not especially progressive either. It is a highly undemocratic system that gave voting rights only to rich land owning white men . And even then they put further limits on democracy, for example, many will remember in 2000 when Al Gore received more votes than Bush, yet Bush won. That kind of thing is not an accident. It was written in by design
Just what you would expect out of a progressive. America is a bad place. Yes we have made mistakes in the past but America always strives to fix them. Not the government but the people. So stop hating America.
What are you talking about?
Co-sign! Thomas Paine ... Age of Reason, Common Sense, The Rights of Man, essential reading
Well said, Mike. The quotes you include from those insisting that rule by king was safe and should be preserved sound completely ridiculous, remarkably similar to those on the right today who argue that gay marriage threatens heterosexual lives, that questioning our leaders is unpatriotic, or any of the other backwards, hyper-paranoid, often overtly religious, delusional nostalgia for a bygone era that never existed.
I briefly caught a scene on the History Channel - they were running a series called "The Revolution" and it went through the entire history of the revolution....one thing that caught my ear...The British wanted to be seen as liberators, they couldn't understand why the people were rebelling. (hmmmmm, sound familiar??)
July 4, 1776 was just the beginning of the Progressive Movement.
All great laudable progress since then began with the resolve to improve lives in the USA, and it was
the Progressives that made it happen.
Thank you, Thomas Jefferson. The spirit continues.
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