Alexis De Tocqueville said in his introduction to “Democracy in America” “Among the novel objects that attracted my attention during my stay in the United States, nothing struck me more forcibly than the general equality of condition among the people. I readily discovered the prodigious influence that this primary fact exercises on the whole course of society; it gives a peculiar direction to public opinion and a peculiar tenor to the laws; it imparts new maxims to the governing authorities and peculiar habits to the governed. I soon perceived that the influence of this fact extends far beyond the political character and the laws of the country, and that it has no less effect on civil society than on the government; it creates opinions, gives birth to new sentiments, founds novel customs, and modifies whatever it does not produce. The more I advanced in the study of American society, the more I perceived that this equality of condition is the fundamental fact from which all others seem to be derived and the central point at which all my observations constantly terminated.” It seems from De Tocueville’s overall thesis outlined in “Democracy in America” that the critical “central point” from which the American people so impressed him was a form of moral freedom that lead to a higher level of social virtue. Setting aside the academic Philistines and their 20-20 hindsight theses as well as the grant boards that approve funding for their groping studies, America’s greatest asset is the liberty of the common man who is self tempered by morality. No one has accomplished this as fully as the United States of America.
There is justified concern about our future economic prospects owing to our substantial and exponentially growing national debt and the limitations of Keynesian economic theory to curb deflationary pressures on a cyclical economy that needs to reset to a healthy equilibrium. Equally, if not more concerning, is our nation’s growing deficit of personal morality, which I would confidently argue coincides with the decline of the nation’s Christian character. This decline is exemplified in a host of social maladies, many of which aren’t necessarily new, but are simply more prevalent. It manifests itself very clearly in the national breakdown of the nuclear family. Societal changes in social norms and the decline of agrarianism account for changes in the roles of individual family members within individual family units, but they don't account for dysfunction and family dissolution on such a large scale. One need not look long in the pages of the once well studied New Testament to find doctrines that, if lived sincerely even if imperfectly, would prove far more effective than any government program or advocacy group could do with unlimited budgets. These empower government agencies, whereas the personal morality taught by the Gospels empowers the individual to do right of his own accord without having to yield his sovereignty to an agency. A person could spend a fortune to obtain a degree in the social sciences and not for profit counseling certifications yet not garner anything more profound or socially healthy as the simple, easy to understand Golden Rule taught in Sunday School for free - unless you count voluntary donations. John Adams said, "...because we have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."
The United States collectively has been a nation that operated within the parameters of Judeo-Christian philosophy. There are, as with anything, exceptions that stand apart from this aggregate reality. But the sum total of those exceptions compared to the sum total of cultural norms does not a rule make; a truth the academic community would do well to remember. John Locke said, "if (a person) be absolute lord of his own person and possessions, equal to the greatest, and subject to no body, why will he part with his freedom? Why will he give up this empire, and subject himself to the dominion and control of any other power?" It is the essence of that reality that our Founding Fathers and those who inspired them termed the principle of Natural Law. As with other important concepts that formulate our unique American intellectual identity, the understanding of this critical principle is also on the decline. There is also an alarming rise in the number of Americans who fail to grasp the concept that without economic freedom a nation can not maintain political freedom.
Members of a certain political party and persuasion are amassing a federal behemoth that is becoming ever more entrenched and is increasingly exposing itself as diametrically opposed to freedom - even while chanting the words “rights,” “justice,” and “democracy.” The notion that economic freedom and production side economics is evil has all the momentum. This movement enjoys the power of persuasion through pop culture which accelerates it towards its goal of command and control, top down government of the sort that impoverishes swaths of people. When I say economic freedom, I don’t imply corporatism and or cronyism, in which politically connected global corporations receive special favors and consideration. “Too big to fail” is not the mantra of private property, quite the contrary. I mean freedom to take an idea to as level a playing field as possible with the reasonable hope for a potential return exceeding the initial investment. Certainty of the right to retain that reward, the right to private property, for personal use and investment is a vital piece of the market incentive.
With the movement that would stifle this form of economic freedom there can be no compromise. However, to those individuals who are swept up in its current of misinformation, cleverness, and half truths, there can be substantive teaching opportunities and chances to convince or reclaim them to the cause of liberty. If many of these people understood a lack of political freedom is the byproduct of a lack of economic freedom they may not be so zealous in their war on capitalism. In like manner, if the American people as a whole can rekindle their faith, and in so doing their personal morality and virtue, there will follow a massive shift in the national psyche relating to the role of government and its proper place.
As I read "Democracy in America" I could not help but imagine the country De Tocqueville described as a wonderful place to live peopled with citizens of a goodly nature. That wonderful country, America, has now so shifted in its character as to hardly resemble the nation De Tocqueville extolled and sought for his own country to emulate. This shift has gained frightening momentum. Contemporary American attitudes more closely resemble those of the nineteenth century French that De Tocqueville found so destructive to stable, healthy democracy than those of our forefathers. This unfortunate turn did not happen in a vacuum and neither will the restoration of the often unspoken principles and attitudes that can reverse it. Politics will not accomplish this. It cannot. The shift must be cultural in nature and must involve a willing return to our Judeo-Christian roots. No one need suppose by that statement I mean an unreasonable, zombie-like religious zealotry; we have plenty of that in other parts of the world and it's as suffocating to freedom as is socialism and communism. If America wishes to retain its fading inheritance, a natural, organic movement back towards founding principles needs to occur. Then the politics will naturally follow.
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