Hey America - Dependence, or Independence - which do you declare?

Independence Day is at hand again, but before I re-post "Inspiration of the Declaration of

Independence" from our 30th President, Calvin Coolidge, it might help it sink in more thoroughly by first looking at what he'd understood to be 'The Supports of Civilization', and the meaning of Education::

"The process of civilization consists of the discovery by men of the laws of the universe, and of living in harmony with those laws. The most important of them to men are the laws of their own nature.

This is education, the method whereby man is revealed to himself. It is the instruction of his understanding, the training of his sentiments, the direction of his action. It discloses the physical and the spiritual, the unseen and the seen. It includes every human relationship and shows forth every duty. It is alike the source of the intellectual and moral force of all mankind.

I shall assume that civilization is desirable. I do not think that is questioned in any respectable quarter...."

Because, unfortunately for us, there are those who do question whether 'civilization is desirable', people like Jean Jacques Rousseau, who made his splash into philosophic fame by questioning the very assumption that 'civilization is desirable', declaring instead that Civilization, particularly Western Civilization, was the root of all of our incivility. And sadly, it has been ideas like Rousseau's, rather than Coolidge's, that have driven our modern sense of education.

You don't have to check the news or even crank up the Google to verify this, just ask yourself if you can imagine your child coming home from a day at school, let alone from a semester at college, expressing the general sense of things found in this, my favorite passage from Coolidge's speech on the Declaration of Independence:

"About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers."

Not real likely, right? Coolidge had been doing his best to clean up after our other 'progressive' college professor, Woodrow Wilson, who'd begun peddling his pro-regressive socialistic idiocy,  such as this, back in 1886:

“... Old as democracy is, its organization on a basis of modern ideas and conditions is still an unaccomplished work. The democratic state has yet to be equipped for carrying those enormous burdens of administration which the needs of this industrial and trading age are so fast accumulating. Without comparative studies in government we cannot rid ourselves of the misconception that administration stands upon an essentially different basis in a democratic state from that on which it stands in a non-democratic state….”

Even then, Wilson and his ilk, had begun trying to get us to stop thinking of ourselves as a Republic, and instead for us to refer to ourselves as a 'Democracy'. It's a curious thing, that what he saw as being that 'democratic state', was not so different, in his eyes, or Pro-Regressives eyes today, as Socialism. From Wilson's 'Socialism and Democracy'

"...For it is very clear that in fundamental theory socialism and democracy are almost if not quite one and the same. They both rest at bottom upon the absolute right of the community to determine its own destiny and that of its members. Men as communities are supreme over men as individuals. Limits of wisdom and convenience to the public control there may be: limits of principle there are, upon strict analysis, none.

It is of capital importance to note this substantial correspondence of fundamental conception as between socialism and democracy: a whole system of practical politics may be erected upon it without further foundation...."

What Woodrow Wilson wanted to do with that 'Old Time Progressivism', as Hillary Clinton called it, was to, in effect, to 'Fundamentally Transform America', and he said so, in speech after speech, such as in "What is Progress?", and he said it as clearly as our current college professor president attempts to obscure it:

"All that progressives ask or desire is permission—in an era when “development” “evolution,” is the scientific word—to interpret the Constitution according to the Darwinian principle; all they ask is recognition of the fact that a nation is a living thing and not a machine.

And yep, for those of you who like to spout off about Conservative's 'Social Darwinism'? It's all yours baby. And the means they put in place to 'evolve us', was the Regulatory State. From the ACA's to EPA's, they are the administrative means of transforming a 'Democracy' into an 'improved' version of socialism: 'Progressivism'. Wilson continued:

" Some citizens of this country have never got beyond the Declaration of Independence, signed in Philadelphia, July 4th, 1776. Their bosoms swell against George III, but they have no consciousness of the war for freedom that is going on today.

The Declaration of Independence did not mention the questions of our day. It is of no consequence to us unless we can translate its general terms into examples of the present day and substitute them in some vital way for the examples it itself gives, so concrete, so intimately involved in the circumstances of the day in which it was conceived and written. It is an eminently practical document, meant for the use of practical men; not a thesis for philosophers, but a whip for tyrants; not a theory for government, but a program of action. Unless we can translate it into the questions of our own day, we are not worthy of it, we are not the sons of the sires who acted in response to its challenge. ."

The last line is one he did manage to get right: " Unless we can translate it into the questions of our own day, we are not worthy of it, we are not the sons of the sires who acted in response to its challenge".

America, you need to judge for yourself, which one of these President's visions sounds to you like they mean to see that you will be allowed to live your life as you see fit: Wilson's view of a Darwinist Govt living your life for you, or Coolidge’s idea of living your own life in Liberty?

We are faced with a choice today between the two: Which path to follow? We've been flirting with Teddy Roosevelt's & Woodrow Wilson's path for a century, and this current administration has brought us to the 'put up or shut-up!' stage - which will it be America? A Declaration of Independence such as Coolidge and our Founders envisioned for you and your children, or the Desire for Dependence under the tender mercies of the administrative state, as the Pro-Regressives have planned for you?

It's time to choose.

The sort of life you will be allowed to lead depends upon it.