December 31, 2007
by Clay Barham
What is the big thing that really divides Americans today? The answer describes legislative and judicial actions and why the different political parties. Our core difference is our divided views on whether community interests or legitimate self-interests are most important, the collective or the individual. In America, pursuing individual legitimate self-interests always worked best. With success, families and communities prospered. Americans wanted no managers, no tyranny, only free and productive actions of free individuals to rule.
American's successful free market and local charitable generosity proved them right. In spite of that evidence, liberal elite question whether free individuals are morally and intellectually capable of existing without guidance, as a parent rules his children. Elite cannot believe free actions of individuals can manage community best. If it "Takes a Village," and the village has no interests, soul or heart, then forcing the interests of the ruler on everyone is needed.
There are only two world traditions. The first is where a few rule the many, from family, tribe and nation. It is the longest running world tradition. Old World chiefs, kings, and dictators limit growth and prevent change. Rulers had wealth and subjects had poverty. Happiness was for the least number, and misery for the most. Wars, rebellions and famine were common.
The second tradition began in North America almost 400 years ago. A small group of immigrants settled on the frontier and had to survive on their own with no help. Individual freedom and acceptance of responsibility to one's family and community, not a ruler, created a new way of life. They had no choice. A moral code defined the limits to behavior. Unbridled individual creativity and ingenuity provided the greatest happiness to the greatest number, and the least misery to the least number. Here are two traditions the world has experienced.
Frederick Bastiat, a French legislator in the mid-1800's, in his essay "To the Youth of France," said, "All men's impulses, when motivated by legitimate self-interest, fall into a harmonious social pattern." Individual self-interests are, by their very nature and for the most part, harmonious with society. If true, liberty is necessary and no one should prevent or try to redirect those interests. America proved him right! If self-interests are antagonistic, as some feel, society must regulate people's affairs and opinions.
People-control takes many forms, however. Politicians are still trying to decide which, out of all the infinite forms control can assume, is the right one. Auguste Comte agrees, that community is the only reality and individuals should not do what each wants to do. He represents Old World, modern liberal and Democrat thinking. Are we capable of running our own lives, or incapable and in need of superior leadership? Is freedom too difficult and dictatorship by a few elite best for us? We must ask those questions.
Some say America began in Jamestown in 1607. Soldiers and profiteers, warring on Native Americans, and introducing African Slaves, characterized Jamestown, an extension of King James's rule into the New World. America really began in New England in 1620. The king' had less influence in New England. No wars on the Indians, no profiteers scrounged for riches to send to England and no slavery.
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A group of families as a church resettlement, with the Geneva Bible as its constitution, started New England. People were free to make their own way in a new land. The American dream was born. Ordinary people could own land. They could follow their own interests, talents, skills and aspirations. They could think out of the bubble and live out of the box, not possible anywhere else. New England shaped the American Tradition, not Jamestown.
Neither is America a product of 1700's European Enlightenment, but an enlightenment of 1620 New England. New England settlers had the Geneva Bible as their constitution. They could own property as well as its product. As pioneers, they moved west and south to build new lives. Circuit riding preachers followed and reminded them of their Christian moral boundaries. They farmed, created, built, manufactured, traded freely and schooled their children. They fashioned local governments to suit their experiences growing out of their own enlightenment. A Free Market grew out of the many willing exchanges between individuals.
They never intended government to mediate or intervene into their behaviors, other than preventing injustice. They achieved enormous prosperity because the whims and fashions of rulers did not limit them. Free to think out of the bubble and live out of the box, they changed the world around them. On the other hand, they were not eagles, on their own, foraging to survive. They were both individualistic and social. They strived and reached beyond their grasp, making families, community and selves prosperous. As all three prospered, so did our Nation.
So, which tradition should shape America in this new century? Should we dump our tradition and culture and return to the dictates of the Old World? On the other hand, would America be better off staying the course for continued individual freedom?
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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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