When Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican nominee for president of the United States, announced Representative Paul Ryan as his vice-presidential running mate, Ryan said that America was an idea. He spoke of the idea that human rights derive from God and from nature and not from government. Whether or not human rights ought to be grounded in natural law is a discussion for another day. For now, let us think about the opposition Ryan asserts between God and nature on one hand and government on the other.
His remarks intimate that government is some tyrannical bogey man out to debilitate righteous free enterprise, binding it with red tape and stealing our liberties and our hard-earned money through taxes. He seems to think that big government equals a reduction of our human rights. This is a distortion of the idea of America.
If we look to the Declaration of Independence as the founding document that articulates the idea of America, we ought to consider not only the beginning sections but also the end. We have heard the words so often that we know them by heart: “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.” This is where many of us stop.
However, what comes next is equally, if not more, important. “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” According to the Declaration, while government is not the origin of human rights, it exists to secure human rights. It also reminds us that the governed have a duty to institute governments that will secure their safety and happiness. So to posit an opposition between rights and government is incorrect.
Further, when we think about the idea of America, it is important to consider the responsibilities that come with rights. The Declaration says: “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our Sacred Honor.” Thus, the idea of America is a country where the government secures human rights, among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and the citizens mutually pledge to each other our lives, fortunes and sacred honor.
We have reached a sad place in our national history and in the evolution of the idea of America when we speak of rights without responsibility. What does a mutual pledge of our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor mean when a presidential candidate says that if he paid one dollar more in taxes than the law required, he would not be qualified to be president? What does the idea of America mean when people put their fortunes in accounts in other countries to avoid taxes to support their own country whose laws and infrastructure allowed them to get rich in the first instance?
What does the idea of America mean when a candidate for president looks for ways to pay less property tax in a state that is in such economic distress that it must raise tuition rates in state colleges and universities thereby making it more difficult for poor and middle class young people to move up the economic ladder?
What does the idea of America mean when the rich, for the most part, do not fight in our nation’s wars, pay as little taxes as they can, and then dishonorably distort the truth in our national political conversation in order to gain and to maintain power?
In this coming election, we the people of the United States ought to consider these questions as we define with our votes the idea of America.
Past the issue of the idea of America, how about looking at the reality of America and demanding that all governing forces devote their greatest input to healing this reality.!?
even if those in power would say the truth, they don’t keep their own words, as we know all too well:……… truth and trust have disappeared in this world, so sometimes these idealogical arguments just don’t make a difference. as long as lies abound and we let them
First thing I read this morning and it made my day! Clear and to the point-well done!
Well stated; but unfortunately it also shows why conservatives have always won this argument … by being able to frame all public policy debates as an epic struggle between freedom and big government they have managed to take over the moral high ground in American politics. As would be progressives, the challenge is to get people to see the implications for society of radical individualism, and to show them that if the basic material needs of all of our people were met we would all be more and not less free…
Until we can find some way to break free of the liberty for all vs. big government paradigm, they will still win every time…
Well stated. Rights have responsibilities. With health care and sick care, we need accountability. Patients who smoke, get no exercise, pursue poor diets, etc. are not being responsible. Doctors, insurance companies, government also need to be accountable. Health care providers need to be paid adequately, but excessive wealth is a violation of community.
Government should be as small as possible but as large as necessary.
Those who lack basic human rights including the right to peace are not free.
Nuclear weapons do not protect us. 150 military bases around the world do not protect us. The war system does not protect us.
The Tobin tax and in general progressive taxation according to ability to pay would protect us. Pursuing an inclusive global economy would protect us. Listening compassionately to all, even our supposed enemies would protect us.
Wondering why or how they can be like they are??? Then start thinking they think of
WHITES-ONLY – To them These United State’s was always to be segragated – any-body else is around to serve their needs – Sex slaves – to slaves working in the fields – The Consitution in their eyes is – we the white men for the white men of the white men – A white’s only America – Then you can under stand their thinking – Magic Under-ware – that keeps them white.
Just as people quote scripture out of context to reinforce a point, they often do the same with documents of the founding fathers. You can not remove a statement from its surrounding text.
Thomas Jefferson, in the Declaration of Independence states that men are “endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights…” this can not be taken out of context with the entire text.
The very next clause reads: “in order to secure these rights, governments are created among men, and derive their just powers from the consent of those governed.”
The two concepts go hand in hand, they can not be separated. God may grant the rights, but government secures them for us.
Manna may fall from heaven, but you still have to bend over and pick it up.
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I’d like to add the following to the list of the “idea of America.” What is the idea of America when millions of working people have been abandoned to free trade policies that have eviscerated the most awesome manufacturing machine in the world and replaced it with a retail/financial/consumer-oriented economy that doesn’t grow wealth or good jobs? What is the idea of America when promised pensions and health care benefits are pulled our from under them? What is the idea of America when our own elected officials and multinationals work hand-in-glove to make this happen?
Be aware of the next free trade agreement: the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). It is being negotiated in secret by hundreds of lobbyists. What has leaked out is very discouraging…..more offshored jobs, foreign investor protections, powers to allow multinationals to challenge our own regulations, including the ability of Wall Street to roll back much-needed financial reform.
It is my belief that both presidential candidates are free trade supporters and that these fundamentalists have found an audience among both Democrats and Republicans.
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