The Patent

I am not certain how many there are, but if I remember correctly, there are some hundred and fifty countries on the earth right now. In many of them people worship their ancestors, whether they be great or not, and in the rest they either respect or revere them.

America only is an exception. Here magnificent men and women, who gave Americans the opportunity to be disparaging, are truly denigrated, so much so and so deeply, it seems to me Americans hold the patent for reviling their greats.

I have reflected on why this might be so on many an occasion. Germans of long ago, mostly members of the aristocracy, in a bizarre sort of way give some understanding here. They came, in the early eighteen hundreds, to see what it was this people had created here. But their centuries old code of ethics, heavily encrusted with barnacles of hypocrisy, had rendered them unable to understand and so all what they were able to perceive was that this land was full of Freiheitflegeln, a German compounded word meaning liberty louts.

A most magnificent sense of equality, then not yet debauched by contempt and disrespect, had eluded the understanding of these hypocrites and thus they were unable to recognize the true reflection of equality as it is expressed in liberty. Then it was a simple unobtrusive denial of superior standing, but never devoid of respect. But today the enormity of the struggle for those liberties has become lost and thus allowed those who had become the beneficiaries of that struggle to let contempt become their guiding force now seeking to express liberties no longer there.

Jon Ryter's article Why America Turns On Their Presidents, bad English that this title is, is a most poignant example, not only because of its veracity, but also because of the author's own misunderstanding. It is not that he misquotes historical facts nor what they produced, but he is ignorant of what had been the underlying vision and conviction on which the facts that had prompted those actions were based and, therefore, has misinterpreted them. It once again brings into focus the enormous responsibility facing every patriot of today that requires of him to first learn the language of those magnificent men, who gave us the Great Republic, before he can begin to explicate their intent.

A strange equation, used with ever increasing frequency, is employed now allowing for an unwarranted exposing of America's greats as predators. It is an equation that permits a ready transposing of conditions of now with those of more than two centuries ago. Nothing could be more unjustified than this vitriolic transferring of our present day madness upon the tranquility being the Nation's fire at her birth.

There was no question, no doubt in any one's mind then that a Supreme Author of Liberty ruled the universe. He was the possessor of not just justice, but of absolute justice, and, therefore, justice's sole arbiter. Having clearly and unequivocally understood that the protecting and the discharging this justice was the most sacred responsibility of those to whom rulership had been granted, left the Founding Fathers without any doubt at all what was just and thus what was justice. And they were right!

But the most essential element of the equation used today to denigrate America's magnificent people, men and women alike, is the flagitious ignoring of the fact that the then prevailing conditions on these shores were the opposite of what they are today. It is this sad but true ignoring that over two and a quarter centuries ago people thought in completely different terms which has opened the floodgates to a constant and ceaseless attack not only on the character of the Founding Fathers, but also on what they had accomplished here. The same callousness and disregard for the past has also permitted these purveyors of hate to put words in the mouths of these greats and add purpose to their intent they clearly did not want.

Ignorance has always proved to be ready made for exploitation. Just ask Josepf Göbbels, when you see him.

It is then encumbered upon all of us to remain ever mindful of the fact that none of us was there to see their faces, to hear their voices and, therefore, that everything we think we have come to know about them is by faith, not just ours but also theirs who propose to assert these facts in their written dissertations. Faith, as I said on numerous occasions, is a most reliable instrument for securing truth and facts, provided it remains unmolested by emotions. Inject emotions, that is, a bias either pro or con, and all that can be secured are absurdities, depending on the purveyor's skills, cloaked in plausibility. Nowhere can the devastation resulting from injecting emotions into the reasoning process be more clearly seen, then when the plainly written Scriptures fall victim to it.

To summarize then is to say that had the perspective Who it was Who was perceived to be the Republic's Foundation remained unchanged, had convictions and knowledge in this land remained the same, we would have no cause to complain and would not be facing oblivion today.

But they did not remain the same. The Author of Liberty is hated today, hated with an obscene intensity, and with that hatred is gone the restraining power designed to keep both ruler and ruled enchained. The old words and proclamations are still there, but the old premise and the old sense of justice are not.

It is very much the same as if our laws for, say engineering, were remolded. We all know two plus two to equal four and have on that basis established formulae by which to determine stress conditions in any structure; be that skyscraper, bridge, school, tunnel, or hospital. What would be the outcome, were society to reject the old notion of two plus two being four and replace it in stead with say being eight? Would not every edifice collapse, if the old formulae with this new perception were still employed?

It is this perversion of old truths that brought America into the abyss! Let us remember People v Ruggles of 1811. Mr. Ruggles, as you may remember, had cursed Christ, unprompted by anyone, and had been arrested for sedition, because an attack on Christ was perceived to be specifically and solely directed at the dissolution of the Republic. Let us not lose sight of the fact that all governments, no matter how predacious, have the natural right to secure their existence.

Given today's atmosphere, it seems difficult to understand that cursing Christ should constitute sedition. But let it be remembered that then, just as now, not all were Christians. Voicing rejection, in whatever terms, of Christ in a personal conversation was always accepted to be a reflection of a natural personal right, a personal freedom, but expressing it without cause was seen as an attack on the Nation's foundation and was, therefore, quite a different matter.

All freedoms require intimacy with responsibility. For instance we all know the spurious shout of fire in a crowded theater not to be a legitimate First Amendment exercise. And neither was then an unprovoked cursing the Author of Liberty, since He was clearly accepted to be the Republic's Foundation. But the personal rejection of Christ was never deemed to be sedition, anymore than a justified alerting to the presence of fire anywhere was interpreted to be a violation of the law. Thus all these sedition charges Ryter recites did not solely center on personal attacks on any of our first presidents. John Quincy Adams, particularly, would never have taken personal offense at vitriol solely directed at him.

Let me then appeal to all to exercise caution. No criticism, no amount of blame fixing, no amount of fault finding, even if it were justified, has sufficient tender to bring the Nation out of the abyss. Only singing the song of sovereignty and an appeal to heaven will accomplish that.

That brings me to a final observation. I am accosted by it nearly every day. It is hatred for Him Who rules the universe, hatred for Him Who is the Foundation of the Great Republic. It would seem to me to be extremely dumb, speaking only from a secular point of view, to advocate hatred for God, because if there is a God, the harbinger of that hatred will face an awesome moment in his personal life some day, and if there is no God, it is even dumber still. How can anyone rationally justify hatred for a person believed not to exist?

Dieter Dahmen