Passing on the Torch of Liberty

The United States is the most powerful nation in the world. But the shining city on the hill is enshrouded in doubt over its future: Will it remain the last best hope for mankind, or will it too cave to the forces of tyranny and evil that have plagued mankind since its inception?

To gain some view of where America has been and where it is going, we must provide some historical context, and address the criticisms of the country so readily proffered by those who would usher in its decline. It is hoped that by the end of this brief article, some of the tendentious shibboleths of the left will have been counter-balanced, and those who are a part of this country will more readily seek to preserve what is truly great about it.

What made America exceptional in human history and spurred its incredible rise to preeminence in the free world was not a history of imperialism, colonialism, and plunder. The United States did take part in the slave trade, and did immorally gain from slave labor. The Constitution of the United States, however, banned the importation of slaves before many of the supposedly “enlightened” European nations. America ended slavery for good through a bloody war between the states at approximately the same time as other European nations ended the practice. It is important to note that the United States did not lag behind the rest of the world in coming to realize the hypocrisy and the inhumanity of slavery, nor did it trail appreciably behind in ending the barbaric institution.

What made Americans great was their pioneering spirit, rugged individualism, and the willingness to earn an honest living. Neither desiring others to run one’s own life, nor trusting the government to tell others how to live, most people avoided getting involved with the government. They preferred to work, raise a family, be left alone, and leave others alone. Unfortunately, a fatal seed lay in this passive resistance to government involvement. At one point, the seemingly infinite expanse of private property began ran out. There was no where left to run. Politicians schemed to “bring the state back in,” and slowly fixed a loose noose over the country.

Meanwhile, federalism, the political architecture of the nation, was assaulted under the rubric of “democracy,” which no serious political thinker in world history has ever endorsed. An anti-states rights agenda was driven along by an ever-meddling central government in Washington D.C., which finally found its justification to effectively eliminate the foundational assumption of the ‘Union’ under the pretense of eliminating slavery. While economic slavery is an unforgivable wrong, in no wise does it justify political slavery.

While the central government expanded its reach, progressives hastened to end the availability of private property, and thus the ability for people to escape the control of politicians. Progressives accomplished this both by restricting land with humongous “public” parks and acquiring huge blocks of federal lands, now a mainstay of the “environmentalist” movement; and then by perverting the concept of private property beyond all recognition with absurd interpretations of the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, and later with affronts to the concept itself, such as “eminent domain.”

The Jeffersonian vision of an America filled with self-ruling freemen in heterogeneous, self-organizing communities was being throttled, seemingly by design. The Hamiltonians had perverted the capitalist system with the introduction of a central bank, a flagrant violation of the explicit prohibition of the institution by the Continental Congress. The Whigs had picked up on Hamiltonian thinking by restricting free trade in the “national interest.” Nearly every modern-day economic analysis undertaken using rigorous scientific standards suggests that protectionism is a self-defeating practice, which jibes with the general tried-and-true theory that freedom leads to prosperity.

This is not to say that free market capitalism is perfect, but it is superior to state-manipulated capitalism, the intermediate stage on the inevitable path to socialism, because the former disperses risks in an economic system. While some businesses in a free market system fail, at least the entire economic system tends not to fail at once, which we see in states where central banks command the money supply by setting interest rates. Where free market capitalist systems do run into problems is with huge influxes of specie currency, such as gold and silver, which is being used at the time as capital. But in the modern era, the risk of such huge influxes of gold and silver grows more remote. In sum, there is a reason for the growing tendency and frequency of recessions and depressions; the purposive influx of capital via systematic inflation of the currency by a central bank rewards the administrators of the banks themselves, and punishes those further along in the money supply chain through currency devaluation. In practice, this means working more, gaining less, and being more dissatisfied with the economic system. The invisible hand of the central bank, and not the market, is seizing the wealth of the people, while those of the economically ignorant perceive it all as “theft” by the greedy, who are driven by evil “profits.” This lays the preconditions to sell socialism to the gullible masses.

The final ingredient in disenchanting a people with “capitalism,” that monolith of the left whose notion apparently cannot be twisted enough beyond recognition, is progressive taxation. While the left bemoans the “maldistribution” of wealth in the nation, we must ask ourselves what it is that the left finds so repugnant about those who produce the best goods and services making the most wealth. It is very simple. In a free country, meaning the freest in accordance with true human nature, the economic, political, and societal spheres are divided. In an authoritarian state, politicians covet the economic power of the businessmen, and we should add, the social power of influential artists and commentators in the marketplace of ideas. In the corrupt state, politicians want to control everything, and thus all spheres of human activity tend towards “convergence,” using the instruments of lies and coercion..

The point is that the United States is in danger of ceasing to remain the land of the free, and indeed, we find ourselves chasing the steadily moving shadow of the totalitarians, who are forging ahead almost faster than we can keep up. We must seize the high ground in the realm of ideas, and to do this, we must shine the truth on the would-be tyrants. This would at least vanquish the lies, and prepare us mentally to resist the coercion the potential subjugators are designing for us.

Mobilize for action, be of good courage, and defend America against all enemies, foreign and domestic. We are in a war for the hearts and minds of the Republic, and as foot soldiers, we must never waver. Sound the bell of liberty so that it rings loud and true! Though it be broken, it shall not fail us in the fatal hour.