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THE STARS AND STRIPES AND A GUILLOTINE?

THE STARS AND STRIPES AND A GUILLOTINE?

By Os Guinness
Special to Virtueonline
www.virtueonline.org
July 6, 2020

The week of the Fourth of July, and the sight of the protesters' guillotine outside the Washington DC home of Jeff Bezos, the richest man in America, should be enough to make a blind man see. It was theater of course, but it does not take an Edmund Burke to realize that far more than a revolution over race is a stake, and a revolution that has nothing to do with the American Revolution. For nearly two and a half centuries, the Fourth has been the festival of freedom, not only for Americans but for countless lovers of freedom worldwide. This year, however, finds America's great experiment splattered and stained with protests, and Americans themselves as deeply divided as at any time since just before the Civil War. In the words of the historic warning of Abraham Lincoln, quoting Jesus, "A house divided against itself cannot stand."

If the health of a nation can be gauged by the way it responds to a crisis, what does it say of America that the pandemic deepened America's conflicts -- and the divisions have now been torn open savagely by the horrific murder of George Floyd followed by the legitimate protest against injustice and then the violence, chaos, and anarchy that erupted? For all the ferocious debate, two major questions stand unaddressed. What is the deepest root of the polarization? And what can be done to heal and unite the nation, and lead it forward in the ongoing pursuit of true freedom and true justice for all?

Contemporary ideas such as political correctness, postmodernism, multiculturalism, identity politics, tribal politics, the sexual Revolution, the rage for socialism, and critical theory, are all ideas that have nothing to do with the American Revolution. They come down from the French Revolution, and they carry titanic consequences for the future of America and freedom. These ideas are not about uniting society. They advance by dividing society into deeper and deeper factions. Their assault on the original understanding of the American Republic has gathered force since the late-1960s and the so-called "Long march through the institutions." Inspired by Antonio Gramsci in the 1920s and the Frankfurt school in the 1960s, its stated agenda was to win over American colleges and universities, the press and media, Hollywood and entertainment, and elements of political leadership. This they have accomplished to an astonishing degree.

Many explanations have been given for the cause of the divisions --the social inequities, the exacerbating effect of social media, the clash between the "coastals" and the "heartlanders,"or the "populists" and "globalists," and divergent responses to the 2016 election and to the president himself. But these are reinforcements of the polarization, not its root. The deepest division has been growing for fifty years -- between those who view the Republic and freedom from the perspective of 1776 and the American Revolution (which, through the Reformation, owed much to the rediscovery of the model of the Exodus), and those who view the Republic and freedom from the perspective of 1789 and the French revolution and its heirs. From Occupy Wall Street, to Antifa, to Black Lives Matter and countless smaller groups, the radicals of the progressive left owe nothing to 1776 and everything to 1789. To paraphrase Lincoln for our time, "America cannot endure, permanently half 1776 and half 1789."

If the first requirement of leadership is to define reality, what is needed now is Lincoln-like leadership to analyze the division, and address the long-festering problems in light of the first principles of the American Revolution. If the voices of the progressive left and "1789" finally prevail over "1776," the uniqueness of the American Republic and the understanding of freedom that Americans have always stood for will both be finished. It is therefore essential that Americans seriously re-examine what made America great in the first place.

Both sides are right to identify the unresolved evils. But are the evils to be addressed as Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. addressed them, according to the Jewish and Christian prophetic understanding? Or are they to be addressed according to neo-Marxist "critical theory" as the progressive left is doing today? Both sides challenge the evil head-on, but in diametrically opposing ways that lead to dramatically different outcomes, with immense consequences for true freedom.

The post-pandemic world and the November election represent a critical moment and a new opportunity for America, and they cry out for leaders and citizens who are courageous and understand both their heritage and the present moment. Where is the path forward?

First, Americans must make their choice between the two revolutions. Differences make a difference, choices have consequences, and there is a universe of difference between "1776" and "1789" -- their assumptions, their views of human nature, their competing conceptions of freedom and justice, their divergent views of law and constitution, and their different ways of righting wrongs. Two entirely different views of humanity, freedom and the future are at stake in the choice.

Second, Americans must debate this momentous choice in a way that recognizes the gravity of the stakes, the highest standards of democratic civility, and with "malice toward none." America's public discourse, amplified by the social media, is becoming a spreading cancer on the condition of freedom. The call to consider and return to the first principles of "1776" must therefore be a uniting and healing call that embraces all Americans, and does not become an attack on those who disagree, bringing a further round of destructive culture warring.

Third, Americans as a people must solemnly acknowledge and repent for the evils and hypocrisies that have been identified. Great nations, like people, have to go on record against themselves and admit where they have gone wrong. Repentance, confession, forgiveness, and reconciliation are the heart and soul of the biblical faith that gave rise to the American Revolution. They are nowhere to be found in French Revolution or in its merciless left-wing heirs, and they are essential for going forward, freed from the burdens of the past.

Fourth, if Americans choose to re-commit themselves to what Lincoln called the "better angels" of the American character, Americans should consider planning a national ceremony of rededication, on the Mall in Washington DC, on some future Fourth of July. Leaders of the nation, and a rich representation of diverse American citizens, should humbly and solemnly rededicate themselves and this generation to the ongoing vision of a "yet more perfect union." Like any project that lasts longer than a single generation, America's "great experiment" in freedom requires transmission and education. Other important initiatives might include a major recovery of civic education in America's schools to rediscover what it means, not to become an American but to be American.

The next six months are a Kairos moment for America. The pandemic has exposed the illusion of "mastery" at the center of modernity -- control through reason, science, technology, management, punditry, and self-confidence. Will the world's lead society move forward with a fresh commitment to freedom and justice for all, as well as a new humility? Will Americans, who have long had too much to live with and too little to live for, emerge from the pandemic with a deeper concern for ultimate questions, a new appreciation for human dignity, and the rarity of ordered freedom? Will there be a healing in the land, with inequalities redressed, and a rededication to the great American experiment in freedom? Those are some of the questions as July Fourth 2020 coincides with the current time of troubles. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "dream" of cashing in the "promissory note" of the Declaration of Independence is in danger of being hijacked. Unaddressed ideas and unresolved wrongs have opened up a fifty-year old chasm at the heart of America, which has been brutally exposed by the double ugliness of yet another incident of racism and by the anarchy and violence of the response. But one thing is beyond question: Americans can no longer sit on the fence. In both the diagnosis and the remedy, America must now choose between "1776" and "1789."

Os Guinness, an Englishman, is an author and social critic who lives in McLean, Va. A recent book is Last Call for Liberty: How America's genius for freedom has become its greatest threat.

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