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The Spanish-American philosopher Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás (known in English as simply George Santayana) famously said in his book The Life Of Reason, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
For all intents and purposes, America is in the process of fulfilling Santayana’s proverb. If America’s founders were to rise from the grave and look at the country they sacrificed so much to create, they would think they were looking at King George’s England instead of the free and independent republic they birthed.
The only references to America’s past nowadays seem to be those that either condemn our Founding Fathers or glorify Abraham Lincoln. That is pretty much the sum total of what most Americans (including conservatives and Christians) are taught about their history. It is no hyperbole to say that virtually the entire country (with very few exceptions) has thoroughly and completely lost touch with its history. And the consequences of this travesty are everywhere.
For the most part, real American history is not taught in America’s grammar schools, middle schools, high schools, colleges or universities. Neither is it taught in America’s churches, Bible colleges or seminaries. Most Americans will graduate from high school, college and post-graduate school and never learn their own history. Most Christians will go through Sunday School, Christian grade school, high school and college and never learn their own history. Ditto for most private and parochial schools and colleges. Most Americans will live their entire lives and die at a ripe old age having never learned their own history. And even worse: most of them seem to have little desire to learn it. They seem very content to spend untold numbers of hours listening to radio and television talk shows and Internet podcasts rather than studying their own history for themselves.
The only thing most “conservatives” and Christians know is the Republican versus Democrat, conservative versus liberal and “right” versus “left” paradigm. (The same is true for liberals, of course.) That’s it! I mean, THAT’S IT! It’s Sean Hannity or Rachel Maddow, FOX News or CNN and Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. That’s it! I mean, THAT’S IT!
Face it, folks: Donald Trump doesn’t know The Federalist Papers from The Cat in the Hat. His constitutional IQ is about 30—and that’s probably being generous. The same goes for the vast majority of our congressmen and senators—from either party—in Washington, D.C. And the biggest problem is that the people who keep electing and reelecting these constitutional morons to the highest political offices in the country don’t even recognize that it’s a problem.
With Independence Day coming up, I am again reminded of the root cause of America’s woes: vast ignorance of the constitutional, historical and Natural Law principles that birthed this country. So, at the risk of sounding self-serving, I am going to strongly urge readers to become familiar with the following literary works.
The first book every serious student of American history needs to read is THE FREEDOM DOCUMENTS. This is the finest compilation of America’s great historical documents in ONE VOLUME in print. These documents contain the actual words of America’s founders, words which explain and expound the laws and principles of liberty, words that came from the hearts and minds of the men who brought the greatest free nation on earth into existence. These documents form the cornerstone of our nation’s liberties. One cannot possibly understand the significance of Independence Day and be ignorant of these documents at the same time.
This fantastic collection of America’s greatest documents is only available here—and we only print twice a year (for Independence Day and Christmas)—and this special summer printing will only last for another week or so. Therefore, to receive a copy of THE FREEDOM DOCUMENTS, you need to order NOW.
Order THE FREEDOM DOCUMENTS here:
THE FREEDOM DOCUMENTS
The second book I urge readers to obtain is Lex, Rex, Or The Law And The Prince by Samuel Rutherford. Originally published in 1644 by Scottish Presbyterian Minister Reverend Samuel Rutherford, this is a copy of the 1843 printing. Lex, Rex defends the rule of law and the lawfulness of defensive wars and advocates limited government and constitutionalism in politics. This book contains masterful, in-depth research. It is one of the most scholarly works on liberty ever written.
Order Lex, Rex here:
Lex, Rex, Or The Law And The Prince
The third book I urge readers to get is Second Treatise Of Government by John Locke.
John Locke was the Father of America's Founding Fathers. Thomas Jefferson borrowed heavily from Locke's Second Treatise when he penned the Declaration of Independence. This is the first book one should read to learn the liberty principles of Natural Law.
Order John Locke’s Second Treatise Of Government here:
Second Treatise Of Government
And since modern America (including Christians and conservatives) have an ongoing idolatrous love affair with Abraham Lincoln—a love affair that has thoroughly tainted and twisted their understanding of liberty and constitutional government—I urge readers to get the book The Real Lincoln by Thomas DiLorenzo.
Through extensive research and meticulous documentation, DiLorenzo portrays the sixteenth president as a man who devoted his political career to revolutionizing the American form of government from one that was very limited in scope and highly decentralized—as the Founding Fathers intended—to a highly centralized, activist state. Standing in his way, however, was the South with its independent states, its resistance to the national government and its reliance on unfettered free trade. To accomplish his goals, Lincoln subverted the Constitution, trampled states' rights and launched a devastating Civil War, whose wounds haunt us still. According to this provocative book, 600,000 American soldiers did not die for the honorable cause of ending slavery but for the dubious agenda of sacrificing the independence of the states to the supremacy of the federal government, which has been tightening its vise grip on our republic to this very day. This book is MUST-READING.
To order Thomas DiLorenzo’s book The Real Lincoln, go here:
The Real Lincoln
The last book I am going to recommend in this column is a modern book (written just last year) that needs to be read by EVERY SINGLE AMERICAN. If it was read and taken to heart by enough people, this book could literally change the course of history and save the American republic. The book is entitled The War On Terror: The Plot To Rule The Middle East by Christopher Bollyn.
From the book's back cover:
The government and media have misled us about 9/11 in order to compel public opinion to support the War on Terror.
Why have we gone along with it? Do we accept endless war as normal? Are we numb to the suffering caused by our military interventions?
No. We have simply been propagandized into submission. We have been deceived into thinking that the War on Terror is a good thing, a valiant struggle against terrorists who intend to attack us as we were on 9/11.
Behind the War on Terror is a strategic plan crafted decades in advance to redraw the map of the Middle East. 9/11 was a false-flag operation blamed on Muslims in order to start the military operations for that strategic plan. Recognizing the origin of the plan is crucial to understanding the deception that has changed our world.
If you don’t read any other book (besides the Bible) this year, read Christopher Bollyn’s The War On Terror: The Plot To Rule The Middle East. Order it here:
The War On Terror: The Plot To Rule The Middle East
America is repeating the mistakes of so many nations before it and repudiating its own founding principles. This is happening because the vast majority of the American people have lost touch with their own national history and heritage.
I dare say that if one were to read the five books I recommend in this column, he or she would be far more educated in the historic liberty principles upon which America was founded than the vast majority of college graduates, TV talking heads, radio talk show hosts, newscasters, university professors, congressmen, senators and pastors in this country.
There are many more excellent resources, of course. But unless the American people start turning off their radios and televisions long enough to do some serious independent study into the great principles of liberty and constitutionalism, they will be totally ineffective in helping to restore America to its former glory.
Donald Trump will not save America; but George Washington could.
© Chuck Baldwin
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