tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37352287.post4944672611089010537..comments2023-11-03T11:11:57.989+01:00Comments on Chronicles from the Front: For What It's Worth: a letter home on Independence DayLazy Disciplehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05839410764981702225noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37352287.post-5722633750614660952010-07-05T23:01:16.029+01:002010-07-05T23:01:16.029+01:00Very good. There is here a lesson not only for tod...Very good. There is here a lesson not only for today Americans, but also for Europeans. <br />A fashionable politica concept in Europe today is that of "constitutional patriotism", meaning: we have dropped all the identitarian stress of the past on the nation, which led to the well known catastrophes; it is enough for us to recognize ourselves united by the democratic constitutions, which allow us to live in a regime of peaceful tolerance.<br />Constitutions, though, do little more than establish a procedural framework for the formation of consense, laying no claim to define the kind of man we should be. <br />In the same way think many people in America, thus endangering the very heart of the American experience expressed in the. Declaration of Indipendence. A claim is indeed advanced here to the kind of man we should be: people endowed with the kind of virtue necessary to make the Declaration true. <br />Democracy becomes otherwise the kind of creeping civil war I spoke about a few posts back, with the State as absolute tutor of our "life, "liberty" and "pursuit of happiness". <br />That is, alas, what is called tyranny.<br />HPHumbly Presumptuoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07037571801579548055noreply@blogger.com