National Character: The Quest for Sainthood.

There is a theory that national behavior is an amplification of the aggregate behavior of its individual citizens, i.e., that the political macrocosm is a reflection of the microcosm.

The theory should not startle anyone, historians and public leaders have spoken and written about ‘national character’ for a centuries and have concluded that individual responsibility and morality can not be divorced from good government.

Does government transform society or is it society that transforms government? When Progressives and others lovers of the collectives chide government over its inability to transform society, are they asking the impossible?

Plato is quoted as saying, "Good people need no laws to act responsibly, and bad people find a way around the laws." Benjamin Franklin addressed the issue by saying, “As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.” Theodore Roosevelt said, “No prosperity and no glory can save a nation that is rotten at heart,” and Judge Learned Hand offered: “Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it.”

James Madison cautioned, "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other", and Thomas Jefferson warned, "Peace, prosperity, liberty and morals have an intimate connection."

The consensus is that for a nation to be a free and virtuous, the citizenry must manifest those same qualities first. The notion that we are better collectively than as individuals is a fallacy. The whole is equal to, but never greater than the sum of its parts. Morality begins with the individual and is reflected in how they are governed.

This theme is most clearly enunciated by Alexis de Tocqueville, a French historian, who in the 19th century concluded that, "America is great because America is good. When America ceases to be good, it shall cease to be great." De Tocqueville wrote at length about Americans and liberty. He was impressed with our predilection for keeping government at bay while happily pursuing our personal interests; and concluded that this made for a harmonious and industrious society where citizens were afforded the opportunity to succeed to the extent ambition inspired them.

Well, a lot seems to have happened since then, the Income Tax, the Federal Reserve Act, the 17th Amendment, Smoot-Hawley, and the Fascist New Deal. As Pericles said, “Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you”!

The New Deal gave birth to the Nanny State, the responsibility for the indigent, the indolent and the elderly, and what a fine job it has done. The poor are still poor, health care is unaffordable and seniors are cloistered and out of sight.

According to Frederic Bastiat, “Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.” Henry David Thoreau explained, "Government never of itself furthered any enterprise, but by the alacrity with which it got out of the way"; Twain said, “No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session,” Voltaire quipped, “In general, the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other.” Shaw said, “A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.”

It is clear from these quotes there is nothing new in ‘progressive’ ideology, but these collectivists who couldn’t get arrested in the 80s and early 90s are on the rise again. Each generation rediscovers these relics and pursues them with the vim and vigor that only youth can bring. Like Anne Rice’s heroes, they are odious and never truly dead.

Paul Johnson drives a stake to the heart of the matter when he says, “The study of history is a powerful antidote to contemporary arrogance. It is humbling to discover how many of our glib assumptions, which seem to us novel and plausible have been tested before not once but many times and in innumerable guises; and discovered to be, at great human cost, wholly false.” Unfortunately, the study of history has given way to Social Studies in our public schools.

Socialism did not begin with Marx. Collectivists have a long and distinguished lineage stretching back through history to ancient times. A contented populace on the dole is as old as Rome itself. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that when the burden of ‘bread and circuses’ became too great, Rome fell.

Modern collectivism owes its roots to Rousseau and the French Revolution; the revolution that brought us Robespierre and the Reign of Terror, and of which William Wordsworth wrote:

"...and never heads enough..." Domestic carnage, now filled the whole year With feast-days, old men from the chimney-nook, The maiden from the busom of her love, The mother from the cradle of her babe, The warrior from the field - all perished, all - Friends, enemies, of all parties, ages, ranks, Head after head, and never heads enough For those that bade them fall.

When pressed about his tactics, Robespierre is quoted as saying, "The government of liberty is the despotism of liberty against tyranny . . . Terror is naught but prompt, severe, inflexible justice; it is therefore an emanation of virtue. It is less a particular principle than a consequence of the general principle of democracy applied to the most pressing needs of the fatherland." That he died on the same guillotine as his victims, his jaw hanging off from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, might be the elusive proof of God.

For much of the twentieth century, collectives had a grim look about them. They threw bombs in the 20s and 30s and assassinated people. In the 50s and 60s, they were able to point with pride to great successes of the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China and kidnapped Patty Hearst. No longer cultivating the scrufty look of the 60s and 70s, now Progressives work hard to appear intellectual and ever so civilized.

Like proper British Fabians sipping their tea, they chortle, “Nothing to fear from us, we’re for the poor and the down trodden--the little guy”. In Great Britain, the Fabians accomplished truly miraculous things. They taxed the landed gentry into poverty ultimately adding them (and the upkeep on their estates) to the welfare rolls, lost the ‘Empire’ and pretty much bankrupted the country by the 1960s. Hip hip hurrah and harrumph.

According to Eric Hoffer, “There are many who find a good alibi far more attractive than an achievement. For an achievement does not settle anything permanently. We still have to prove our worth anew each day: we have to prove that we are as good today as we were yesterday. But when we have a valid alibi for not achieving anything we are fixed, so to speak, for life.”

Progressives now tell us that Russia and China were failures, not of collectivism, but of big government. But if this is true, why the paradoxical behavior? Collectivists should want less government, not more.

While unquestionably there are among us those who through no fault of their own, are unable to provide for themselves, the halt, the lame, the blind, the mentally deranged and retarded; but throughout the many ages of man, they have been provided for, but most successfully by private charities.

The government’s War on Poverty is a failure. There are as many ‘poor’ now as when it started. The irony here is that the same minimally rational pundits who point to the War on Drugs as a failure can not accept the abysmal failure that is the War on Poverty. In the face of reason, they insist on more of the same.

C. S. Lewis explains, “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” Don’t be fooled, when they talk about the brotherhood of men, it is a brotherhood of which they are fully in charge. They seek power over the destiny of others. Dick Army recently noted that only three categories of people get to spend other people’s money: children, thieves and politicians.

The premise upon which progressive argument is based is the word ‘fair’, as if fair were some kind of absolute. Clearly what seems fair to one can appear quite unfair to another. This construct is used by collectivists, first, to say nothing, and second to argue for equal outcomes rather than equal opportunity.

Can life be fair? Is it fair for one person to be more talented, better looking, or more intelligent than someone else is? Is it fair that one man is born to wealth and another to poverty? Of course not, life is fair, nor, is nature fair. Is it fair for the wolf to be stronger than the rabbit? Yet this undigested concept is used to represent virtue in the collectivist community.

This undefined notion of fairness is the basis for spiritual arguments as well; even God is not fair. If there were a God, we hear, would he permit such and such to occur? He could and would. If the Supreme Being wanted to a world where everyone lived ‘happily ever after’, he could have created it, but it would have been a planet populated by sheep. According to Herbert Spencer, “ The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.”

Virtue can not be delegated. If virtue is the goal, the work is in the trenches. Anyone who believes government can be charitable for him is delusional and a thief, as his largess comes from the pockets of others. “But we pay taxes too”, you’ll hear them cry, and so they do; but if we bankrupted all of them, it wouldn’t cover government’s expenses for more than an hour or two. Ayn Rand correctly observed that “ a liberal's compassion is limited only by the size of someone else's wallet.” Their appetite clearly outweighs their pocketbook and their reason. "A government of reason is better than one of force." (Thomas Jefferson to Richard Rush, 1820)

Despite any of this, directing government resources to the service the poor is high on the collective’s list. The fact that the Constitution is ignored, is irrelevant to the many who believe that without Uncle Sam there will be no one looking out for the poor, the elderly, and the bewildered; although this is probably the only nation in history where the poor morbidly obese and own automobiles, cell phones, televisions, and Barcaloungers. That insightful adage, “give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, but teach a man to fish and he can eat for a lifetime” is lost on the left.

Perhaps the perceived national ‘failures’, that are the occasion of constant carping by those sagging to the left, are a manifestation of the guilt they feel over their individual shortcomings? Unfortunately, no amount of government will salve those wounds.

It is interesting to note that on the individual level progressives handle charity quite differently, the unkind might even say hypocritically. For example, a worthless cousin or brother-in-law is told to go out and get a job (education or life, etc.), certainly not provided for out of the household budget. Nor do collectives lend the beleaguered relative money—the ‘loser’ might not pay it back. Yet with unctuous piety, they demand the allocation of a portion of the treasury in the service of these folks, even knowing the beneficiaries of their purloined largess will be the very person they deemed unworthy of help in the first place and others like him.

While decrying a violent nation, progressives fight over parking spaces, riot at sporting events or key a rival’s car. The weasels whine that life should not be competitive, demand scoreless sporting events for their children, and at the same time defame co-workers to get a promotion. In reverent tones they lecture us about charity, while hocking their scruples to purchase fancier homes and cars to embarrass their neighbors. They harness the muscle of government backed unions to get more pay and better benefits for themselves and their relatives because they were there first. The outsider, the so-called scab is beaten, often to death, for the crime of being his own agent. Yet, it is corporations that are violent and greedy.

They preach peace, love and brotherhood at their rallies, then trample, push and shove their brothers for the best view sporting events, a concert or the movie theatre. They seldom interact with their own parents but advocate for the elderly, who they are certain are better off stacked up somewhere in a nursing home. They urge their daughters to marry well, but when it comes to the poor they laud the courage of unwed mothers granting them taxpayer support as they encourage them to whelp potential voters in ever increasing numbers. Without a second thought they traffic with dreadful people for a better job, good grades or admission to a prestigious country club, but view it as unforgivable that the U.S. once supported Saddam.

Money spent on security systems for their homes and cars is a necessity, while government spending for the military is a waste. They are against war, desire peace, but will fight with a neighbor at the drop of a hat. They describe those in the military as cretins unfit for any thing else, and argue against guns for others while secreting a loaded revolver in their nightstand.

Is there a stronger word than hypocrisy? Teddy Roosevelt wrote: "It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles…. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena … who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; … and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."

In “Contest in America” Mill observes “War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse”, and Ted Nugent talking about guns wryly remarks, “If guns cause crime, then mine are defective!”

Why should peace be more highly regarded than Liberty? Is peace on Earth even possible? It’s not that I wouldn’t like to believe it is, but the entire panorama of human history argues against it. When two individuals find it impossible to solve differences, or individuals lie, cheat, murder and steal, how is it possible for an entire nation to act with decorum?

Liberty and freedom should be more highly esteemed than peace. Peace is an abstract, while liberty is concrete, and liberty the prerequisite to peace. There will always be disputes even among honest men, but they can only be resolved peacefully when men renounce the use of force and commit themselves to a just and objective body of law.

Perhaps I am a pessimist, James Branch Cabell said, "The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist fears this is true;" and George Bernard Shaw remarked, “The power of accurate observation is frequently called cynicism by those who don't have it, " but, I can’t help believing that a saintly nation requires a nation of saints.

2 posted on 11/04/2003 6:40:24 PM PST by Libertarianize the GOP (Ideas have consequences)

Libertarianize the GOP is an interesting idea, but a major stumbling block would be the superstitious view of Christianity held my most Americans. If you could convince them to be Deists, it could work.

Yes, peace on earth is possible, as long as we understand that this is what peace on earth looks like. Messy. And not particularly peaceful.

Thanks, I tried to look up 'Mr. Mulliner' in your dictionary, but couldn't find it, but if you liked the article, I assume it is not an insult. :-)

Mr. Mulliner is a real freeper that might be interested in the article you posted. No insult would be intended even if I hated the article. It's a point of view that is presented in a lucid, if verbose, manner.

If you feel slighted by the lack of insult, please chew meadow muffins and quietly expire. 8>)

/john

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