Eric Wilson - 2013
“Whilst the last members were signing it [the Constitution] looking towards the Presidents Chair, at the back of which a rising sun happened to be painted, observed to a few members near him, that Painters had found it difficult to distinguish in their art a rising from a setting sun. I have said he, often in the course of the Session, and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that behind the President without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting: But now at length I have the happiness to know that it is a rising and not a setting Sun.” - Remarks from Benjamin Franklin, recorded by James Madison at the close of the Constitutional Convention.
“Whilst the last members were signing it [the Constitution] looking towards the Presidents Chair, at the back of which a rising sun happened to be painted, observed to a few members near him, that Painters had found it difficult to distinguish in their art a rising from a setting sun. I have said he, often in the course of the Session, and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that behind the President without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting: But now at length I have the happiness to know that it is a rising and not a setting Sun.” - Remarks from Benjamin Franklin, recorded by James Madison at the close of the Constitutional Convention.
In these last several years, this story of Ben Franklin at the Continental Congress has continued to keep coming back to me and haunting my thoughts. Like Franklin, I am observing everything that is happening in our nation today and – in the alternating of my hope and fears – wonder now if that same sun is setting or rising still.
Staring at the glimmer of light on the horizon, I continue to have a sick feeling in my stomach that the darkest hours of our nation may lay just ahead. Though we have tried to hold back the hands of the clock for as long as we could, the cycles of time have brought us to the dusk.
Continuing this analogy of a rising and setting sun what does the cycle of a day in the life of our republic look like? Oh, if we could once again be looking instead at the dawn of a great nation…if we could once again see this through Franklin’s eyes…
8:00am – Illumination (1730 – 1760)
•Jonathan Edwards & George Whitfield
•Great Awakening
•A "Union of Colonies" proposed
9:00am – Budding (1760 – 1775)
•Sons of Liberty formed by John Adams, Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Patrick Henry, among others
•Samuel Adams organizes the Committees of Correspondence
•First Continental Congress
10:00am – Resolute (1775 – 1790)
•United States Declaration of Independence
•Revolutionary War rages for six years
•United States Constitution
About this time is when the original thirteen states adopted their new Constitution in 1787 and when Benjamin Franklin made his observation of the rising sun. It is also when Alexander Tytler – a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh – had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years earlier:
“A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government… A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always vote for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.”
11:00am – Liberation (1790 – 1870)
•Bill of Rights
•Monroe Doctrine
•Emancipation Proclamation
12:00 (noon) – Abundance (1870 – 1910)
•Industrial Revolution
•Inventions of telephone, combustion engine, toilet paper
•The population of the United States passes seventy-five million
As our clock reaches its midday summit and the rays of liberty shined the brightest, it is here that we saw a “5000-year leap” forward in our national innovations. It is also – looking at the cycles of democracy from Alexander Tytler that we are loosely adapting to this clock – the midpoint. Tytler claimed: “The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.” It was during this age that our country also celebrated its first centennial birthday.
1:00pm – Greed (1910 – 1950)
•The Department of Commerce and Labor created
•Sixteenth Amendment establishing an income tax passed
•New Deal programs implemented by FDR
2:00pm – Gluttony (1950 – 1965)
•The AFL and the CIO merge into America's largest labor union
•Disneyland opens, Ronald McDonald's Corporation founded, and First Wal-Mart opens
•British Invasion: The Beatles arrived in the United States
3:00pm – Complacency (1965 – 1980)
•Summer of Love
•Government decoupled the value of the dollar from gold
•Roe vs. Wade
4:00pm – Apathy (1980 – 1990)
•Millions watch Royal Wedding on television
•Gridlock between Congress and President leads to budget surpluses
•New York Stock Exchange suffers huge drop on "Black Monday"
5:00pm – Dependence (1990 – 2005)
•No Child Left Behind Act education reform bill passed
•USA PATRIOT Act
•Department of Homeland Security created
6:00pm – Reliance (2005 – 2010)
•Government bailouts of financial firms and auto manufacturers
•National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform
•Budget Control Act
7:00pm – Bondage (2010 - ??)
•NDAA
•Congress pass Obamacare and it is sanctioned by the Supreme Court
•Executive Orders restricting the Second Amendment out of existence
I cannot keep from concluding – with the current state of affairs and sentiment of the citizenry – that the sun which once rose on a greatest of nations is now slipping under the horizon.
Freedom is always transitory for any people. It follows a historically well-established cycle of rise and fall. Looking back at the Tytler Cycle, it moves from bondage to freedom and affluence and back to bondage again. It is difficult to look at what has occurred and is currently happening and not conclude we are by all accounts in bondage.
We must – as a nation, but more importantly as individuals – stop looking back and begin looking forward as the sun sets and we plunge into full-fledged darkness. This will clearly become more and more obvious as time progresses. It will take the honest assessment of each of us as individuals ultimately coming to grips with where we are.
Am I saying our best days are behind us? Yes (with an asterisk). I am saying the hands of the clock – like the cycles of democracy – move only in one direction. Every day must come to an end, and our day is dwindling down. The good news is that I refuse to believe there will not be a tomorrow. There is a new day on the horizon, and we even have a Biblical hope in this promise. As sure as spring follows winter and things need to perish to rise again, we are sure that as night comes, daylight follows.
But we must face the night first. This means that as bad as things may now seem, they will get worse. It means that – as the lights go out on liberty – the government will continue to increase its control until little to no freedom remains. It means that many of us will need to adjust to a new standard of living where wants are replaced with needs and recreation is replaced by reliance. It means an environment where choice becomes relative and opinion becomes meaningless. It becomes a time when the things of most importance are the very things you may take for granted today.
We (you and me) have a choice. We can set our alarm and go to sleep and hope we are ready for what tomorrow will bring or we can prepare and decide for ourselves what tomorrow will ultimately be.
So what does this all mean and what can you do now?
Tuck your children into bed. Why do you tuck your kids in at night? To help them feel secure and loved. At the end of the day when you get away from the hustle and bustle of work and other responsibilities, it comes down to the simplest of things. It is not ignoring life, politics, and what is going on around you, but it is focusing on the most important things now. It is taking care of yourself and your family. It can mean becoming more self-reliant and severing the ties of dependency and bondage. This also means strengthening communities and families by working hard within each. Embodying this requires self-sacrifice and being prepared to help others in your neighborhood. Creating a community that stands on its own and takes care of its own. During times of struggle, family and community become the nucleus for support and welfare.
Read your child a bedtime story. You read to open your child’s mind and encourage self-discovery. Turn off the news and pick up a book. Engage your mind in thinking and your time in building a library (figuratively and literally). Reading provides the tools for critical thinking and the information to draw upon in the times to come. It was this kind of liberal arts self-education that our Founding Fathers had and we will return to tomorrow. As with your children – whom you prepare early on – do not wait until the resources you have today are no longer available. Knowledge is something that – once embodied – cannot be taken away. The ultimate slavery is ignorance, and the child of self-education is liberty. Tomorrow, this awareness and desired results of a liberal arts education will be in higher demand than ever before and may very well be the difference between creating solutions and increasing freedom or submitting to the powers that be and living contrary to principles we know to be true. During times of deceit, thinking becomes a suit of armor and knowledge becomes a sword.
Say a prayer with your children and kiss them good night. Hope can start your journey, but faith makes all things possible. Knowing where we are and what is to come gives a familiar childhood prayer brand new meaning.
We are desperately in need of the next great awakening. For us as individuals, it means becoming a person of faith. As a society, it means a return to Biblical doctrine needed to free our souls and become a people of high humility, high integrity, high literacy, and devotion to God. During times of bondage – to free us from darkness – He is the only beacon and light.
