A Couple Thoughts About America
Entry posted by Lord GVChamp
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1776:
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,[72] that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government
1861:
I hold that in contemplation of universal law and of the Constitution the Union of these States is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments. It is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination.
Yes, religion is !@#$%^&*. So is America. So is Coca-Cola. So is Catcher in the Rye, and "the spark," and Santa Claus, and a whole bunch of other stuff.
I spend a lot of time talking about stupid cultural norms and the influence they have over our society. Many people take this to mean as me being some sort of orthodox liberal (in the traditional sense of the word) that should also be a political liberal (in the American sense of the word). If rules are stupid, why support them? Support freedom! Turn to the Light Side, GVChamp!
It's exactly because I think cultural norms are so freaking stupid that I AM a social conservative in the first place. People imagine that, by collapsing whatever archaic social institution they dislike, they will be free. I respectfully disagree. Good social institutions can be good things for the same reason that good governments are good things: they lay out the law, in as explicit a manner as possible. In the context of, say, the Church, expectations can be set in a way every person can understand: go to Church once a week, confess your sins, tithe, pray before you go to bed, don't have sex before marriage, don't be gay.
Yeah. Some of these rules suck. But I prefer reform to social anarchy, because I like the idea of big and powerful social institutions with fewer explicit rules laid out, because social norms are easily manipulated by the powerful and the socially adept for their own gains (diamonds on engagement rings, anyone?). A sense of common purpose? Even better. Yeah, it's idiotic to think that, just because I was born in Washington instead of British Columbia, I am somehow more connected to a person in Oklahoma. Especially idiotic to me, considering the majority of my best friends were either born overseas or had both parents born overseas. And I disagree with a lot of the consequences of this kind of thinking. Most specifically the hundreds of billions spent in social spending here when we could accomplish so much more overseas.
But you know what? That same sense of national identity has strengths. We forgot the right to revolution. But we remember "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." And we have the most powerful the nation on the planet along with one of a decent morality, and it's done great work in checking the most violent forms of both Communism and Fascism. It's not perfect. But it's still good. And social institutions that do good things deserve respect, even if they end up with bad things in the process, and we should go through the effort of sorting the good from the bad and preserving said institutions where possible.
Kain, you seem to often wonder why I am not in your political faction. Read this post, then read some of the comments on the other recent blog posts. I've run across enough of those comments on your "side" that I can determine that I don't really mesh.
PS: I also dislike the almost barbaric rhetorical attacks, but that's another story for another day
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