USA – Here Today, Gone Tomorrow!
USA – Here Today, Gone Tomorrow!
I am very concerned with the divide we are experiencing in our nation. It is not the usual differences of opinion we experienced in the past. All people have differences with others, simply because we are all different. Historically, we have political parties and differences based on philosophical differences and perspectives, but this is different. It is, at least in part, without a philosophical base.
Here’s the premise: People love Trump or hate him, not based on a philosophical position but based on personality, presumptions and biases. The discussions about him have little to do with his policies and program and more to do with his persona, his construction worker in a suit image.
And the Donald does little to polish off the rough edges, but insists on coming at you like a bulldog with an attitude. Yes, there is no foundational basis of philosophical ground work to argue over. There are no ground rules of debate and no expectations of consensus. It is just a free-for-all street fight and there are unintended casualties happening.
There is a philosophical foundation on which our nation was founded, but it was long ago and long ago forgotten. The success of our nation is based on those foundations. If we lose them we will lose the results also. It is a matter of cause and effect. What we believe and how we think results in consequences, good and/or bad. You can’t throw away our foundations without throwing away our results. They go together.
Today, we are in chaos. That chaos also has a foundation. It is caused. It is caused by three things:
- We have forgotten History
To a large degree, this is not the fault of our memory but of our lack of interest and loss of education in our history. It has not been taught. Hence, we cannot learn from it. And so, we are on the verge of proving the old adage that people learn nothing from history. Of course, we do not, as long as we do not learn the history and accept the corollary that human relationships, like all things, is caused not just by chance, we are doomed to repeat the failure of past social structures.
- We have rejected our work ethic
We have developed an anti-ethic of wealth that is the inverse of the ethic we started with. That is, we stared with the premise that the earth is a treasure trove of value that we can collect from. The ethic was, it is honorable to take from the earth in agriculture, mining and creating and to by our effort create personal wealth and value. But somewhere along the line, we have decided that those who do so with more strength than others are evil. We contrast personal productiveness against personal poverty and come to the conclusion that poverty is caused by those who excel at effort. How in the world did we invert this foundational concept? How do we come to the conclusion that value is a right to be provided by government rather than created by effort? How is it that equality of outcome has been elevated above the means by which value is created? There cannot be equality of outcome unless there is equality of effort. This is not a prejudicial thing – it is an ethical matter.
- We have elevated cultural diversity over individual accomplishment.
The premise of our Constitution and of our republic is that rights belong to the individual. They are not the egis or responsibility of government nor can government intrude into them. They are given by the Creator to all men equally. This emphasis on the connectedness with the Creator and the individual is the sacred concept that allows for freedom. It is not group rights, government rights or the rights of any social structure. It is the rights of the individual.
It is this foundational concept that provides for equality of opportunity for all men, of any gender, race or creed. Without that fundamental understanding we are all subject to the tyranny of tribal contrasts, competition for governmental acknowledgement and sub-cultural complaint. The great shift of history, that has made America great and has provided for the rights that underscore our freedom is that it is the individual who has the rights and not any group, government of social structure. It is this foundation that brought us to revolt against the Kind as sovereign and the dispenser of wealth, privilege and rights.
Privilege is not an ethnicity, or a culture issue. It is individual. Everyone has the same rights. And to all men is given the same number of hours in a day. What we do with our time, in concert with our rights to gather, create, invent, charge fees, garner wages and so forth is the means to individual wealth. The outcomes are different because of what we do with our equality of individual rights. No one has an advantage over the other in these basic elements – Time, opportunity, and personal value.
The end result is that various groups, sub-cultures and tribes are demanding asset parity with those who have used their individual rights differently and have discovered a different outcome. The outcry needs to be the reverse – Why don’t you learn from the process and the history and earn for yourself the outcomes of other individuals?
I made a derogatory comment as a child when I saw a rich man in a Cadillac. My Dad was quick to correct me. “Do not envy his success,” he said, “Learn how he did it instead.”
If we do not understand these things and turn to rediscover them, we will be the next Rome – here today, gone tomorrow.
