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The Committee of Five was given the goal to draft a letter, Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Sherman and Livingston delivered something far more. It can turn back Identity Marxism.
Founding Father Roger Sherman
Sad will be the day when the American people forget their traditions and their history, and so longer remember that the country they love, the institutions they cherish, and the freedom they hope to preserve, were born from the throes of armed resistance to tyranny, and nursed in the rugged arms of fearless men.
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The Committee of Five
This week in 1776 the Declaration of Independence was being drafted. For we Americans who still believe that the ultimate gifts we have as humans are our God liberty and the responsibility to pursue truth, Jefferson’s writing is acknowledgement that Natural Law is the source of our freedom. These rights are what we assert to possess, not demand to be given.
Jefferson, while being the primary author of the Declaration of Independence, was assisted by his committee members. The Committee of Five was the group charged with “drafting” a declaration to send to England, codifying the colonies position on sovereignty and self determination.
I always like this scene from John Adams, where it is implied thatJefferson had editors in Franklin and Adams for the final draft. Perhaps for simplicity’s sake they only included three well known figures.
Jefferson gave us far more than a draft. But he did have help. The Committee of Five membership included: Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Roger Sherman, and Robert Wilkinson. Roger Sherman, described by Jefferson as having “never said a foolish thing in his life.”, is the only Founding Fathers who signed all 4 essential documents which formed the foundation of our form of government. Adams found him to be “one of the most sensible men in the world,” possessing the “clearest head and steadiest heart.”
As noted in our Founders History page for this month, Sherman was integral in many ways to the interpretation of our Constitution, and was a proponent of the concept of “Few and Defined” when enumerating the powers of the federal government. Sherman had a hand in developing many of our founding documents to the formation of our government: the Articles of Association in 1774, the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the Articles of Confederation in 1781, and the Constitution of the United States in 1787.
10th Amendment Prior to 10th Amendment
The announcement of the 1773 Tea Act motivated Sherman to declare his belief “that no laws bind the people but such as they consent to be Governed by.” Sherman in 1784 stated that the states retain all powers not enumerated by the Constitution. In other words, the federal government cannot invent a power, then exercise it. This safeguards the rights of the individual. Why? Because it precludes government assuming authority it does not have, then relying on due process to shield the government while its citizens attempt to redress the infringement or encroachment that government had just perpetrated.
This keeps power in check. It protects the liberty of the states, and ultimately of the states citizens. Likewise, this concept of delegated and reserved powers applies to the states, with the citizens giving their consent to laws with each vote for terms of office.
We have forgotten this – we believe that the govt can act and that the courts are the final arbiter. This places government action above those rights of the citizens. The government can act, and only when you win a case in court are you then allowed to disregard strictures of the state.
Marcuse and The New Marxism In Our Institutions
The article by Logan Lancing summarizes what is happening in our institutions, and how Herbert Marcuse’s theories are responsible for large numbers of our “educated” youth adopting a new form of communism. That will be the basis for some of our discussion.
Marx, the God. Marcuse, His Prophet. Mao, His Sword.
In our Sunday Nights Radio Episode Show Notes: Vernal we discussed how psychoanalysis was imperiled by adopting the ideas of Marcuse and Critical Theory. These ideas are developed further in this month’s edition of Cultural Courage in The Devouring Mother And Severed Conscience
Marcuse identified, correctly, that western societies ability to provide an environment where the working class and middle class could fulfill their needs and indeed thrive, and this would lead to a population who would want this stability to remain in place. His ideas which were to become known as Critical Theory, or Identity Marxism were as follows:
- Critique of contemporary society: Marcuse argues that modern society, dominated by corporate capitalism, suppresses genuine human needs and potential. He claims that our apparent freedom is an illusion, as we are blinded by “introjected” needs that perpetuate our servitude to the system.
- Call for revolution: Marcuse advocates for a revolution to unseat the Establishment and transform society. He sees rebellious young whites and militant ghetto blacks as potential agents of this change.
- New sensibility: Marcuse proposes the development of a new sensibility that would reject the values and needs imposed by the current system. This new consciousness would be based on an aesthetic interpretation of reality and generate a “biological” need for freedom
- Critique of consumer culture: Marcuse argues that the consumer economy creates artificial needs that tie individuals to the existing system. He suggests that these needs become “biological” and act as a stabilizing force, preventing social change.
- Liberation beyond traditional Marxism: While drawing from Marxist thought, Marcuse goes beyond traditional economic analysis. He emphasizes the importance of transforming human consciousness and desires, not just economic structures.
- Biological foundation for socialism: Marcuse explores the possibility of a “biological” basis for socialism, suggesting that human instincts and needs could be reshaped to support a more liberated society.
How Can There Be a Biological Basis for Socialism, What Instinct Would that Be?
Marcuse maintained that the common man did not know that he was captured, captivated by consumerism and unable to see his own plight. So instruction and social re-engineering must take place:
Marcuse argues that the consumer economy and corporate capitalism have created a “second nature” in humans, where the need to possess, consume, and handle commodities becomes a biological necessity. This second nature is not inherent but is socially constructed and deeply ingrained through continuous exposure to consumer culture. Marcuse states, “The need for possessing, consuming, handling, and constantly renewing the gadgets, devices, instruments, engines, offered to and imposed upon the people… has become a ‘biological’ need” This transformation of human needs serves to stabilize and conserve the existing system, making it resistant to change.
https://www.marcuse.org/herbert/scholarship/2000s/2001-samson-review-essay-on-liberation.html
Undermine the stability. Cause upheaval.
these artificially created needs act as a counterrevolutionary force, embedded within the instinctual structure of individuals. The satisfaction derived from consumer goods and the perceived autonomy in their use create a false sense of freedom and self-determination. This, in turn, prevents the development of a revolutionary consciousness that could challenge the status quo. He writes, “The needs generated by this system are thus eminently stabilizing, conservative needs: the counterrevolution anchored in the instinctual structure”
You need to make comfort, achievement, work, planning abhorrent,
For Marcuse, true liberation involves the subversion of these psychological and socialized attachments to commodity consumption. He envisions a new sensibility that would redefine human values and needs, emancipating them from the standardized pleasures and status symbols that currently dominate. This new sensibility would be based on an aesthetic interpretation of reality, which he believes could generate a “biological” need for freedom and creativity, rather than consumption and conformity
https://prizedwriting.ucdavis.edu/critical-evaluation-herbert-marcuse%E2%80%99s-essay-liberation
Who are New Revolutionaries?
Immigrants, minorities, the sexually disenfranchised dues to sexual practice, and students who can be isolated by their generational “differences” from their families. The young students are the answer, they were easily inculcated into Mao’s Red Brigades. They turned on their families, they helped destroy the traditional structure of Chinese society. Their idealism was played upon. Today the same thing happens because of the downtrodden groups have no “representation” and the students rally to right those wrongs. After all, wasn’t the author of the Declaration of Independence a slave holder?
What Jefferson Wanted But Was Eliminated From The Declaration of Independence
Critical Theory relies on ignorance in order sway the minds of those who feel marginalized. Jefferson is a primary figure who is attacked, because his thinking formed the entire white patriarchy that promulgated slavery. The common argument is that the Declaration of Independence does not mention slavery at all. Washinton University in St Louis is a good example
Created Equal: Slavery and the Declaration of Independence
The final document does not mention slavery and, through its silence, condones enslavement, but the first draft includes a condemnation of slavery. These words, removed before it was finalized, underscored the contradiction between the founding fathers’ beliefs and actions.
Jefferson original document contained a condemnation of slavery:
He has waged cruel War against human Nature itself, violating its most sacred Rights of Life and Liberty in the Persons of a distant People who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into Slavery in another Hemisphere, or to incur miserable Death, in their Transportation thither. This piratical Warfare, the opprobrium of infidel Powers, is the Warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain.
He has prostituted his Negative for Suppressing every legislative Attempt to prohibit or to restrain an execrable Commerce, determined to keep open a Markett where Men should be bought and sold, and that this assemblage of Horrors might want no Fact of distinguished Die
This was removed, and Jefferson claimed it was the most important part of the treatise. Slavery was believed to be on the decline, and many colonists were at odds with the slave holders yet still there needed to be common cause that all could rally to.
https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/declaration-independence-and-debate-over-slavery/
Decades later Jefferson blamed the removal of the passage on delegates from South Carolina and Georgia and Northern delegates who represented merchants who were at the time actively involved in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade
As U.S. president in 1807, he passed significant legislation prohibiting the “importation of slaves to any port or place within the jurisdiction of the United States.”