U.S. History

History usually proceeds at a glacial pace, so glacial that often no institutional or political changes seem to be occurring at all. And then, wham! a piling up of a large number of other minor grievances and tensions reaches a certain point, and there is an explosion of radical social change. Changes begin to occur at so rapid a pace that old markets quickly dissolve. Social and political life shifts with blinding speed from stagnation to escalation and volatility. This is what it must have been like living through the French Revolution.

When Ronald Reagan was elected to the presidency in 1980, many conservatives (myself among them) were euphoric. They expected a wholesale reform in American government; there was even talk of a "Reagan Revolution." 

When Reagan left office eight years later, it looked as if the liberals had been right. 

Each year at this time, schoolchildren all over America are taught the official Thanksgiving story, and newspapers, radio, TV, and magazines devote vast amounts of time and space to it. It is all very colorful and fascinating. 

It is also very deceiving.

British lower classes had a rough time until the Industrial Revolution (1760) made both production and freedom possible. Two political revolutions were also begun then: the American Revolution and the French Revolution. For the American Revolution, Life, Liberty, and Property became the three dominant foundations of the Declaration of Independence. For the French Revolution, Rousseau tried to create a brotherhood subservient to the general will with the word Equality. The French Revolution was to favor not freedom, but to change those who receive benefits – legalized plunder. The French Revolution was against the Industrial Revolution.

LeFevre then goes through the Declaration of Independence in careful detail.

Bob LeFevre presented this lecture to the Free Marin Supper Club on 4 July 1984.