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WHERE IS OUR STORY OF LIBERTY? |
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Written by Dr. Joel Wade
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Friday, 16 April 2010 |
My son Jesse just returned from a trip to Death Valley with his Boy Scout troop. There they visited Scotty's Castle; an unusual building for such a place, with a good story to it. The owners wanted their privacy, and their friend Scotty liked to show off, so they created a story that allowed them each to do what they most enjoyed.
The story involved lost gold mines and hidden treasure. A magnificent aura of mystery surrounded this opulent abode, which was made famous by the intriguing story.
It was only a story. It wasn't the truth. But even after the truth was exposed and widely known, the people visiting still wanted to hear the story, and not the truth.
If you give someone the choice between a great story and the truth, it's the story that usually wins out.
This is something that the left understands well. This is why Saul Alinsky's method of attacking the character of individual opponents is so effective: it makes a compelling story; the kind of story that gets millions of people tuning in to the most awful news; the kind of story that gets people gossiping and wallowing in negativity.
A story doesn't have to be uplifting and inspiring to have power, it can just as well be frightening, horrifying or degrading, playing into the worst impulses of human nature.
Those of us who value individual liberty have, I think, placed our confidence in the truth, and we have been less concerned with whether or not the story is compelling.
We approach the world of politics searching for reality, envisioning ideals inspired by the possible, grounded in our understanding of human nature. And we expect that this will be a powerful force in the world.
But this is not what our political adversaries are doing. Those on the left don't believe in human nature, so they avoid or ignore any information that shows otherwise. They believe in global warming, and so they avoid or ignore any contrary data - and attack and vilify those who disagree with them.
Watch Al Gore's propaganda movie, An Inconvenient Truth, and you will see a magnificent tale beautifully woven, with compelling visual representations of what looks to be scientific data, dramatic scenes of heartrending disaster, and hypnotic cadences drawing you in, seducing your senses to take in the story as truth.
Watch Obama give a teleprompter speech, and you see a man who is well trained in the music of a compelling sermon.
We who value individual liberty hear his words, but we are not taken by his story because his story is not true, and it conflicts with the story that we treasure. We are surprised that so many others are not more skeptical - but they don't appreciate the story of human freedom.
The story of human freedom begins with the first innovative geniuses who brought fire and the wheel, writing and mathematics to the human race. It grows with the rise of the ancient democracy of Athens and the Republic of Rome; and it deepens with the great traditions of Judaism and Christianity.
It is Christianity that revolutionizes the story of human freedom, because it is through Jesus that we come to learn that every soul matters. Not every citizen, not every free man, not every man, but every single living human soul.
Through the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, great thinkers and men of action begin to limit the power of their kings, and open the doors for their people to expand their horizons.
Finally, two hundred and thirty four years ago this coming July, the founders of the United States came together and signed the greatest document of political freedom in the history of mankind, tying together the great history of human freedom and propelling it forward into the future with these words:
"We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, that governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."
But the story of human freedom does not stop there. The Declaration of Independence, as important as it is, could have been just another statement of somebody's ideal - no different than any other manifesto ever written. But our founders had the radical notion that such ideals could be put into practical action.
Our Constitution is the document that grounds the ideals of the Declaration of Independence in practical reality. The Constitution of the United States takes human nature as it is, and through its legal structure allows for a functioning republic founded on limited government and individual liberty, to actually exist, evolve, and flourish into the future.
It does not accomplish this by being a "living document" in the fashion of Woodrow Wilson's vision of a progressive dictatorship. It does this by firmly limiting the power of the federal government, so that it can do only limited mischief. It does this by allowing for an amendment to this basic legal structure that could lead to the abolition of slavery, the equal treatment of women - and even the mistakes of prohibition and the income tax, and the correction of these mistakes (one down, one to go).
But our story does not stop there. Or does it?
Where does our story take us now? We've had some great chapters since: defeating Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo in World War II, defeating the Soviet Union in the Cold War. These are all stories of protecting our liberty from external aggressors.
But other than that, where is our story of liberty? What are our representatives in government to do in order to further our story? We are an energetic, problem solving people, where is our great energy to go?
Stop the progressives, the liberals, the fascists, the socialists, the communists! Repeal all non-constitutional laws and eliminate all non constitutional regulations, departments, and bureaucracies! Cut Taxes! Cut Spending!
Sorry, that's a boring story. It's a story of defense and constraint, not expansion.
I like it, and I'm for it, of course. But not because it's a great story; I'm for it because I'm moved by the story up until now, I have faith that the story can continue, and I'm moved by what's true.
But if we want to get back to our story of expanding human liberty; if we want to regain the cultural edge in advocating a flourishing, dynamic system of capitalism, freedom, and individualism, if we want to continue to inspire Americans to cherish their freedom, we have to have a better story that this.
We have a fantastic, epic adventure story all the way through to about the time of the Civil War and the days of the Wild West. Then we've got a few great chapters since. But ever since the progressive movement tried to usurp our constitutional republic and refocus our attention on making better people through more powerful government, all we've been doing, really, is trying our best to stop them.
We have truth on our side. We have the mighty forces of economics and human nature that can be explained and encouraged through capitalism and individual liberty. But we don't know where the story goes from here.
That's the tricky part. The left can and does write a story from here. They can draw a picture of equality, of people getting and having things guaranteed by the full power of the US government, they can describe their utopia in compelling terms, all centered on government leadership, media propaganda, and political demagoguery.
They have powerful, dramatic characters engaged in earth shaking exploits - saving the world from climate disaster; rescuing the poor from despair and misery; bringing great health to all!
Our story is different. Our story is of breakthroughs and innovation; scientific discoveries and technological miracles; taking risks and the creation of wealth. Our story is of millions of individuals pursuing their own dreams, and working together in ways that no social planner could ever imagine.
My brother once told me that his kids are nothing like what he would have made them into, had he the power to make them be any particular way; but who they are is so much more wonderful than he could ever have possibly imagined.
Our story is like my brother's kids. We don't know how it'll turn out, but we know that it will be magnificent. The progressives, on the other hand, think they know how their story will turn out. They've got a plan to make us into what they think we should be.
They've been telling their story of bondage as though it's some great adventure. We've been telling our great adventure as though there's nothing more to tell. The labels that we've accepted perpetuate this misunderstanding: we are "conserving" the past. They are "liberalizing" and "progressing" into the future.
It's time that we begin to reframe this illusion, and purposefully establish a narrative of liberty that is passionately inspiring to more Americans.
Americans like stories of redemption; stories where there is failure, followed by recovery and then triumph. In the left's redemption story, the failure is the suffering of the little guy at the hands of greedy capitalists. Their redemption is the rescuing of the less well off from the evil greedy selfish capitalists; and they - using the force of government - are the rescuers.
What is our story of redemption?
America's failure has been our seduction by the lure of state power; the siren song of ideal people, made perfect by science and sociology as compelled through the force of supposedly benevolent government. We have been intoxicated with the potential of force to transcend human nature, and we are finally noticing the damage that this century long bender has done to our character, our republic, and our freedom.
The story that will carry us into the future is one of recovery from this addiction. But if we end the story there, that only gets us back to neutral. We want to climb above neutral, and propel America back into an expansive, free, and dynamic future.
The rest of the story does not involve the government in any meaningful way. It involves a reassertion of individual liberty, self-responsibility, and independent thinking. The epic story of America's future is the story of millions of free men and women solving the problems that interest them, creating wealth, curing diseases, exploring the solar system, and learning how to get along with each other without having to sue or regulate or legislate compassion or civility.
It is a story of true and personal love and caring for real people, it is a story of seeing the best in people, and expecting the best from them as well. It is a story of mastering, each of us, our own demons and weaknesses, and championing and triumphing with our strengths.
It is a story that I have only partially sketched out here, but we must have a more clear vision of how it can unfold.
Every soul matters. That is the message and the glory of America. For us it is self-evident. But we have to tell this story, because for millions of our brethren, it isn't self-evident at all. We need our leaders to be bold and confident in our story of liberty, and we need to stop being defensive and apologetic for our passion for a free life.
Government is not compassion, demagoguery is not wisdom, and progressivism and modern liberalism is not freedom. The greatest days of America are ahead of her. But we have to tell this story with passion, with conviction, and with all the glorious human drama that it deserves.
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