First Principles

At his recent DC rally, Glenn Beck unveiled “9 principles” that Americans should be fighting for.  The first is: “America is good place, not perfect, but good.”

What might this mean?  It could mean that America is a good, if imperfect, place to live.  It’s hard to see how that can function as a principle, though, since it might in the future turn out that America is not such a good place to live.

It could mean that America has a good, if imperfect, effect on the rest of the world world.  But that’s not really a principle either, but a factual claim that could be falsified by sufficient evidence of American misdeeds.

Perhaps Beck meant that the structures and institutions established by the founding fathers are good, if imperfect.  That would be reasonable as a “principle.”  That would be a principle one could conceivably defend against forces that attempt to modify those institutions.  It may be what Beck meant, but since he believes that the Constitution was divinely inspired, I’m not sure if he’d concede the “imperfect” part.

It’s all enough to make you grab for the nearest Niebuhr.