I often like to muse about how the people of the future will view our times. At the rate that we are going, they will probably have as good a view of us as we have of our grandfathers … that is that what we know is but a faint shadow of the truth. If the historians of the future are as disingenuous as those who have written our texts and history books, the truth of this time will be lost in the sands of BS.
Our posterity will know something that we do not. They, the thinking ones at least, will know what we did to them. We, of course, must do what our sense of right commands.
If you could accurately poll the American populace, asking what the most important thing is in their life, besides family and loved ones, I believe that the answer would be … Freedom!!! Freedom is in our literature, our history, our character, our feelings; it is fundamental to our way of life. We have fought all our wars for Freedom of one kind or another … freedom from the tyranny of the King, freedom of the seas, freedom to be safe from enemies of our expansion, the Indian Nations, to free the slaves, to free Europe from the Hun — “to make the world safe for democracy”, to free Europe from the clutches of national socialism and more recently, for the last half century, to be free from the communist menace. We, as individuals, have acted in concert with our brother countrymen so that we, as individuals, could be free to live our lives as we, as individuals, see fit without interference from foreign tyranny. Always, in the past, we have perceived our enemies as a foreign threat … we now are embarking into a new and strange sea, something truly insidious … domestic tyranny.
Always in the past, the threat to our Freedom has been easy to see, King George, the British Army, the Kaiser, Hitler or Stalin and his successors. The militarists of Europe and Asia never had a realistic chance of defeating us, so long as we didn’t give up … and we didn’t and they didn’t win.
The poverty of foreign political systems and the paucity of their societies compared to ours have always been readily apparent to anyone who invested the slightest inquiry into contrasting their way of life to ours. Virtually every foreign country has a political system wherein the privileged few, the minions of the monarchy of old, or the decrepit leaders of the socialistic states of the last hundred years, sacrificed the freedom of the individual for the aims of the state and of course, the aggrandizement of the self promoted leaders. The grand socialistic state where everyone is equal … it equally downtrods all … yet the perverted “pseudo-intelligentsia” of the new American left want us to retread those ghastly European mistakes. Their attitude is that “American ingenuity” will make those sorry systems work.
For those of us over 40, the specter of Marxist socialism, communism, is real and many of us in that age group have studied it extensively. But we must remember that the Soviet Union, that dark 75 year European experiment in utopian socialism, failed over 20 years ago … there is a whole new generation of Americans who have no knowledge of that tragic human agony. Their understanding of that dismal experiment is the distortions that the “progressive” demagogues of the left say of it or what their “progressive” teachers, members of the leftist NEA, the teachers union or their socialistic college professors and their biased text books have told them.
The dichotomy for the American citizen of this generation could not be more apparent. We have the choice of Individualism or Collectivism. In order to make that choice and in order for we of this time to remain Free, we should consider what is required. What does it take to be free … let’s make a list:
- First, you must understand that your freedom is your personal individual concern. The collective is the antithesis of your freedom. The collective means that decisions about your life will be dictated, in the best case by a committee or in the worse case by a dictator: a commissar. Would you let a committee of your friends take a vote on your personal life. Would you deign to tell your friends how to live their life? How about ordering your spouse about? Although out of love they might temporarily comply, but would he or she eternally do your arbitrary bidding without your having to resort to violence? If the system won’t work on a personal level could it work on a national level?
- To be free, you must come to the conclusion that the most important person on Earth, to yourself, is you. Do you really think that anyone does or could care as much for your well being as you do? You may be a very generous person, but you can be of no help to anyone until you take care of yourself.
- To be a useful individual, you must hold your life as the most important of all. You must act in your self-interest. Your main concern should be your personal happiness and well being. You should carefully and arduously provide for your personal survival and needs. Once you are personally secure, then and only then, are you in a position to live your life in any altruistic way that you wish. However, the morality of the situation is this, you must understand that no one owes you anything, nor do you owe others anything except that which you, personally, of your own free will, wish to give. No one has any right to demand anything from you or you of them. Graciousness is to be given freely, never by force. This doesn’t mean that you can’t ask for help, nor does it preclude anyone from manifesting the generosity of their soul towards you.
- To be Free, you must be able to acquire property and keep it. The ethical way to obtain property is by free trade. You trade either your labor or property to another for something that you want for things that he has and the transaction is accomplished by free bargaining. A sage of my acquaintance once said that you could tell a good deal if both parties were smiling when they shook hands. It behooves you, for your own security, to trade judiciously and honestly, for that is your reputation. Truth should be your bond. In a free society, liars lose.
- You should protect your Freedom by following the wisdom of the ages, that encyclical known to the wise of all societies … Do unto others as you would have them do unto you!!!
The early colonists in America quickly learned that their communities did much better if everybody was left to do for himself. If a man was free to keep the property that was the fruit of his labor he was happy and the security of his family was assured. Experience taught him that he could get ahead by his industry which made him prone to be more industrious. These early Americans formed local governments to provide for arbitration, to keep the peace and for mutual protection. They contributed to this limited government by mutual consent. The American Revolution was in a large measure caused by the taxation to which the colonists did not consent that was instigated from far away, by the autocrats in Britain. In local and civil matters, any one cheating or defrauding any other’s freedom was dealt with in Court under the guidance of the Common Law. The Common Law is the compilation of all cases at law since the Magna Carta (and probably before). It is one of Man’s greatest treasures … the compilation of the wisdom of Man’s justice. You can’t try anything in Court that has not been adjudicated by our ancestors.
When our forefathers wrote our Constitution they went to great trouble provide that the Federal government be limited to the roll of promoting harmony among the States and to providing for their mutual defense … the place of Man in relation to Government was already well established by the States. The doubters of central power as a condition of ratification demanded that there be a guarantee the rights of Man in the Bill of Rights, which they considered God given, and to assure the Supremacy of the States. The Constitution could have never been adopted without an assurance of the Bill of Rights, which was proposed by the first Congress.
Naturally, under the Constitution, some men did better than others, some became rich and some remained poor, but for the most part, Americans not only thrived, they prospered. However, of course, man will be man, if you disobey God’s Laws you can prosper more in the short term if you can get someone else’s money into your own pocket. What better way than by having the government, with its minions and guns, take some of your neighbor’s money and give it to you? If you think about it, most of the injustice in this country has come about by someone getting into bed with the government and exploiting some part of our society. Yes, our country’s history is marred by unfairnesses and inequities, but by and large, it has been a shining light on the hill of history. I suggest that if you are aware of some horrible injustice, that if you get to the root cause of it, you will find that the government is the most culpable party involved. Almost without exception those who press unfair advantage are able to do so because of the operation of a special law. The essence of socialism, of any form of totalitarianism for that matter, is the use of the force of arms (the police power) to extort by taxation or other means from some to the benefit of others. Armed theft of your neighbor is a high crime not only against Man’s Law, but certainly God’s Law. Is armed theft by the government any less a crime than that by a robber?
Our Posterity will read of our struggles and final victory over collectivism and totalitarianism if we win. If the totalitarianists win they will read nothing, because this struggle that we, now, undertake will not be recorded … after all, doesn’t the end justify the means?
.