Local Colorado uber-conservative commentator, John Andrews, apparently doesn't care much for the philosophy articulated in the Declaration of Independence.
In yesterday's Sunday Denver Post, Andrews wrote in a column entitled "Celebrate a mindful Thanksgiving" this paragraph:
"I was not born free," insisted Lewis, the Oxford don and Christian apologist. "I was born to obey and adore." Much as Washington, Wall Street, Hollywood, and Rev. Seawell might bridle at this idea, countless God-fearing Americans (including Frontier's Bedford) would cheerfully assent. None of us is self-made or self-sufficient. Yet many of us forget it's so. Only those who remember are fit for freedom. Thanksgiving Day is about the remembering.
After looking on several internet search engines, I couldn't find the reference for the quotation Andrews attributes to C. S. Lewis; but, assuming the words to be accurate, the notion purposed by Lewis and supported by Andrews is breathtaking: it is a sentiment that any fundamentalist Muslim would fanatically embrace; a belief only the most reactionary Christians would agree with; the credo of all advocates for authoritarian theocracy ... in short, it is an extreme concept that human beings are "not born free" but only "born to obey and adore" 'god'.
Most startling though for a self-promoting American patriot like Andrews is that what Englishman Lewis says is directly contradictory of the founding document of our Republic, the Declaration of Independence. How does Andrews square the assertion that "I was not born free" with these inspiring words?
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
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