A Voice in the Wilderness In Defense of "Mere Conservatism"

Ideas, Ideals make America great

by: R.J. Moeller

Roughly 240 years ago there was no nation called America, no mighty American military. The world was dominated by the British monarchy. Representative democracy in conjunction with free market capitalism was non-existent, and the belief that God bestowed power to Kings, who in turn granted rights to their subjects, was the commonly accepted form of government, religion, and economics. That is, until a relatively small band of laymen from the New World began what no other people group had been successful in undertaking in human history: breaking free from the grip of a colonial empire.

This rebellion started small and with little chance of success. As famed historian and biographical author David McCullough reminds us in his Pulitzer-prize winning book 1776, “Those we call patriots were also clearly traitors to the King…we must never forget, when they pledged their ‘lives, their fortunes, their sacred honor’ it was not simply a manner of speaking.”

Out of the unthinkable and remarkable victory that these early Americans were able to steal from the British rose the most unique and, to date, prosperous form of government and economy the world has ever known. The historical narrative of the United States is complex, special, and offers our modern Western world, I believe, the much-needed perspective as to how we should proceed into the 21^st century and beyond.

What made America work where others failed was the Founding Father’s commitment to political liberty, economic freedom, and the personal responsibility in harmonious union with civic duty that embodied the Jeffersonian republican ideals.

As we reflect on our current status as a nation and as a people, it could not be more clear to even the most ignorant observer that things are not exactly as they should be in America. Health care costs, inappropriate increases in budgetary spending, dangerous expansion of centralized power by the Federal government, a grid-locked Congress accomplishing nothing, whispers and rumors of economic recession, and the threat of terrorism and World War around the planet from religiously fanatical enemies we barely can identify, let alone understand. It seems to be a tough time for optimism.

But at the same time we’ve never been more prosperous. Home ownership, even among minorities, is at an all-time high. Unemployment is at a basement-level 4%. Tax revenues in the Federal treasury are at record high dollar figure amounts due directly to the much-maligned Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003. The surge in Iraq is proving to be an unmitigated, rousing success thus far. We’ve not been attacked in six years, and our economy, after understandably stumbling in the days, weeks, and months after 9/11, has seen 22 consecutive quarters of growth; another record streak. It seems also to be an improper time for pessimism.

But what is really going on? How can some “experts” incessantly remind us how close to collapse and ruin we are, while then others appear intent on sugarcoating any bad news as good? Who are we to believe? What, if anything, can “we the people” do?

Well, I’m so glad you asked.

I believe the place to start is by asking some routinely ignored questions, like: Why is it exactly that we have achieved so much more in such little time as compared to any other nation in history? How did we arrive at a point where iPhones and hybrid automobiles are readily accessible, and most diseases that still ravage entire foreign societies today are all but eradicated here in the U.S.? How is it that a bunch of rebellious colonials managed to etch out for themselves the most
ingenious form of government and economy ever created? How is it that we are prosperous enough that we can actually argue over which struggling 3^rd World nation we ought to give aid to?

Our success and triumphs are due directly to the ideals (freedom and liberty) and ideas (representative democracy and the free market) that epitomize America. They were, at their inception, radical ideas and ideals that had rarely, if ever, been tested in controlled environments, let alone trustworthy enough to implement as forms of governing peoples and encouraging commerce. Democracy, specifically our wondrous form of it, had to be molded and formed out the blood, sweat, and tears of early Americans who had staked their hopes and dreams on the idea that freedom was worth dying for, and that protecting that freedom won from any and all encroaching hands who would attempt to steal it was all the more important.

The people, not the government, were to keep order and remain vigilant against Man’s insatiable lust for centralized power. For our Founding Fathers to put as much trust in the hands of common, everyday, mostly uneducated, citizens is a testament to their unwavering belief in the right all Men have to autonomy. For the Framers part, it took their faith in the sons and daughters of liberty, not just in the Author and Creator of it, to employ an economic system which depends on an “invisible hand” to guide it towards prosperity. Underlying all of this, as exhibited in the writings of nearly all of the influential Founding Fathers, was the recognition that morality, guided by the Jude-Christian faith of the majority of Americans (then and now), would be able to handle such a responsibility.

As John Adams wrote: “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion…Our Constitution was made for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Not to be outdone, the deist Thomas Jefferson added: “God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are a gift from God?”

Fortunate for us, and the rest of the world, Adams, Jefferson, and their contemporaries made the correct choices. In the light of history and common sense, this fact is undeniable. A practical test for this is to ask yourself: “How many people are sneaking over the borders in to Iran, North Korea, or even Germany? How many Americans get picked up and deported back to the U.S. after trying to sneak into Honduras? How many American businessmen and women wake up in the morning and think, ‘If only our market economy was more like Syria’s…’? ”

How silly is it for so many of us to say that we know democracy and the free market are what have made us prosperous beyond comparison with the rest of the world, but that the best way forward is to abandon those principles in favor of what lesser societies, such as those in Europe, are doing? How is it that Congressional, and more importantly, Presidential candidates who openly and proudly assail the time-tested principles of the free market with their Socialistic rhetoric are even considered as viable options for public office? Do they not see, or at least appreciate, the fact that under Socialistic and certainly Communistic governments, such as the ones they'd have us mimic, those of us on the "Right" would be silenced or voiceless, while they on the "Left" are free to spew their misguided views here in America only because of the traditional values and principles (best embodied today by Conservatism) they themselves criticize?

Why is it so hard for the people closest to success and greatness to recognize their own good luck to be apart of it?

We’re so obsessed with ourselves that we’ve now bypassed the stage where we prudently identify what works in our own system so as to help the most people around the globe and instead moved straight into "self-loathing" mode. We’ve collectively forgotten what made us special. Our school systems have produced consecutive generations of Americans who think that mere dissent for the sake of dissent is what made the United States great, when in reality it has been the innate value and worth of the ideas behind that dissent that have proved themselves timeless.

And that, when you boil it all down, is my point and the secret of our national success: our ideas and ideals were, and are, better than any others. If we can agree upon that, if we can recognize the inherent worth of our system as opposed to all others, then, and only then, will we truly be ready to make a difference at home and abroad. To whom much is given, much is required.

This place isn’t a mistake, it did not happen by chance, and if we are on the road to ruin as so many constantly predict, that ultimate collapse will not be either.