McCain blasting Obama on "citizen of the world" is like McCain blasting FOUNDERS of USA (quotes)

[2 Much Tribulation]

(posted for Land Shark -- the actual author -- who's having computer issues)

William Pitt posted that McCain blasted Obama for saying he was a "citizen of the world." Funny thing was, as Pitt aptly noted, John F. Kennedy used the same phrase while in his inaugural addresss starting his term of office. For Pitt's excellent OP, see http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3672935

To recap Pitt's points and the facts:

Obama on July 24 said, prior to making a policy speech:

"...I speak to you not as a candidate for President, but as a citizen - a proud citizen of the United States, and a fellow citizen of the world."
- Barack Obama, July 24 2008 (emphasis added)

McCain jumped on the phrase "citizen of the world" -- as pointed out in Pitt's post:

"While Barack Obama took a premature victory lap today in the heart of Berlin, proclaiming himself a "citizen of the world," John McCain continued to make his case to the American citizens who will decide this election."
- McCain campaign statement, July 24 2008 (emphasis added)

Pitt also showed, to nice effect, Ronald Reagan and JFK using the phrase. But let's take this one all the way and hammer it down.

McCain's ridicule of the phrase "citizen of the world" is perhaps best responded to by holding up imaginary cue cards next to McCain's head. THese cue cards would contain the quotes below, that are all from Founders of this country and US Presidents. In attacking "citizen of the world" or positive references to identification with "humanity" generally, McCain attacks the core values of this country and the expressions of our most beloved national leaders through the centuries.

It would be easy to find Bush administration quotes that are at least perilously close, perhaps even spot on, to the terms McCain chose to attack. But I really want people to know what it is that McCain is ridiculing: The philosophy, rights and principles of America, established for centuries.

There are many other quotes to be had from a database I've developed or many other sources, but this is a nice sampling below. I hope you enjoy recalling and reinforcing what America's truly about. It ain't a "Con" world.

You can skip to the quotes that show MCcain's out of touch with America's core principles (hope you don't) below, or alternatively read a short preface here that I think is critical as the proper orientation and attitude to have about 1776 and what it was about. It shows why some conservatives strain so hard to call 1776 a conservative revolution, if such an oxymoron can exist!

Preface: Because America was essentially the first country founded on an IDEA or set of IDEAS, Ideas naturally HAVE NO BORDERS. (think: world citizenship, on the way....)

What the quotes below establish (and I assert there is more support to be had but this should be sufficient for these purposes) is this

The American Revolution was consciously intended to be a fight not just for us, but for the Liberty of all Mankind, and moreover not just a fight "for now", but for all of future Posterity as well (i.e.,for all time. See Benjamin Franklin's quote below, saying this is a "common" belief among colonists.).

Jefferson's Declaration of Inalienable rights, {sic} declared (effectively) that kings and queens no longer had any 'divine right' to rule. In fact, it declares that Consent of the governed, consent of the people, is essential, instead.

BUT THE KEY IS THAT The Declaration's substitution for divine rights of "inalienable" rights and "self evident" rights must, by their very nature and definition, apply to ALL PEOPLE and FOR ALL TIME.

Instead of God literally (in theory) blessing the King or Queen with the right to exercise power over others, that instead of just a one-sided divine blessing, the Creator envisioned by Jefferson and the Continental Congress in fact blessed ALL OF the ones who have SOULS (all of the human beings, in other words).

FROM NOW ON, the Declaration of Independence basically declared, We the People are in charge. This is inalienable (we can't never lose this right for any reason whatsoever) and this is SELF-EVIDENT (we won't and don't have to prove this up to anybody, it's so freaking obvious!)

It makes me swell more with awe and wonder than pride (though with pride, too) to contemplate that, with the distant and foreign exceptions of Greece and some ancient tribes, there was literally no precedent, record, or memory of any non-monarchical government in the entire memory of BRITISH Mankind.

And yet, Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine and all the rest of the Founders and patriot colonists, women and men, had the "Audacity of Hope" to not only throw off tyrannical rule by divine right, but to specifically say, and have it be believed and accepted commonly through the Colonies,(see the Ben Franklin Quote below) that the Colonies were not fighting for just themselves, but for all of Humanity, and for all of Posterity. IN other words, with the ATlantic Ocean as a buffer, they seized the opportunity not just to get their own freedom, but to fight on behalf of ALL OF HUMANITY and FOR ALL TIME.

Talk about playing for all the marbles!

THink of the Founders the next time somebody pipes up and mentions that certain bad things, like voting machines or some forms of US "imperialism", have in fact been around for a few decades ore more in a few places. It's not like it's new, they say. THe inference is that time somehow blesses something with rights, or that there's something INHERENT in America's character that causes these bad things.

But America's ultimately not a geography, not a race, but a set of IDEAS. It's not possible to show that the ideals of the Declaration inherently require domination, when the document instead says all are created equal and you can't never ever change that, no how, no way.

The Founders had to deal with that "tradition" objection, BIG TIME. (there being NO memory of anything but monarchy and some reforms for nobles (the magna carta, and House of COmmons) but no recognition of power in the people and always the right of the king to veto or control actions in the colonies...

James Otis said, I paraphrase but the proper names are correct here:

"Even if every prince since NIMROD {love that biblical reference} had been a tyrant, it would not prove a general right to tyrannize."

It's "people" that have rights, that's why so much US history is about fighting over the definition of who "the people" include (women, blacks). But many a historian, and Jefferson himself, recognized that the revolutionary logic of the Declaration guaranteed, if its principles were only remembered and followed, growing equality and rights for all, simply because it says the Creator blesses all...

Finally, the GRAND scope and incredible bravery of this historical moment around 1776, and the sweeping potential of especially the Declaration, NECESSARILY MEANS that the ideals of the Declaration were not achieved or ACHIEVABLE in THE LIFETIMES of the FOUNDERS simply because they wanted to set out ideals that would last, literally, for all humanity and for all time. Such ideals , as we use them to guide our direction like a guidestar, we must necessarily Fall short of -- but without those ideals to guide us, we would most certainly be lost.

This is why I have such a profoundly sad disagreement with both hardline Leftists (who claim American historical Hypocrisy discredits the founders together with their own, in some cases, slave ownership, etc.), some branches of feminism (women's rights, culturally, were barely on the radar screen in 1776), and JOHN MCCAIN's implicit criticism of the worldwide spirit of the Founders of this country.

Some say the Constitution cut back a little on the Declaration, but even they forget that the Declaration of independence prevails in the people's hearts, and even more importantly that even the Constitution can never modify inalienable rights because NOTHING can.

To prove that point, see the quote from the very most conservative FOunder, Alexander Hamilton, on the importance of natural/inherent/inalienable rights (synonyms) near the very end of the quotes below:

THE QUOTES

NOTE WELL: On ALL OF THE NEWER U.S.A. PASSPORTS, on pp. 26-27 one finds the following quote:

“The {American} cause of freedom is not the cause of a race or a sect, a party or a class, it is the cause of humankind, the very birthright of humanity.” –Anna Julia Cooper

Thomas Paine, acknowledged happily by Jefferson and grudgingly by John Adams as the architect of the American Revolution wrote:

“I speak an open and disinterested language, dictated by no passion but that of humanity. {…} Independence is my happiness, and I view things as they are, without regard to place or person; my country is the world, and my religion is to do good.. –Thomas Paine, from “The Rights of Man”

Thomas Paine was perhaps the original “do-gooder” so despised by a few these days?

Benjamin Franklin, considered at the time in both Europe and America as the world’s smartest man, and of course a very influential Founder, said:

"It is a common observation here that our cause is the cause of all mankind, and that we are fighting for their liberty in defending our own. "Benjamin Franklin

We always believed that we were part of a great movement of humanity itself called democracy, involved in the search for freedom and that belief has always strengthened us in our progress. President Jimmy Carter

We are fighting for the dignity and happiness of human nature. Glorious is it for the American to be called by Providence to this post of honor. -- Benjamin Franklin

Max Lucado in “America Looks Up” describing America’s vision using the male pronoun: “He placed his hand on the shoulder of humanity and said "You're something special."

“Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience. Therefore (individual citizens) have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring. –Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal, Following World War II, 1950

President Eisenhower:

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from an iron cross. -- President Dwight D. Eisenhower, “The Chance for Peace,” address delivered before the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Washington, D.C., April 16, 1953

President George Washington in his Farewell Address:

“Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all. {...} It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and at no distant period, a great nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. {...} In the execution of such a plan nothing is more essential than that permanent inveterate antipathies against particular nations and passionate attachments for others should be excluded, and that in place of them just and amicable feelings toward all should be cultivated...”

“{Dear Lord} Bless us with thy wisdom in our counsels, success in battle, and let our victories be tempered with humanity. Endow, also, our enemies with enlightened minds, {…} nevertheless, not my will, but Thine be done."

War is a defeat for humanity. -- Pope John Paul II

And also the supposed nemesis of Catholics, Martin Luther, identified with humanity as a whole and wrote:

“War is the greatest plague that can affect humanity; it destroys religion, it destroys states, it destroys families. Any scourge is preferable to it.”

Our system of government is, EVEN ABOVE THE CONSTITUTION in TERMS OF POWER, based on inherent or inalienable rights, specifically recognized as being perpetual and self-evident (no need to prove them in any way). (just read paragraph 2 of the Declaration of Independence closely).

As Frederick Douglass said, the principles of the Declaration are “saving principles”, i.e., principles to fall back on when we’ve lost control of our government or our rights are not recognized. In that light, regarding the suffragist movement, it was said:

“Our political system is based upon the doctrine that the right of self-government is inherent in the people … Women are a portion of the people, and possess all the inherent rights which belong to humanity. They, therefore, have the right to participate in the government. Mr. Sears, arguing in favor of the 19th Amendment for women’s suffrage.

{A belief such as the American belief in equality means that} it is not possible to separate self-respect from respect for the lives of others that are worthy of the same for the same reasons as your own life. Therefore, we can not act to harm or deny the dignity of another human being without harming or insulting our own dignity. As Immanuel Kant put it, respect for our own lives as such means respect for humanity. – Legal Philosopher Ronald Dworkin