CATHOLIC U'S CLAES RYN SPELLS IT OUT FOR YOU

In his Philadelphia Society address, Professor Claes Ryn spells out the implications of the "universal values" we've been hearing so much about:

"An effort has been long underway to transfer American patriotism to a redefined, Jacobin-style America, seen as representing a radical break with the Western tradition. According to Harry Jaffa, "The American Revolution represented the most radical break with tradition . . . that the world had seen." "To celebrate the American Founding is . . . to celebrate revolution." In Jaffa’s view, the American revolution was milder perhaps than the "subsequent revolutions in France, Russia, China, Cuba, or elsewhere," but it is, "the most radical attempt to establish a regime of liberty that the world has yet seen." America thus reinvented is founded on ahistorical, allegedly universal principles summed up in such words as "freedom," "equality," and "democracy." These principles, the new Jacobins assert, are not just for Americans; they are, as Allan Bloom insisted, "everywhere applicable" – a theme echoed today by George W Bush."

Comments

[john hearn]

So is she saying that natural law is "ahistorical"? Wow!