Have we lost the ability to reason in this country?
Or have we just thrown away that option as if it really wasn't all that important anyway?
Working in the area of recruiting vocational talent, I have often heard more seasoned employees and decision-makers decrying the fact that often graduates leave college without every acquiring any critical thinking ability.
Yet our country was built upon a foundation of reasoning.
A group of men gathered together to hammer out a document that would properly define their reason for rebelling against a tyrant. Men, fatigued with the heavy burden of representing their friends and families; men living somewhat as outlaws, these men - argued, proclaimed, persuaded and listened -all in an attempt to come up with a statement that people would buy into so wholeheartedly that they would be willing to die for it.
Thomas Jefferson penned their thoughts and the Declaration of Independence became just such a document. The document is inspiring! It was achieved - not so much through compromise and consensus as through the contention of debate. Through well thought out arguments they chiseled down to the truth.
And the document they presented to the world - endorsed with their signatures - was truth...
. . . We hold these truths to be self-evident . . .
That is why people were willing to link arms with the framers and pledge their own lives.
Tell me, has anyone in Washington produced anything in recent history that people would be willing to die for?
Can you point to any piece of legislation, any speech, any executive order that carried with it the least bit of inspiration?
I think it is because we have forgotten about truth.
In other times, men of truth were able to express themselves and their beliefs and together they were able to arrive at God's truth.
Political correctness...
fear of offending...
a prevailing sense of false tolerance ...
arguments that are disallowed before they are even offered ...
- all these snuff out reasoned thought. Expression is shut down. Creativity is aborted.
And we end up with much talk ... much communication ... much action ... but nothing is really accomplished - at least nothing worth believing in.
When it seemed our nation had outgrown the "Articles of Confederation" ... legislators met again in the late 1780's and for one summer they contended over the document that would become our constitution. What a miraculous work they produced by the Grace of God!
They worked through the aggravation, the heat, the insects. They refused to take any issue off the table - everything was up for discussion - anything could be altered.
Finally, they produced a document that - maybe, just maybe - the people of the nation could come together on.
But they weren't overly confident.
In Miracle at Philadelphia, by Catherine Drinker Bowen*, the author records portions of a speech written by Benjamin Franklin and presented on the day of the signing of the Constitution. Franklin said ...
"I must confess that there are several parts of this constitution which I do not at present approve. . . . but I am not sure I shall never approve them."
... "I consent, Sir, to this Constitution, because I expect no better and because I am not sure that it is not the best. The opinions I have had of its errors, I sacrifice the the public good. . . ."
Quickly, name one politician today who would sacrifice anything - least of all his/her opinion - for "the public good"?
Franklin was willing to trust trustworthy men and their opinions and because he knew that their hearts were as his heart - he felt it quite possible that he would eventually come into agreement with them.
It all starts with truth. A common moral compass.
Shortly before the American Revolution, The Great Awakening had infused this fledgling nation with a fresh regard for the truth.
Our nation has been through at least one generation of moral relativism and a constant denial of absolute truth.
I think that is why we are so easily swayed by emotional topics.
It is definitely why we would become so panicky at the threat of a severe economic downturn.
Panicky enough to do goofy stuff - like selling out our liberty, one right at a time, in exchange for the promise of ...
what?
... oh yeah,
"hope".
The neat thing about truth is that it is God's Truth.
Jesus said that He was the Way... the Truth ...
So the Truth exists despite our actions and our emotions and all of our psuedo-intellectual rules...
What's more the Truth will prevail. It always wins in the end.
The forefathers knew that,
that was why they reasoned among themselves;
they wanted to be certain -
not that truth was on their side
- but that they were on the side of truth!
What a blessed country! What a blessed History!
* Miracle at Philadelphia: The Story of the Constitutional Convention, May to September 1787, Catherine Drinker Bowen. The Atlantic Monthly Press, 1966. pp255 & 256
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