OPINION

Why Our Founding Fathers Were Right

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com.

The ideas of America’s Founding Fathers are the basis upon which the United States was established.  The Left would have us believe that, in foundation and substance, our Founder's concepts about government and society were wrong or, at the very least, outdated and unfit for a 21st-century world.  The Left, as always, is wrong.  Our Founders were right, and we should defend them mightily. 

This disagreement is fundamental, gets to the very root of what humanity is and should be, and is the core reason we must vociferously fight the evils of the Left.   If the Democratic Party succeeds in changing and/or destroying the principles upon which America was established, it will not only obliterate the country, but it will also wipe out the true essentials of good government around the world.  It required hundreds of years—over a millennium—to recover what the Greeks, Romans, and Judeo/Christianity gave mankind.  How long it will take to convalesce from another collapse of Western Civilization and the cardinal principles of limited, virtuous government is inconceivable.  The Chinese are certainly not pointing us in that direction, nor is any other non-Western, non-Judeo/Christian system.  We are literally fighting for the world's future against another impending “Dark Ages.”

Here is an interesting quote:  “They (Congress) seemed...to be at a loss for objects whereon to throw away the supposed fathomless funds of the treasury.”  That sounds like a commentary on the United States Congress, 2023, doesn’t it.  Actually, it was written by Thomas Jefferson about 200 years ago.  I never cease to be amazed at how relevant the words of our Founders are to our age and how they accurately describe current events.  Our Founders were right back then; they are right today, and their words will always be relevant until the end of time.  Here’s why. 

We can start with the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that their Creator endows them with certain unalienable Rights.”  Our Founding Fathers knew there was a God.  Most of them (though not all) were believers in the Christian religion.  There was the odd agnostic or atheist like Thomas Paine, who had been influenced by the atheistic strand of the Enlightenment (the “philosophes” rather than Locke and Burke).  But, on the whole, our Founders were believers in Christianity and the Judeo-Christian moral tradition.   They believed in God and in the eternal principles that flow from Him.  “All men are CREATED equal and endowed by their CREATOR...”   And therein lies the key to the entire American system, established by our Founders, that the atheistic Left is desperate to overthrow.

Our Founders knew that there are values that do not change because they originate in the very nature of God.  Certain principles of right and wrong have existed for the eternity behind us. They will continue into the eternity before us simply because they are true based upon the Eternal God who is Truth.  As I said, these norms flow from His very nature and cannot, without harming mankind, be changed.  Any dilution or destruction of them will only produce digression, decadence, and injury to those who practice them.  Communism denies these principles, and we see what they did in the 20th century (and are still doing today).  Because of our Creator, there are absolutes:  firm, final, fixed, immutable principles that men should live by.  Our Founders knew and believed that and established America on those principles.  Such led, for example, to the abolition of slavery and rights for all.  The Left wishes to destroy those principles and, as we are witnessing, is succeeding in doing so.

 The modern Left bases its entire program on a naturalistic, materialistic philosophy.  Their ideology denies everything our Founders upheld—fixed, eternal, immutable principles to guide humanity.  As Marx plainly stated, naturalism implies that nothing is permanent, absolute, or final.  Everything is “evolving,” malleable, and in flux, including morality and the very nature of humans.   This is the core of communism, Marxism, the Democratic Party, and every other Leftist, non-theistic philosophy.  If there is no God, then nothing is enduring or absolute, including life, humanity, morality, and the rights of man.  Thus, Human reason decides the ultimate principles of the world; let the UN, WEF, CCP, Biden, or some other human agency “plan” what we should eat, drink, and drive, even who lives and who dies.  Herein is modern Leftism.  It is the foundation of today’s Democratic Party.  It is a complete and utter rejection of the ideals upon which America’s Founders built our country.  

And it is why the Left MUST destroy the Founders in the eyes of Americans, MUST destroy our history, MUST reform our entire system.  And while no one denies some change is necessary and good, the foundation of such change—the eternal principles stemming from an omniscient God—directly opposes what the Left believes.  God’s eternal decrees limit change; it does not explain all that exists.  

History, as always, instructs us.  Atheism produced the French Revolution, the guillotine, communism, and countless deaths.  “Endowed by our Creator” produced America and freedom.  Which do we want?

If the Creator exists, then our Founders were right, and the America they established is worth preserving, yea, must be preserved.  If He doesn’t exist, then our Founders were wrong, and the Left is correct, at least insofar as anything “human” can be “correct” (based upon what standard?).  The America the Founders established became the greatest country the world has ever known.  The 20th century demonstrated the world the Left wants to—and did—create without God and absolutes.  That is where the Democratic Party is leading us.

Jefferson was right.  All men are CREATED.  For the good of mankind, we’d better return to what they established before it’s too late.

Check my substack mklewis929.substack.com  for recent articles and podcasts.  Lots more on the Founding Fathers there.  Follow me on Twitter:   @thailandmkl.  Read my Western novels, Whitewater, River Bend,  Return to River Bend, and Allie’s Dilemma, all available on Amazon.  And God Bless America!