RUGGED COLLECTIVISM

In America, there seems to be a serious lack of education in civics. When a recent poll noted that only 53% of the population believes that capitalism is the best economic system, it’s a good hunch there’s something desperately wrong.

At one time, in the U.S., every child was taught about the principles upon which the nation was founded. As late as the 1970’s, the concept of “rugged individualism” was part of the typical elementary curriculum.

Today, children learn about the blessings of European socialism, and how autocratic our country has been in the world neighborhood. Gosh, what were we thinking when we went to wage imperialistic war on foreign soil over the past generations? We liberated millions, but that’s no excuse for toppling dictatorships.

And as for our own homeland, where’s the government when you need it? There are so many poor and homeless; why how can we bear even the weight of the unemployed? When did America become so uncompassionate?

Our precious and delicate self-esteem could be damaged over such things!

Certainly we can’t ignore the rising tide of support for socialized medicine – except from those who have experienced it elsewhere in the world – and our President is set to act, sending legislation to congress to hang the initial underpinnings of a national health care system.

We need this, right?

The carbon tax and other regulatory controls that will be ushered in with Cap-and-Trade are designed to keep the skies clear and the earth safe from global climate change. We have even agreed to pay a world tax to the United Nations to help those impoverished third-world countries become mighty and prosperous like us.

My, isn’t that incredibly responsible and globally magnanimous?

Oh, and let’s not forget that since President Obama successfully stepped into management of a major corporation – by having the former CEO of General Motors run out on a rail – the national government now promises to become the guarantor of your new car’s warranty. Under the guise of ensuring the stability of a “critical national asset”, our head of state became the de facto head of one of the nation’s top three automakers.

And all it’s going to cost you is your freedom!

While our nation’s leaders seem to be seeking more and more control over every aspect of American life, it seems a good civics lesson is sorely needed. It may be summed up into one single question.

Do you know the purpose of the U.S. Constitution?

It can be answered in one sentence, but before I do, let me take you on a little journey in time. Let’s go back shortly before 1776, and before the Declaration of Independence. It would be to another continent, and to a very different view of how government should operate.

While representative systems had been tried before in ancient Greece and Rome, it wasn’t followed to the extent or in quite the manner we have today. Especially in the 16th Century, nearly the entire world was caught up in various forms of monarchy, oligarchy, and outright despotism.

So the founding fathers were born as subjects to, and grew up under the thumb of a king. They knew firsthand what it was like to have a sovereign decide how heavily they would be taxed, with what groups they could associate, if they could carry weapons for protection, and even if they dared speak out against oppression. It went so far as to be a life or death matter if you didn’t hold the same religious leanings as did your ruler.

Freedom only meant that you were allowed to decide what shoes to wear that day, or maybe what you could throw in the cooking pot, if you could afford to own one. You had to keep your thoughts and beliefs to yourself, and if you didn’t like the way your leaders were running things, you surely didn’t dare to make those thoughts known. People were executed for such arrogance.

There was no First Amendment, and that would have been treason, where it was off to the Tower and off with your head!

So, to escape political oppression, they came to the shores of a new land, and they brought new concepts of liberty with them. The common man would rule here, and each individual would decide for themselves what life they chose, and they were guaranteed the right to seek it.

In America, this ideal was embodied in the reverence for, “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

To those first patriots, it sounded like a good idea, but there was a concern. The founders worried that in setting up a new social order, they also would open the door for a new tyranny. Because the prevailing thought at that time was that only a monarch had the God given right and responsibility to rule the masses, they feared the people would soon return to submission to a king.

And so they made it very clear that God Himself was the grantor of unalienable freedom, and that no ruler had the authority to steal away such a grant. Liberty is the heritage of all people, and the purpose of government is to serve, and not to rule.

Thus, the answer to the question; they wrote the U.S. Constitution in order to limit government, not to empower it.

And so they built a representative republic, where every man was completely free to advance their wellbeing, however they saw fit, and excepting whatever fortune or misfortune met them along the way. Their future and prosperity was completely within their own hands.

They had seen the failure of other political experiments. For example, under the original Mayflower Compact, the Pilgrims agreed to, “solemnly and mutually in the Presence of God and one of another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick, for our better Ordering and Preservation, and Furtherance of the Ends aforesaid.”

The compact went so far as to avow , “And by Virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions and Offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the General good of the Colony; unto which we promise all due submission and obedience.”

In this covenant, the people bound themselves in social contract to the preservation and furtherance of the colony, but not to their individual benefit. Each worked for the good of the whole, and all drew their necessities from the common stores.

Some worked hard to produce much, while others rested on the production of the former. So over time, the productive realized they were being rewarded with no greater benefit than the non-productive, and the latter had no great enticement to change their ways.

In short order, the colony began to collapse.

The true story of Thanksgiving is one of socialist failure, not aboriginal generosity, and the people’s ultimate survival came in the form of dumping socialism to embrace individualism and a capitalistic view.

You see, when there is no incentive to produce, there is no reason either. People are just not that philanthropic, nor should they be. If there is no return for a man’s sweat, then why should he labor? And why should another receive gain when they are unwilling to reciprocate?

And so, the advancement of mankind is squarely anchored to the benefits each innovator gains through their inspiration empowered by wholesome perspiration. It is the multi-million dollar drug conglomerates that find the cures for what commonly ails us. While NASA takes credit for landing a man on the moon, the vehicles that took them there were drawn from the minds at Lockheed, Boeing, Jet Propulsion Labs, Grumman, and other aerospace contractors.

I assure you, they weren’t working for a GS wage scale!

Even the computers used to serve up this article are all part of the great capitalist extravaganza that powers the internet and drives the engines of more than just our own economy.

Where there is no gain, there frankly, is no point! And so, as we slowly vote away the freedom our forefathers sought at the risk and loss of their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, our ship of state slowly sinks below the waterline of reconstituted tyranny.

Though our founders resisted the urge to produce a Bill of Rights, we now find ourselves strangely in need of one as government stealthily entangles us in its growing web of dependency. Fooled into believing that we need to be ruled, the average American seems oblivious to the fact that under those precious civil documents penned more than 200 years ago, it was our responsibility to rule government instead.

The only guarantees within the Constitution are those of individual liberty, and not of national succor. And that further presses us to reverse this present tide of socialism, primarily because of the intended relationship between our constitution and her people.

Instead, recent headlines tell how the House of Representatives passed legislation to cap the wages of executives and employees of any company that accepts federal assistance. Did we really vote to have congress tell our employers what we are worth?

It sounds more as if our elected “representatives” are now becoming our masters. With intrusions into health care, banking, automotive manufacturing, and even – in California – whether citizens can own big-screen TV’s or not, are we not becoming enslaved by those who were charged by Jefferson, Adams, Franklyn, and the rest of that first Constitutional Congress to fight such despotism?

I’m sure the “less fortunate” do need assistance. I’m not against lending a helping hand. But that was a mandate – by the Creator mentioned in our very Constitution – upon the church, not the government. Let us revise faith-based initiatives, and support charities with our charity, not with our taxes!

But most of all let the government get out of the way of industry and the free market. No bailouts should be offered, and no control given. It is the job of our nation’s leadership to serve us by making the borders secure and keeping the trains running on time. We’ll take care of rest, and we’ll do so at a profit.

Instead, each day “big brother” not only digs a little deeper into our pockets, but now seems to be moving into the guest bedroom. And all the while, the provision for the national defense seems to mean reducing military programs during a time of war, and nuclear disarmament while rogue nations obtain the bomb.

We used to be the “land of the free and the home of the brave”. America was the strongest superpower on the planet, fed the world from our surplus, and our dollar was the envy of every civilized society.

Today, our youth are ashamed of that record, and our own president makes apologies for our “arrogance” overseas.

How did we ever evolve into “the land of the dependant and the home of the politically correct”? Could it be for a lack of civics lessons?

Such is the epitaph inscribed on the headstone of what once was a great nation!