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Ideas That Are Changing The World
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Disclaimer: This is the oath I took while serving in the
U. S. Coast Guard. Take note, there is
NO EXPIRATION DATE on the oath.
I, James R. Brown, do solemnly swear that I
will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all
enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance
to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation
or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties
of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.
I include the above to make is absolutely clear
that as I read and subsequently reviewed this book that I most likely had a
biased for America and its Constitution.
Having said that…
This book gets into the minds and purposes of
the men who are considered our Founding Fathers and why they did what they did
and wrote what they wrote regarding the U. S. Constitution. It literally goes back 5000 years in time to
draw from the ideas of people such as Aristotle to formulate their
ideas as well as many others throughout history. They took the best ideas and the successful
and unsuccessful historical endeavors and created our Constitution, thus the
title of the book. I found this book extremely fascinating. I keep putting myself in the shoes of the
Founding Fathers as they took parts of world history and molded those thoughts
and principles into our Constitution.
It would be impossible to read this book without
learning a great insight into how America got to where it is today. Sadly, the information I read defines an
America that I personally don’t see today.
This is NOT just my opinion; it is the opinion of a great many of
the Founders who more or less predicted that America “could” change if the
Constitution were ever changed or its contents were ignored for any reason.
This is an excerpt from the book worthy of
re-printing here. It is a prophecy!
A Prophecy
One of the greatest American historians of the last generation was John Fiske. He caught the spirit of the Founders and studied their writings. He knew the secret to the 5,000-year leap which was then well on its way. He also saw some dangerous trends away from the Founders’ basic formula of sound government. He therefore wrote a prophecy which Americans of our own day might ponder with profit:
“If the day should ever arrive (which God
forbid!) when the people of the different parts of our country shall allow
their local affairs to be administered by prefects sent from Washington, and
when the self-government of the states shall have been so far lost as that of
the departments of France, or even so closely limited as that of the counties
of England—on that day the political career of the American people will have
been robbed of its most interesting and valuable features, and the usefulness
of this nation will be lamentably impaired.”
Written by John Fiske, The
Critical Period of American History, 1783-1789, The
Historical Writings of John Fiske, Vol 12, Houghton Mifflin Company Boston,
1916, pp 282-283
Five Thousand Year
Leap; a book that SHOULD be taught in every school in America if not the
world. It explains the thinking that gave us our current form of government and
why we should all be working to make sure it remains in tack. The handwriting
is on the wall!
I started this Nugget with the Oath I took in
the Coast Guard for a very good reason.
Over the years I have read the U. S. Constitution and thought I had a
pretty good understanding of it. After
reading this book I realized just how wrong that understanding actually
was. We as a nation of strayed
considerably from the ideals put forth by our Founders and that is a pity. Not sure we can ever recover those ideals
without first changing a great many minds.
THIS IS A GREAT BOOK!
Who
should read this book?
Actually, everyone but I know many won’t even consider it. IT SHOULD BE TAUGHT IN ALL OF OUR SCHOOLS! But it won’t!
Would
I read it again? Actually,
I will. Any chapter can be read without
a need to have read previous chapters and that makes it both easy to read and
instructional now and in the future.
Would
I give it as a gift? I
would love to but won’t as it really counts on a person’s desire to learn the
history of our great country.
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