Exploring Sustainable Freedom and the American Future: A Free People's Suicide

dave anderson: appreciate good books like this one

Canada on Sep 26, 2019

Jane Erye: Excellent analysis of the American constitution, free speech and post modernism.

Canada on Aug 24, 2019

Hanniel: Für eilige Leser

Guinness entwickelt in diesem essay-artigen - ich möchte fast sagen - Gemälde eine Vision für die Erhaltung und Wiedergewinnung der Freiheit für die Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika. Er verbirgt seine tiefe Besorgnis, dass diese akut gefährdet ist, nie. Die klar umrissene Kulturkritik gleicht der eines weisen Propheten und nicht der eines Schwarzmalers.

Guinness spricht über

ein Problem unter der Oberfläche, das hinter zahlreichen anderen Ereignissen der USA stehe. Mit Verweis auf Augustinus meint er: Wenn du beurteilen willst, wie es um eine Nation bestellt ist, dann blicke darauf, was ein Volk am meisten liebt. Wenn diese Liebe „nobel“ ist, dann ist es um ihre Gesundheit gut bestellt. Für die USA betrifft dies seit der Gründungszeit ihre Freiheit. Die Gesundheit dieses Staates kann also am Status seiner Freiheit gemessen werden. Viele der Gründerväter waren beseelt von der Idee, eine freie Gesellschaft zu gründen, die für immer frei bleiben würde. Was kann also Freiheit erhalten bleiben?

Frei werden, Freiheit ordnen, frei bleiben

Der erste Akt dieser Freiheit war die Unabhängigkeitserklärung (1776), der...

Germany on Apr 26, 2018

Daniel Pollin: Guinness writes with his usual clarity, grace and wisdom. Primarily a book that looks at a perpetual question of American democracy - is freedom freedom's greatest enemy? Guinness looks backward and forward in American history in order to answer this compelling and urgent question.

United Kingdom on Jan 26, 2013

Mark Oshman: Os Guinness is an astute social critic, historian, Christian apologist, Irishman born in China and educated in England. Os has also long been an admirer of America's founders and their commitment to ensuring American freedom. A Free People's Suicide serves as a prophetic warning cry to Americans to take heed, learn from their past, or else be buried in the inevitable decline that has overtaken every other world super power. Or, as he closed each chapter:" Those who aspire to be like Rome in their beginnings must avoid being like Rome at their ending. Rome and its republic fell and so too will the American republic - unless..."

Guinness argues that "the greatest enemy of freedom is freedom" (19), meaning that our freedom we enjoy turns out to be a sort of assumed freedom that does not press us to persevere in our freedom. For example, in the name of `freedom' we will go to great lengths to remove our private freedoms in a scary and dangerous world, thus justifying increased government intrusion in a wide variety of surveillance and `safety' measures (see the full body scans at the airport these days).

More concerning than these infractions however, Guinness argues...

United States on Nov 14, 2012

Milestone: Oz Guinness has hit the nail on the head with this book. The American underpinnings are definitely corroding and under attack by those who seek to fundamentally change our core principles. Guinness seeks to combat this corrosion by offering a well-reasoned and attainable antidote.

He begins by making the case that the most basic defining principle for any nation is what St. Augustine calls the "loved thing held in common" or what a nation holds in highest regard is that which can be used as the barometer to measure that nation. For America it is without a doubt freedom. Guinness points out that if America wants to hold on to that which it loves so dearly, it must understand the menaces that will be its downfall and what sustaining a free nation entails.

The lack of self-restraint and the "corruption of customs" are a couple of the menaces we must overcome. He argues that the rise of private interest above the public good, the propensity for self-love, and the desire for instant gratification will lead to a corruption of our customs. In addition the lack of strong leaders, the missing sense of civic duty, and culture wars targeted at removing truth and objective...

United States on Nov 03, 2012