Liberty Papers (1) — Philadelphia Evening Post
To the People of the Tri-State,
It is occasioned here on the anniversary of the founding of our nation that we welcome the rebirth of a local paper, one that seeks to re-engage the long held tradition so fundamental to the American experience and one that dates back more than 250 years in the city of Philadelphia. To revive what may be called the long conversation in political philosophy and political science; to chronicle the opinions and passions of the inhabitants of our history-making city. The purpose of this column is to retrace the roads paved towards the advancement of an idea so central to our accustomed way of life that we often lose sight of its significance. Our political life is informed by the understanding that we as rational human beings are fit for the rule of law. It is so often the case today that we find ourselves in mists, confounded by our relationship with government, and the tensions between the needs of the community and the rights of the individual. I believe this in part to be due to the fact that we have lost our reverence for America, in a word: sentiment. This loss of American sentiment has done tremendous harm to our political affairs and national identity.
What does it mean anymore to be American? We have become so fragmented that we have lost sight of our common purpose. Government is the production of political and philosophic ideas orchestrated to achieve specific ends; in ours, that of human Liberty. When we lose sight of this aim all our attempts at governance are marred. Histories of nations are only consequences to first principles laid down in constitutions and America was the first nation in history ever to be produced intentionally upon a set of values. I will endeavor throughout this series to evoke a sense of pride in these American ideals and fortify the bonds that brought us to union in the first. For it is not our essential differences that makes us up as a body of people but the things we hold in common: the rights of man, equality before the law, and self-determination. You are once again being called upon to deliberate on topics of the utmost importance to our safety and happiness. In an age where mankind, for the first time, is faced with the very real prospect of nearly unlimited power in information, production, and organization, the pressing questions raised at the birth of our nation are again demanding full attention.
To those who may have forgotten or those who have given up, who claim the 21st century is too complex or too high-tech to be dealt with on the same terms as a collection of colonies, be reminded that rational principles never become antiquated. I will throw light on figures of our founding and the ideas that built the modern world to prove Liberty is not anachronism. In the words of William Gladstone describing our constitution, “the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man.” This is what is meant by American sentiment, the recognition of the heights of that achievement and the will to carry it further. It is time we speak our parts in the long conversation and revive the spirit of a nation whose central purpose is to cultivate individuals capable of deciding for themselves the course and purpose of their lives. We the People, the fundamental unit of a republic, the citizen, the individual, must remain at the heart of community and government: American.
-Publius
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