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LET FREEDOM RING con't. next column LET FREEDOM RING con't. next column Across 5. four 7. harvest 9. pumpkin 11. October 13. acorns 15. fall 18. chlorphyll 22. photosynthesis 24. cluck 25. Elvis 26. Harvest Moon 29. glucose 30. cider 31. Indian Summer 32. depression 33. oak 34. equator 35. scarecrows Down 1. Bill of Rights 2. carotene 3. Oktoberfest 4. Monarch 6. Japan 8. September 10. daylight 12. sunshine 13. apple 14. ragweed 16. Arctic Tern 17. Equinox 19. Autumn 20. Peanuts 21. Thanksgiving 23. Sugar 27. Mickey Mantle 28. red LET FREEDOM RING continued LET FREEDOM RING continued PUZZLED? ANSWER KEYS for puzzles see p. 40. 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 BIO info: Wes May, with his wife, Jeanne, retired to Pinehurst in 1994. His career callings were as a Navy pilot and a sales/marketing manager for naval communications systems. In addition to “Bucket List” traveling and playing golf, they are active in Moore TEA Citizens and feel blessed to be members of Trinity Christian Fellowship Church. THE END OF AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM? by Wesley May In an 8-3-16 WSJ article, Phil Gramm and Michael Solon define the cause and recovery path back of Obama’s failed economic legacy in just a few words—“...when government overspends, overtaxes and over-regulates, economic freedom is suppressed and economic growth vanishes. When growth fades, it takes the American dream with it. Give America back its economic system of freedom and opportunity, and the ensuing growth will bring back the American dream. …Bad policies produce bad results—not just sometimes in some places, but at all times in all places, even in America.” This affirms the nexus between FREEDOM and POSITIVE RESULTS, and that is the core purpose of this paper. The story begins way back prior to the United States of America and US Constitution and may end, for better or worse, with our pending Presidential Election ending Obama’s unfortunate reign. Let’s start by reviewing the Founding Fathers convictions, especially the 59 framers of our Constitution in 1787. A new, inspired book by Eric Metaxas, If you can Keep It, paints vivid pictures of the brilliant beliefs and sacred hopes of those leaders. The title of the book may sound familiar, since it reminds us of one of the earliest popular stories about our founding. To appreciate what was happening then AND what is happening now, you must acknowledge that our Constitution is the capstone that covers and protects the communal, interpersonal actions, and beliefs of that era which subsequently have come to be known as AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM. Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” Franklin immediately responded, “A republic, if you can keep it.” He thereby warns that our Constitution is a unique, bold but fragile document that must be protected to survive. Unfortunately, now it seems to be slipping away because we, as a nation, have slipped into the trap that Franklin foresaw. Metaxas, in his book, provides a strong defense for the Founding Fathers' beliefs as the means to reverse these destructive trends. The Founding Fathers understood and lived true to those beliefs. The Constitution provides a “freedom-based framework” for self-government. Metaxas explains Os Guiness’s sublime concept —the “Golden Triangle of Freedom.” The three legs of this closed system are: Freedom requires Virtue; Virtue requires Faith; and Faith requires Freedom. All three legs are necessary to provide a freedom-based environment, but I will stress the first one, requires Virtue, as the key to get the Freedom ball rolling. Franklin said, “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom,” and also “that without one, the other is impossible.” This leads to a stunning conclusion: “that less virtue inevitably begets less freedom.” Compare, for example, the nightmarish immediate outcomes of the contemporaneous French Revolution with the peaceful culmination of our American Revolution that produced the Constitution in 1787! Not that deliberations were proceeding without strong disagreements and deadlocks, which Franklin characterized to include being “divided by our little partial local interests…” In a famous speech, Franklin successfully petitioned for “prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning.” His speech is considered a turning point in guiding the deliberations of the Constitutional Convention. And Metaxas calls those values “The secret at the heart of American success” which have been shared in modern times by presidents like Eisenhower, Reagan and Clinton: “America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great.” Our Founding Fathers’ genius created a system of self-governance that had never been seen before. Our history since 1787, proves that the Constitution can work. But the problem is that it can’t be put on autopilot. Its founding principles must be guarded and nurtured—as realized by Franklin when he cautioned “…if you can keep it.” True Freedom is based on “Liberty” and not “license.” Liberty is the basis for a necessarilyshared Freedom and supports the Constitution by working through a self-imposed moral code recognized and accepted by the people. Think of the GOLDEN RULE, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” License, in my opinion, shifts the emphasis from individual voluntary self-control in our dealings with others to individual gratification of selfish desires without regard for any potential consequences on other members of the body politic. A convenient example of this is the difference between Liberty, which supports the universality of the motto “All Lives Matter” while License supports the pure self-gratification implicit in the divisive motto, “(any lesser sector) Lives Matter.” And the uniqueness and greatness of our Constitution is that through its delineated powers and system of checks and balances, it provided the basis for the greatest degree of shared freedom through self-rule that has ever existed in the world. And this is why Metaxas says AMERICA IS EXCEPTIONAL. And, also uniquely, we want to share this freedom with anyone who accepts the RESPONSIBILITIES inherent in this level of self-rule, He also understood that the basis for this approach to self-rule was very fragile, and that the always present, but more base characteristics of “human nature,” were searching for chinks in our armor of VIRTUE that offer avenues for attack! And that is the problem we Americans are facing now. We are lurching dangerously close to ignoring the admonition of Ben Franklin in 1787! A way to understand the current economic malaise is to acknowledge that the liberal’s ideological orthodoxy rejects policies that work in the hands of a Reagan, preferring to embrace their failed liberal ideology. Kennedy is one exception who proves the rule! But so is Obama’s flaccid recovery which is one of just two times since 1870 that there was no strong rebound after the 30 economic downturns that had occurred in that period! Metaxas proposes freedom as an essential ingredient for national success, and no one believes that Obama’s pen, phone, excessive regulations, etc. promote freedom! What they do show is a very narrow perspective through a tiny window to uncover options for dealing with problems. An example from the current campaign: Hillary is arguing for a huge program to rebuild our national infrastructure, which is admittedly in terrible shape! But wait a minute, we’ve already gave Obama over a Trillion dollars in his first term to rebuild the infrastructure. Hillary is merely following the standard Democrat Playbook. Create a project with a catchy title, like STIMULUS or “War on (current cliche).” After it becomes a law, morph it into the standard, on-going “War on Taxpayers Pocketbooks.” In STIMULUS, Obama neglected to fund the promised shovel-ready jobs, 400,000 new workers, etc. in favor of money-laundering crony-ism: think of Solyndra and bailout of GM’s bankrupt Autoworkers Retirement Fund. So now Hillary continues the process for another bite of the infrastructure apple. How long can this go on? Well in some of our big cities, the exclusively Democrat politicians have been doing it for over 100 years. In the process, the Democrats have recreated pre-Civil War southern plantations in many of our large inner cities. Need I say more to demonstrate a need for change NOW! We must recognize that Hillary sustains Obama’s tainted legacy by obscuring our vision of the “city on the hill” with a cloud of deceit and political correctness that is replacing the wisdom of our Founding Fathers. We are losing the sacred vessel of FREEDOM so beautifully described by Eric Metaxas. Please consider carefully Franklin’s warning in this critical election year! �� GOD BLESS AMERICA, NOW MORE THAN EVER! No. 124 The Pinehurst Gazette, Inc. p.27


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