Not long ago, men and women of this country were willing to risk everything for liberty. Today we see creeping apathy and dependence. Is it possible that current progressivism policies are slowly encroaching on the freedoms of an unsuspecting public? There has never been a more important time in the history of Western Civilization to share leadership information than now. Looking around the world anyone can observe the void in leadership. Can this void be filled? The most effective way to fill that void and bring leaders together is the LIFE business. To get a quick view on history and about how leadership has made a difference read the ‘Leadership and Liberty’ book by Orrin Woodward and Chris Brady. In that book Orrin and Chris provide information from those principled centered leaders who have influenced history. In addition, Oliver DeMille wrote on how freedom is linked with leadership. His recently authored book ‘1913’ has been a huge hit in the LIFE community. When you begin to read these great books it creates a hunger for more information about how learning history can impact us now. For whatever reason, this information has not been taught to the masses. Let’s change that by building compensated leadership communities using the Team training system.
One of the historical figures I have recently read more about was Frederic Bastiat. He, along with Alexis de Tocqueville, stood against the progressives of the French revolution. He’s been referenced frequently in the works of Woodward, Brady, and DeMille. When you read Bastiat, you will find many similarities in that period of history with our current one. He was born in 1801 and grew up through the French revolution. He wrote that the roots of the architects of the French revolution were birthed from the philosophies of Jean - Jacques Rousseau. Regarding Rousseau, Bastiat wrote, “Rousseau was convinced that God, nature and man were wrong.” An example of Rousseau’s influence on the French Revolution according to Bastiat is, “They do not want natural society. What they do want is an artificial society, which has come forth full – grown from the brain of its inventor.” In the words of the French revolutionaries of the 1790’s, “Be my brother or I shall kill thee.” Bastiat wrote several papers and journals. He passed on the ideas of John Locke, Adam Smith, Edmund Burke, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Jeremy Bentham and offered an understanding of the philosophies about the oppressive state. At the same time, (1848) Karl Marx outlined the importance of creating a class struggle in his ‘Communist Manifesto’. The social architects felt that only collective and class warfare on the part of the workers could produce progress, which they wanted in a planned society. George Roche wrote, “The goal of the social architects were to develop the idea that the property owner and the worker, capital and labor, the common people and the bourgeoisie, agriculture and industry, the farmer and the city dweller, the native born and foreigner, the producer and the consumer were all fundamentally in conflict, a conflict which must be furthered until the existing social order was destroyed in the process.” Which politicians today can you identify as an instigator of class warfare? Bastiat’s contemporary Alexis de Tocqueville noticed the unprincipled nature of the social architect’s of his time. He wrote, “I do not know that I have ever met a mind so void of any thought of the public welfare as them… Neither have I ever known of minds less sincere… When speaking or writing they spoke the truth or lied without caring what they did, occupied only with the effect they wished to produce at the moment.” Can you relate this statement to any modern politicians?
We can learn more about the origin and theories of the social engineers or ‘Progressives’ as they have been called. Make a habit of reading about what great minds said from the past. It appears that one of the strategies of the social architects today is the disappearance of historical literature from the educational curriculums. We need to read to restore historical knowledge. I encourage you to review, ‘Leadership and Liberty’, that I referenced from Orrin Woodward and Chris Brady. The LIFE business subscriptions have never been easier to subscribe to. Now we can make it possible to learn from great minds and the lessons of history. In the words of Bastiat, “What gives me courage is… the thought that, perhaps, my life may not have been useless to mankind.” Make your life count. Does history need to repeat itself? You can decide. God Bless, George Guzzardo
