What Is That Something? Part 1

“Why can’t the Middle East just get their act together?”

I heard this question asked by a radio personality as ISIS continues to gain ground in the Middle East, capturing the strategically important city of Ramadi and the Syrian city of Palmyra just this week.

This one simple question got me to thinking. As Americans, living most everyday in a lot of peace and not much danger, we tend to forget that this is not the norm. What is going on in the Middle East is painfully tragic but what is even more tragic is that it doesn’t have to happen.

What makes the US different from the Middle Eastern countries that are torn apart by war and terror? The reasons for unrest in the Middle East are many and complex, far more than this one article could possibly tackle. But the reason for America’s peace and prosperity is much more simple and draws a clear distinction between the two.

Please do not think that I am saying that the US is somehow ‘better’ than every other country. I do not mean that at all. We’ve had our share of trials and wars. All I’m saying is that we have something that many other nations and peoples do not. Something that has given us a general pervading stability that has allowed unparalleled success. The beautiful part is that that something is something that any nation who wants it bad enough can have.

So what is that something? What makes the US different? Perhaps it is our Constitution. The Constitution of the United States is the world’s longest surviving constitution, an astounding 226 years it has served as the supreme law of the land. Not only is this document amazing in its longevity, it is also amazing in the amount of freedom and prosperity that it has nurtured. The innovations and advancements that have sprung from this have truly changed the world.

Why, then, wouldn’t every every nation just adopt a modified US Constitution as their own? Problem solved? No, because we need to go further back to find that something.

What about the Declaration of Independence? This document has been described as America’s “Charter”. In other words, the Declaration laid out what should be done, and the Constitution laid out how it would be done. It is America’s mission statement, so to speak. It gives several basic principles that were designed to be the foundation of our government. Some of these include: unchanging truth, equality, Creator-given rights, government’s purpose is to protect rights, government has no power except that granted to it by the people, and the right to abolish or alter unjust governments.

Writing the Declaration

Only a nation that truly believes these principles, therefore, is going to be able to put them into practice via the implementation of the Constitution. But I believe we can take it even further back than that.

You see, Thomas Jefferson and the committee that wrote the Declaration, weren’t just coming up with these radical ideas off the top of their heads. In fact they weren’t even terribly radical ideas. The principles enshrined in the Declaration had been on the ‘slow-cooker’ of philosophers and leaders for a long time.

So to find this something we are going to have to go even further back. And to go further back, we are going to have to wait until next week for part two of this article. 

Check back next Friday, you’ll be glad you did.

Jonathan Paine

@painefultruth76

painefultruth1776@gmail.com

painefultruth.blogspot.com