Audio Books on Benjamin Franklin and John Adams
As I have recently started listening to Audio Books, I recently have listened to two of note on Ben Franklin (Complete) and John Adams (presently). I am reminded and astonished at these two figures from US history. I love history and therefore enjoy it all the more.
Where to start on my own thoughts of them and the subject. It makes me think of what I am about and what they are about. It is amazing how very many of the statements they faced then, stated and put to paper are still being addressed today and in the world as a whole.
It is amazing to think about how many of the Contenental Congress had opposed slavery even then and perhaps could have avoided the US Cival War, although had that happened, of course history would be different and who knows where we would be now. As they say, that which does not kill you, only makes you stronger.
As to one of the recurring thoughts, which I keep coming back to is this:
As long as there is tyranny and oppression of a person's free will in the world, the US will oppose it somehow. This I say in the most relative of terms.
One such oppression is in religion, Islamic (militants and radicals) who go overboard on their zealousness, usually the ones you hear say the US is the devil and needs destroyed, will be forever be at odds with the US and will not work out. You can easily apply this to some of the wonderfull thoughts and radicals of the Christian and Jewish faiths as well, although I am not as familiar with the Jewish faith.
Another would be government such as Communism, however as Communism is a government 'for the people', this is less so than in the previous example. I attribute this to the reason there were never any major World Wars associated with Russia. An example is Korea and Vietnam.
Now the questions is, who gives us the right to do this? Well no one, other than 'the inalienable..." See the US Constitution and Declaration of Independence.
I am currently reading Thomas Paine's Common Sense Link, which is topical in the sense it is directly about why England's Government was not right.
Here is a great quote out of Common Sense, anyone have a suggestion as to who my apply to this one? Perhaps some reigning 'monarch', who is beloved by many?
"Men who look upon themselves born to reign, and others to obey, soon grow insolent. Selected from the rest of mankind, their minds are early poisoned by importance; and the world they act in differs so materially from the world at large, that they have but little opportunity of knowing its true interests, and when they succeed in the government are frequently the most ignorant and unfit of any throughout the dominions."
Make sense, hope to send more soon.