Is America Losing Its Memory?
Who are we?
What is our past?
What are the real and godly principles upon which our Constitutional Republic was originally founded?
How can we sustain those founding principles?
These and other significant similar questions have perplexed modern man for a very long time,…and the correct answers still elude far too many American citizens to this very day.
I would have to confess from my personal experience in dealing with people over the last forty years,…that most U.S. citizens know and understand very little about the actual founding of their own country.
I would be so bold as to tell you that having a common understanding based upon a common knowledge of our nation’s past is imperative for all Americans if our country is to survive as a nation. It actually draws people together. It gives us a common, civic identity. Indeed, the promise of America is premised on the need for an educated citizenry. Founding Father, Thomas Jefferson, principal author of the Declaration of Independence, and the third president of the United States, clearly articulated this idea in pure and simple terms when he said, “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free it expects what never was and never will be.”
Today we as a nation are facing an ugly truth. We are woefully failing to adequately and completely educate the youth of our nation about the true and actual basis and founding principles of our real history. In short, our nation, The United States of America, may be losing its memory–that our shared collective consciousness may be fading.
Many studies, newscasts, and personal interviews have shown beyond question that even in America’s best and finest universities and colleges, both public and private, all too many of our future leaders are graduating with an alarming ignorance of their true heritage. American historical illiteracy hangs over us like a cloud. If we are ever to correct this sad state of affairs, immediate changes must be made. No one single person will, all by themselves, make the necessary changes required, but together as a corporate body of workers, with a little effort and time commitment, we all individually and combined can reverse this downward spiral and regain most of that basis of understanding that has been lost.
In my personal opinion one of the great personal responsibilities of anyone living and enjoying the benefits and blessings of being a free American is to get themselves properly educated and in possession of a good and knowledgeable understanding of the true and real history concerning the why and how this country came into being. Every citizen of our country should full well know the correct answers to the following questions:
1. How we became a nation, How and why our government (a
Constitutional Republic–not a democracy) was created.
2. What was the reason for establishing the self-governing body politic of
our citizenry.
3. How and why the great price that so many Americans have willingly
paid and continue to pay for the priceless gift of personal and economic
freedoms are still being demanded. What makes it so that these
personal freedoms are each person’s constitutional right.
There are three conditions that presently exist within our own society that have generated our deficiency and lack of understanding regarding our own historic past. They are as follows:
1. Because of our many and varied advance technologies, Americans of all
ages, live in a present-day “sound-bite” world. The hectic pace of
today’s living means that most of us have very little, if any, time for
reading and learning about our own history…so we simply skip it
altogether. If we only had some sort of magical tool that would teach
us in similar and smaller “bites” we would have time to learn and digest
our ever-so-important past.
2. We all must realize that any encounter with our own history must have
a powerful infusion of Passion and Inspiration into the heart and mind
of the student. Everyone, it seems, has their individual senses attacked
everyday via electronic gadgetry and the like. If the muse of history is
ever able to compete for recognition of and by a human being’s senses,
then she must spread her wears with excitement and create within the
consumer of her knowledge a great desire to learn more about what
she is discussing. Persuading Americans to read history is not
impossible, but it takes some consistent applied effort by the persuader.
3. It must be realized by the desirous student that the reading, learning,
and studying of history can full well be highly entertaining in and of
itself. Many of the great stories and other accounts of the exciting
people, places, and events of America’s past can truly grip us and
provide us with the mind-altering experience of losing oneself on the
back pages of the past.
It has been said, “Anyone who does not learn or study the vast mistakes and lessons to be gained from history will unfortunately be forced to relive and repeat them.” Make no mistake, History is important, very important. And the study of it is the common grounds of all true leaders of men and women. Such leaders read, study, and know what the most important lessons of history have provided for all those living today and will continue to provide on into the future.
This website and all of its different subsections have been created as a means to educate, and equip its readers and listeners with the wisdom of the ages in both the physical and the spiritual realms. What you are and then what you become will be given to you through the varied discussions and articles documented within the confines of this website, www.davesevern.com. The knowledge and information is real, true, and important for you as a free American to learn and come to understand.
When the living generations are well educated and knowledgeable of the truths of the past,…the future generations will be well prepared to carry us, as a nation, forward into a safe, prosperous, and well secured future.
Please permit me to close this discussion with a small and true “taste” of what I am communicating to you. There occurred a historical event that played an important role in the early formation of what was to later become known to the world as the United States of America. It happened in the major colonial city of Boston, Massachusetts, and it triggered the War of Independence against the Crown of England.
THE BOSTON MASSACRE
A Patriotic Defense of British Redcoats
The deadly musket fight (battle skirmish) of March 5, 1770 in the streets of Boston in the Massachusetts Bay Colony is a well known factual story. British soldiers guarding the Boston custom house were irritated, agitated, and verbally abused by the local colonists to the point of causing the British armed forces to fire their muskets into an unruly mob of colonial dock workers, killing five of them. When founding father, Samuel Adams, published an account of the shootings, the episode became known as the Boston Massacre. Little did the patriot leader know, at the time, how the strange chain of events and the actions it spurred into play would follow his expose’.
After Samuel Adam’s publication, the colonists were furious and demanded justice. They stirred up such a frenzy of vociferous confrontation and allegation that the British authorities decided to make scapegoats of the Redcoats.
The first to be put on trial was British Captain Thomas Preston. He was found innocent. That left the remaining eight soldiers frightened as regards the preservation of their own lives. They now realized more than ever that they needed a good lawyer. Had their captain been found guilty, that would have rendered them guiltless; they had just been following orders. But with Captain Preston having been found innocent, the soldiers were now on their own–hung out to dry. At that point, the best lawyer in Boston stepped in to take their case and save their lives.
When the trial opened, the defense attorney, who was himself a colonial, was held in almost as much ridicule as the soldiers. Cold stares surveyed him in court, and he met with outright hostility on the street. Nevertheless, he persevered and continued to properly and most effectively represent his clients.
The defense counsel maintained that the mob into which the defendants had shot, was in reality an unlawful assembly. So brilliantly did he argue the case that, after two and one half hours, the jury came back with a not guilty verdict for six of the soldiers and manslaughter verdicts for the other two.
None of the defendants in the Boston Massacre went to jail. Even the two guilty ones, claiming a common law custom, escaped prison by being branded.
Thus it was that eight British redcoats owed their lives and their freedom to a colonial lawyer who laid aside his own political feelings to do his duty. For you see, that Boston attorney who successfully defended the British soldiers of the Boston Massacre was none other than John Adams, our second President, one of the most ardent anti-British patriots Massachusetts ever produced.
A good working and accurate knowledge of the historical past of all of our heritage better prepares an individual for achieving great success in the modern day activities of our great nation.
Peace And Love to All of You…………………..Poppa Bear