Our Ruling Ideals: They Are Before Us, Not Behind Us

We all declare for liberty;but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others, the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name–liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names — liberty and tyranny. -Abraham Lincoln

Our system of government, a Republic- just in case we forgot- was the greatest experiment and advance in the history of political man. Our old boys looked back, and knew well, the entire history of political man and his attempt for a “just” society. One should spend much time reviewing the Federalist Papers. I think we have forgotten what we have and what it took to get here.

Where I differ most with my collectivist friends on the left, is in which direction our solution, our destination lies. I believe that the ruling ideals of our Republic are not “things of the past’” but our Telos yet to be achieved. They are before us, not behind us.

The history of Western Civilization is an unfolding struggle away from collectivism and toward individualism.  Today those same forces that have pulled and attempted to destroy liberty from the beginning, now poison the body politic. Our greatest enemies are not at the gates, but in our sacred halls themselves.

The left says, in one form or another, to one degree or another, that the ideals themselves are flawed and need to be replaced. They say that our founders were not so remarkable after all, for they were slave owning hypocrites. “Besides, that was a long time ago and we have ‘progressed’ past all that. Everything is all one. Science says so.”

They then go on to cite examples of how our ideals have failed, usually starting with stealing the Native Americans’ land, followed by slavery, on and on up to our involvement in the Philippines, the Vietnam war and beyond to the war with Iraq. They hold all of this up, and anything else they can find, and say “see, American ideals are bad.”

What the Left then offers as an alternative, is some sort of retro-romantic, less advanced, less free, and less just system. It’s incredibly self destructive!

What is before us now is remarkable. To intentionally bring about the demise of our way of life, built on the principle of the individual, and to change our Republic into a collective. Indeed, our Republic is currently serving as a host for the collectivist virus. In collectivism, it is considered “just” to sacrifice the individual for the collective. It is just to govern the markets, it is just to redistribute wealth, and it is just to decide for the people what is best. Animal Farm all the way.

What these indoctrinated liberals fail to realize is that it is not our ideals that are flawed, but we ourselves who often fail to live up to the ideals we set before ourselves. The ideals that rights are granted to the individual by The Creator are the best ideals ever placed before man. We should keep moving towards them, not away.

In short, this “thing” that is moving us all further and further into collectivism, thinks it is being more “holistic,” truly thinks it is working toward finding a “synthesis” between the struggle between the collective and the individual, truly thinks it is more just. This collectivist thing believes this so assuredly, it’s willing to force it on everyone.