We just don't understand:

Tuesday-October 19, 2010

We just don’t understand:

Andrea Merkel, Chancellor of Germany, declared that Multi-Culturalism doesn’t work, because it can’t work. It doesn’t work, because keeping cultures separate will not assimilate them. Part of the assimilation process for immigrants encourages the blending of cultures into the dominant culture while encouraging the use of the countries language. In Germany, where other Europeans have migrated, who have not assimilated have not become successful. They have excluded themselves, because they have retained their culture to their own detriment by not assimilating.

In this country we started out as one nation, with one language and one culture, while practicing the traditions of other cultures. While Europe is now witnessing what has not worked, we in the United States are migrating towards what Europe is now saying doesn’t work. This is a matter of not understanding what the successful formula of freedom has been all about.

On today’ date, two major events occurred that created the practice of what American Exceptionalism is and what gave us freedom and liberty. It was not one man, it was not one party. It was a group of people who dared to ask the question of why and understood what the meaning was to the answer of why.

The first event occurred on October 19, 1765. This is when our first Congress met in New York to protest the Stamp Act and authored the Declaration of Rights and Liberties. (http://www.constitution.org/bcp/dor_sac.htm)

The second event occurred at 2p.m. on October 19, in the year of 1781. This is when British General Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown which effectively ended the American Revolutionary War.

What we don’t understand is that these dates were pivotal in bringing this country to its destined future. It was because of these events that the thought of a free America was born and completed. What we fail to understand is that the nation was forged from the thought of men and women wanting to be free and wanting to assimilate the cultures of many people into one Union: the United States of America. What we don’t understand is that in our early days we didn’t have talk about one party being left and one party being right. What we don’t understand is that in those days we didn’t want a ruler. We wanted a leader that governed according to law, the Constitution and the original documents; such as the Declaration that provide a clear cut path to the events that ended the Revolutionary War and provided the basis for free men and women to govern themselves, instead of men and women being governed by a ruler. What we don’t understand is that our laws and rules of freedom have been with us all along in this journey we call American Exceptionalism. What we don’t understand is that we don’t need a government to rule. We need a government that will be governed by the governed. What we don’t understand is that this is what our forefathers were telling us.

What we don’t understand is that our Constitution did not give us the poor; that one side of the political spectrum wants to cater too. What the poor don’t understand is that government has made them poor through taxation and the bureaucracy of entitlements.

What those on the side of less government don’t understand is that government is needed to provide for those who sometimes times cannot provide for themselves. What we don’t understand, as a country, is how did we get to a point where we cannot reduce bureaucracy, because we cannot repeal or just stop the programs that sustain poverty?

The President’s party will be defeated for the things that they failed to understand. While the Republicans are on the brink of victory they must also understand the failures and be prepared to correct them. All this is premature, because the midterms have not taken place. But we should be discussing what failure is and what failure means to the country at large when we don’t understand what American Exceptionalism is all about.

The last paragraph of the Declaration of Rights and Liberties said: “Lastly, That it is the indispensable duty of these colonies to the best of sovereigns, to the mother-country, and to themselves, to endeavor, by a loyal and dutiful address to His Majesty, and humble application to both houses of Parliament, to procure the repeal of the act for granting and applying certain stamp duties, of all clauses of any other acts of Parliament whereby the jurisdiction of the admiralty is extended as aforesaid, and of the other late acts for the restriction of the American commerce.” The last word in this document was commerce. Our forefathers knew and understood that commerce is what would give a young nation its wealth. They also knew and understood that high taxes would rob the new nation of its wealth. The Supreme Court will be asked about the Constitutionality of the Presidents Health Care Plan. The President’s Plan will increase costs through taxation and will grow government. What we don’t understand is the delicate relationship between government and commerce.

George Washington’s general orders, after the British surrendered at Yorktown on October 19, 1781: “The commander-in-chief earnestly recommends that the troops not on duty should universally attend with that seriousness of deportment and gratitude of heart which the recognition of such reiterated and astonishing interposition of province demands of us.” What Washington understood is that he could not take credit for the victory, but he could give general orders that would bring an end to the war for freedom and independence. Though hostilities did not come to an end until the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783, the battles on land did.

In the story of our freedom and independence, we must understand what is meant by the words that provided a country the dream that would become the American Dream. Freedom and Independence did not come as a result of a president. We must understand that freedom and independence came as a result of those who understood the formula that gave us freedom and independence and that was the beginning of American Exceptionalism.

Gregory C. Dildilian
Founder and Executive Director
Pinecone Conservatives

A footnote in history: On November 2, 1783 General Washington bid farewell to his troops. Let’s take that spirit that won the revolution and in 14 days bid farewell to the members of our government who just don’t understand what that spirit was.