What Is America? It Is The Answer
The Ideas, Legal Structures And Individuals That Enable Unparalleled Human Flourishing
America is the greatest nation in all of human history. It has given birth to the greatest level of human flourishing the world has ever known. The achievements of the American citizenry have led to a level of technological attainment, health, happiness, prosperity and creativity on a scale that is unmatched in the annals of human history.
This month I will discuss America in terms of what it is and as Americans what we are. I will conclude with an homage to some of America’s founders.
Our nation faces an existential crisis. Were we properly informed, sober and represented by elected officials who see themselves as fellow citizens duly elected and inspired to steward our nation’s governmental affairs wisely, we would face an epic but thoroughly solvable economic crisis. Sadly, to cover their failings and secure for themselves what wealth and benefits remain, the majority of the elites invent crisis after crisis that only weakens our position.
This is the hour where we must get sober. The only cavalry that is coming is us should we mount up and take the reins. It is time for us to commit to and fight for our nation. The first step is to understand what we are committed to and what we are fighting for.
We must be able to answer for ourselves the question, ‘What is America?’ America is the answer to a question that has been asked and explored for millennia by many great men in the rich tradition of the West. That question is, ‘What is the best way to organize civilization?’ America as it was founded is the most profound, intentional and meticulously formed answer in all of human history - self organization. Behind that question lies an equally important, in fact existential question - ‘What is the purpose of civilization?’ The answer is always revealed in a civilization’s structure and how it manifests in reality. America as it was founded and grew in its first 110 years of existence, provides the greatest answer in all of human history - that all men, equal under the law, may define and pursue their happiness to maximize human flourishing.
Our nation is built upon a sublime set of principles and a deep understanding of economics and human nature. I think of America as a fertile philosophical and legal crescent from which humans flourish. America is a set of legal and economic conditions that enable individuals to peacefully pursue their own definition of happiness without inhibiting others from doing the same. Our Constitution spells out the rights and form of government. But America is the summation of wisdom and knowledge that lies behind it. That wisdom, and its ensuing philosophical tenets are:
The Non Aggression Principle: It is immoral and illegal to use force and coercion against your fellow man or another nation. This is not pacifism. Individuals, communities and nations have the right to use violence and force to repel aggressors that are actively engaged in the damage and destruction of life and property.
Natural Rights: Our rights are not granted by men. They are granted by The Higher, sanctified by virtue of our humanity. Governments do not grant our rights. We grant government the right and sufficient power to arbitrate legal disputes. Citizens, not officials, comprise the juries. Our rights supersede any government. However, we must claim them! We must all, day by day, generation to generation, rise, and with the beating hearts of lions, claim and preserve our rights.
Negative Rights: Our rights are few yet sublime and all encompassing. We have the right to our life, (our body and the thought and speech that comes from it), and to our property acquired through legal and peaceful means. However, the exercise of our rights confer no obligations on others. I may speak. You may choose to listen. I cannot force you to listen or to say what my words mean. You may choose not to listen. You cannot silence me. You may criticize me, but you cannot libel me.
Property Rights and Contract Law: Private individuals acquire property and negotiate the terms of transactions. Government is not a party to transactions, it merely exists as recourse to arbitrate disputes and enforce adherence to consensually agreed to contracts. That recourse is adjudicated by judges and a trial by jury of peers - citizens selected from the community within the jurisdiction.
Voluntary Exchange and Human Interaction: This is the proper word for free market capitalism. Together with the above mentioned rights, human beings pursue prosperity through peaceful, productive and mutually beneficial exchange. Individuals, competing fairly in the market to satisfy the needs, wants and preferences of consumers is the highest form of civilization.
Voluntary, Free Association Are Supreme To Politics And Government: The role of government is severely limited. When politics and the coercive power of government are the means to wealth and power the society is corrupted. The needs, wants and preferences of those who hold power and use political advantage and the coercive power of government to dictate their success and those of their political allies do so at the expense of those without this power and privilege. The nature of transactions becomes zero sum. All but a few are lowered and the entire structure stagnates in an ossifying malaise.
In contrast, humans free to choose with whom and where they associate, what they buy and sell and under what terms are fully and properly incentivized and empowered to express and create. Rather than subtractive, zero-sum transactions tainted by politics and coercion, exchange becomes additive and creative, as it is mutually beneficial and enhancing. Moreover, the entire citizenry is properly incentivized to constantly better themselves that they may find meaning and happiness through peaceful, voluntary interaction and exchange. Mankind is elevated by elevating himself.
The highest order of civilization is individuals voluntarily associating through private interactions and negotiating life at the individual level. Political action is inferior and far less civil as a means to negotiate life. This point is critical. It is perhaps what we have most forgotten and abandoned yet is what we should wave as our highest banner. Voting and political activism are near barbarity - always one step shy of naked violence and always some form of legalized theft and degradation. Nothing is more civilized than freely associating individuals choosing the terms of their lives for themselves and negotiating directly with each other.
From the founding of the Republic, even in the colonial and revolutionary era, there have been two primary, competing philosophies. One is committed to the norm of human history - power, prestige, and wealth that is self conferred by obtaining, maintaining and wielding the coercive power of the state to unfair advantage. Its credo is that some know better for everyone, that they are the arbiters of organization and reality. It holds that power without recourse is legitimate by virtue of being one who holds the power and dresses itself up in self conferred titles. It decrees that this is the way the world must be and this one direction is where all must head.
The other is committed to a more noble idea - that men are created equal under the law; that individuals, free to develop and utilize their talents and gifts to lift themselves, unencumbered by actors wielding the political privileges and powers of the state will do just that; that freedom holds men accountable to reality, so the incentives are ripe for responsibility, prudence and virtue to increase throughout the nation.
The latter faction is committed to maintaining a state of individual liberty, with individuals constrained only by a just legal system that ensures they cannot illegally and unjustly constrain others. It is not utopic and knows that some will achieve more money or prestige than others. That is not only good but welcome since the path to said benefits is earned through merit and peaceful voluntary interaction and exchange. It celebrates merit and achievement and welcomes genius from whatever place that it springs forth.
It is committed to a citizenry where individuals exercise self constraint and prudence for the consequences of success and failure rest on one’s merits, not legal privileges that force others to pay for failure. It is a set of individuals committed to defining themselves by their actions and character, enthusiastically permitting others to do the same; it rejects the cowardice of being defined and limited by rulers and titular betters. It is committed to freedom for individuals to define their own version of happiness, success and prosperity for themselves. For the first 125 years of our Republic, this latter faction had, for the most part, the upper hand.
At the dawn of the 20th century the other faction whipped its horse to the front of the race. After 115 years of The Nefarious Progressive, running further and further in the lead of The Noble American, the wisdom of our founders, and everyone in the colonies who fought, died, sacrificed and triumphed that we might prosper and thrive, reveals that the self evident truths to which they pledged their lives and their sacred honor are indeed supreme. They are The Answer. The Nefarious Progressive is fat and tired under the weight and energy required to keep The Noble American down. Look around at the chaos, stagnation, uncertainty, apathy, unserviceable debt, nihilism and infantilization that dependency on the central government has wrought. But, beware, the Nefarious Progressive is bound and determined to win at all costs.
We are better than this. But we have to show it. We have to prove it through our decisions and our actions as our ancestors did. We have to reckon with our financial profligacy. We have the means, if we can summon our will.
The first step is to come to a deep understanding of the philosophical and legal basis of our civilization and our nation. We must understand not just what our foundation is, but why it came to be our foundation. We inherit the greatest credo in the entire history of human civilization. Yet, we simultaneously inherit a nation that no longer believes in it or at least is unwilling to affirm it. The wool of authoritarianism has been cast over our eyes by the wolves who seek to devour it. We want to be free. So, we must take responsibility. We must start by understanding and affirming for ourselves what America is. We must be unafraid to ask the question behind the question, ‘What is America?’ America is The Answer and maximal human flourishing is the impetus.
America is the legal structures that enable individuals to flourish on their own terms without inhibiting or limiting other individual’s abilities to do the same. America is every individual citizen that understands, embraces, lives and defends this philosophy and the legal structures that are its fertile crescent. America is the home of the noble individual who is thoughtful and wise enough to ask, ‘What is the best way to organize human civilization?’ America is the home of the truly noble individual who is thoughtful and wise enough to answer, “America - a glorious republic of valorous, self organizing individuals.”