Answer:
What one makes of all this will depend in part on how one understands the American political tradition. Many liberals view the rejection of liberalism as an alarming threat to "liberal democracy" — and American democracy, in particular — along with the institutions and values associated with it, which include representative government, the separation of powers, free markets, and religious liberty and tolerance. Their concerns are valid, insofar as some of liberalism's most vocal critics on the right and left indict the American political project and its founding as both misbegotten and irredeemably liberal.
Some of them might be ahteist
John Locke was an English philosopher known for keying the term “life, liberty, and property” and believed in a social contract between the government and its citizens. He believed in natural and law, and thought that if that natural law was violated the people had the right to overthrow their ruler. Due to Locke’s strong belief in free will, it could be inferred that Locke opposes men being controlled against their own will.
On two levels, then, Washington Irving profoundly influenced the American Christmas. His melding of jolly St. Nick and an English commemoration of old into a wintry celebration of nostalgia attests to the rich cultural legacy bequeathed to us by this native New Yorker..
