Latest news with #AmericanIdea
USA Today
01-07-2025
- Entertainment
- USA Today
Where do Cowboys' Troy Aikman, Roger Staubach rank among Super Bowl-era QBs in panel vote?
Perhaps now more than ever before, the NFL is a quarterback-driven league. As fans wait to see which passer leads his team to a title in Super Bowl LX, the squad over at SB Nation decided to take a look back at which signal-callers have most dominated the game in the modern era. They've placed two of the Cowboys' greatest legends pretty high on the list. A 13-member panel, made up of analysts and writers from major national outlets, submitted their rankings for quarterbacks of the Super Bowl era, which began in 1966. Forty-eight QBs got votes; the lists were then compared to come up with the 30 who received the best scores overall. Both Troy Aikman and Roger Staubach made the top 20. 17. Troy Aikman With three Super Bowl rings, a gold jacket, and still the fourth-most passing yards in league history, one might think Aikman is ranked curiously low here. Panel members slotted the six-time Pro Bowler as high as 13th and as low as 28th, clearly recognizing what playing with all-time rushing king Emmitt Smith in the same huddle did to Aikman's career numbers (as well as what he was asked to do within the Cowboys' system). To wit, he ranks just 68th all-time in passing touchdowns. Still, 17th on this list is no small achievement, considering Aikman placed above luminaries like Warren Moon, Kurt Warner, Bart Starr, and Johnny Unitas. Marc Sessler from Underdog notes of Aikman: 'I was once in a ponderous verbal spat with a beer-addled fellow who argued that Tony Romo was superior to Troy Aikman based on compiled numbers in an altered era of pro football. Statistics can roll down a hill into the dark sea. Aikman morphed into a wild/fiery monolith of the American Idea: Cinema-star visage, theatrical wonders in the largest gridiron showdowns, and a calm and cool demeanor most men spend their entire lives searching for – and a great broadcaster, too.' 11. Roger Staubach Staubach will always be one of the biggest what-ifs in NFL history. The 1963 Heisman Trophy winner didn't play for the Cowboys until six years later because of his post-collegiate military commitment. He proved well worth the wait, though, earning the franchise its first two Super Bowl rings en route to a Hall of Fame career that was utterly brilliant despite being somewhat abbreviated. The six-time Pro Bowler ranked as high as 6th with panel members, and no lower than 23rd. He finished ahead of a who's who of prolific quarterbacks: Fran Tarkenton, Jim Kelly, Dan Fouts, and Terry Bradshaw. Writes Aaron Schatz of FTN Fantasy: 'Because of his Navy service, Roger Staubach didn't play in the NFL until he was 27 years old. He didn't start regularly until he was 29. That was 1971, when Staubach led the Dallas Cowboys to his first title in Super Bowl VI. Despite the late start, Staubach ranks this high because he was fantastic throughout the '70s. Then he took it to another level when the NFL liberalized passing rules in 1978. No other quarterback had a better grasp of the new rules, and Staubach was statistically dominant at ages 36 and 37. He easily could have kept going when he retired after the 1979 season.' SB Nation's top 10 will be released in the coming days. Follow Cowboys Wire on Facebook to join in on the conversation with fellow fans!
Epoch Times
19-05-2025
- Politics
- Epoch Times
The 3 Pillars of the American Idea
Commentary Unalienable rights and self-evident truths are Expand the number of core ideas under consideration to three and you get unalienable rights, self-evident truths, and free market economics. You could call them the three pillars of the American Idea. These three pillars are the direct gifts to America of three great thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment: Francis Hutcheson, Adam Smith, and Thomas Reid. Their thinking—known today as 'common sense realism'—took America by storm at precisely the right time to shape America fundamentally. Francis Hutcheson Francis Hutcheson: 'Our rights are either alienable or unalienable …' Related Stories 5/12/2025 5/11/2025 A revolution in thinking about our rights preceded the American Revolution. In the words of George Washington, America's founding took place during a time 'when the rights of mankind were better understood and more clearly defined than at any former period.' Hutcheson's analysis of our rights showed the way. The meaning of Hutcheson's distinction was sharp and clear in the founders' time but to understand it today you and I must first be clear about the meaning of 'alienable.' Here is its complete definition in my dictionary: ' adj. Law. Capable of being transferred to the ownership of another.' Your right to your car is an alienable right; because your car is your property, you can sell your car or give it away—but our rights to our lives and our liberty are unalienable, that is, not property, not capable of being transferred to the ownership of another. Hutcheson was challenging John Locke's account of our rights—and in so doing he helped ignite the American Revolution. Locke, you see, had Hutcheson's distinction provided the intellectual foundation for two of the greatest achievements in world history, Adam Smith's 'The Wealth of Nations' and the Declaration of Independence. Adam Smith's focus was our alienable rights; the American founders focused on our unalienable rights. The Declaration and 'Wealth' both entered the world they were to transform in the same year, 1776. 1776 marks the economic and political boundary between the world in which you and I live and all that had gone before. Adam Smith Francis Hutcheson mentored Adam Smith. Upon Hutcheson's death, Smith was appointed to the prestigious professorship at the University of Glasgow Hutcheson had held. Smith's epoch-making 'Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations' is the foundation of free market economics. Hutcheson's analysis of our rights set the direction Smith took. In 'Wealth' Smith famously demonstrated that the division of labor is the source of the wealth of nations. In one of the most frequently quoted passages from 'Wealth,' Smith makes clear the source in human nature of the all-important division of labor: 'This division of labour … is the necessary … consequence of a certain propensity in human nature … ; the propensity to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another.' The division of labor depends on the right to exchange (alienate) our property and labor. We can 'truck, barter, and exchange' because our right to our property is, as Hutcheson had shown, 'naturally alienable.' The social order that resulted from the new thinking of the Scottish and the American Enlightenments was a far cry from the world that assigned supremacy to hereditary monarchs and hereditary aristocrats. The great economist Ludwig von Mises described that new social order like this: It 'assigned supremacy to the common man. In his capacity as a consumer, the 'regular fellow' was called upon to determine ultimately what should be produced, in what quantity, and of what quality, by whom, how, and where; in his capacity as a voter, he was sovereign in directing the nation's policies.' Thomas Reid When Jefferson wrote 'We hold these truths to be self-evident …' he was relying on the thinking of Thomas Reid. Reid's 'An Inquiry Into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense' was published in 1764, the same year he was awarded the prestigious professorship formerly occupied by Francis Hutcheson and Adam Smith. As I write in my book 'Reclaiming Common Sense': 'Reid's philosophical purpose was to provide a foundation for morality and for knowledge. He argued that there is an endowment of human nature that makes both morality and knowledge possible, and he called it common sense … With it we are able to make rational judgments and moral judgments. Common sense is the human attribute that makes it possible for us to be rational creatures and moral agents. Reid's fundamental insight was that our ability to make sense of our experience presupposes certain first principles. Because these principles are implicit in our conduct and our thought, they cannot be proved; there are no other truths from which they can be derived. However, to deny or even to doubt any of them is to involve ourselves in absurdity. Consequently, the principles of common sense have the special authority of first principles: we cannot operate without them.' The Progressives From their beginning, the purpose of the Progressives has been the step-by-step—that is, the progressive—undoing of the America of the founders. Their relentless campaign has done tremendous damage. If you and I are to do our part in helping to restore America, we need to go into action armed with a clear understanding of the American Idea. That is why I wrote the two common sense books listed below. From Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
