THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION WAS BASED ON AN IDEA, NOT CONTROL

The American Revolution changed the world. The American Revolution was a revolution based on an idea, it was not a revolution for one group to control the government of a nation and thus control the lives of its citizens. Ideas are more powerful than weapons. The powerful idea that drove ordinary men to do extra ordinary things is found in the “Declaration of Independence” when we the American people declared, “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal and they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that amongst these are the right to life, to liberty, and to the pursuit of happiness.”
Revolutions prior to and subsequent to the American Revolution have been about one group of people controlling the government and thus the lives of others. It would be the winning group that would declare that certain people were of a higher or a lower class at birth. It would be the winning group that would determine how each individual could live their life, the liberties each individual could or could not have, it would be the winning group who would determine the pursuits of each individual.
The idea that the role of government is to serve the people of a nation and not to control the lives of the individuals of a nation is often referred to as individualism. The idea that the purpose of each individual is to serve the desires of the controlling group by surrendering their ideals to the ideals of those who happen to be in control of government, is referred to as collectivism.
This is how the American Revolution changed the world; that government would not be the sovereign over the lives of the individual, but government would be a servant to the people, that government’s role would be to protect the rights of the people and not determine which rights the people could have. Collectivism was predominant in the world prior to the American Revolution. The United States became a symbol of hope, of freedom, of liberty to the rest of the world.
The American Revolution came to an end in October of 1781 at a place called Yorktown. We learn that the British Army surrendered to General Washington and the American Army. That battle for individualism was over, but we now know that the desire of some to control the lives of others had not been eliminated.
Those forces who would seek to have government control the lives, choices, and thoughts of the individual have risen in other areas of the world since the time of the American Revolution and are again rising in our nation. The idea of collectivism, or the individual being subservient to a dominant government determining the right to life, to liberty, and the pursuit of happiness has been taught in our schools and has been championed by our media and entertainment for at least the last century. With each generation the idea behind the American Revolution has become less and less revered while the revisionist idea of government control has become more and more dominant.
This trend toward collectivism, which is nothing more than an all-encompassing term for the other isms such as progressivism, socialism, and communism, has grown in the United States. It was openly declared to be the goal of a candidate for President of the United States of American.
It was on October 30, 2008, that a candidate for president of the United States, a candidate who had been raised to be an advocate for communism, Barack Obama declared, “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.