March 7, 2008
by Clay Barham
Do you believe the interests of community, or the individual, are more important? If believing community interests are more important, then you are a liberal. If you believe the interests of individuals are more important, you are a conservative. If you do not answer either way, you are a centrist or moderate, and very confused.
Would you like to see the end of particulate matter in the air, such as smog? Would you like to see the end of the biggest greenhouse gas? Do you believe dogs like bones? Before discussing the answers to these unrelated questions, here is a story.
After the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, a commissar went out to tell Russian farmers what it means to be communist. His stopped his first farmer and asked, "If you had two houses and your neighbor had none, would you give one of your houses to your neighbor?" The farmer thought for a moment and answered "Yes." The commissar smiled and said to the farmer, "That is communism."
He then asked, "If you had two cows and your neighbor had none, to get milk for his children, would you give him one of your cows?" The farmer replied, "Of course I would." The commissar was excited and asked one more question of the farmer. "If you had two pigs and your neighbor had none, you would give him your second pig, right?" The farmer bristled and shot back, "Hell no!" The commissar was taken back and told the farmer he did not understand why he would not. The farmer told the commissar, "Because I have two pigs."
That was reality!
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Regarding the dogs and bones; if the dogs were putting steaks on the table, who gets the meat and who the bones? Getting rid of smog means no more rain or snow. Moisture must have something on which it can condense before falling as rain or snow. The biggest greenhouse gas of all, the one that prevents heat from leaving the surface of the earth, is moisture in the form of clouds, fog and particle condensation, like blankets we use to keep from losing body heat while sleeping.
Look at the original question, about the importance of community interests and individual self-interests. Community has no interests, no brain, heart or soul with which to conceive. Only individuals can do that. A community's interests come from the individual as leader. Community leaders prevent individuals from pursuing self-interests because they do not control them. Changes they create might make people feel too independent.
In America, the New World, people did. They had no other choice, facing reality, threats, dangers, and uncertainties without government bureaucrats to save them. People in America stood on their own two feet, making their own way. That formed a habit of self-sufficiency and an ability to think out of the bubble and live out of the box and prosper. They changed the world. Do you still believe community is more important than individuals are? The answer separates the Old World from the New World, America.
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Clay Barham [send him email] has been a candidate for the California legislature and a stand-in talk show host for ABC. He was educated in physical and behavioral sciences, with a Ph.D. in sociology. He is the author of five books, with his latest being Foundations of Modern American Conservatism and Liberalism: The Roots of Freedom and Tyranny. Visit his website at http://www.claysamerica.com.
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