Five Words That Changed America

We’re close to wrapping up the week after July 4.

The left whined and complained about the celebration led by Trump. Obama has been on a public tour pitching his new “library” while concurrently insisting that America has never lived up to the proposition nation.

Many Republicans get frustrated by this claim. Don’t you know, Lincoln is our guy! Oh, and we also “reconstructed” the Union and gave America the 14th Amendment!

And we voted for Civil Rights legislation. Don’t come at us!

This is just boring virtue signalling in an attempt to dodge the emotivist anti-intellectual accusations from the left. RACISM!

You know why? Because they also claim Lincoln.

And they have a better foundation for the claim than the modern right.

That is a good thing. You see, Lincoln isn’t someone we should be rushing to celebrate. He “revolutionized the Revolution” in 1863 and shredded the Constitution. If they left claims Lincoln, they have to own that they really don’t care about the founding or the original Constitution.

Lincoln doubled down on the “idea” of America found in the “five most important words” in American history: “all men are created equal.”

Of course, some honest leftists don’t care. In fact, they readily accept that American underwent a revolution between 1861-1865, one that radically transformed both the Constitution and the meaning of the Declaration.

Jamelle Bouie is one of those leftists, and he wrote the best essay on the leftist position on the Declaration last week. 

Bouie admits that Jefferson’s Declaration isn’t his. That Jefferson didn’t really mean the lofty language of the second paragraph, that Americans weren’t committed to “all men are created equal,” and that the Declaration in 1776 was little more than a secession document.

Excellent! He then argues that the modern Declaration, the one he champions, can be found in the words of black Americans, women, Indians, and other radical leftists, even from the 18th century. They all believed the “five words” and began pursuing reform. And if you don’t like that, you are John C. Calhoun.

He really suggested that. If you can’t bash George Wallace, you need to bash Calhoun.

This essay is actually cogent and consistent, which is why I had to discuss it on Episode 1296 of The Brion McClanahan Show.

You can watch it here.

OR

You can listen to it here.