A while ago I was debating with a fellow blogger. The subject was this:
What IS a “real American”?
My response:
Well, technically, you are real AND you are American, so—
However, America and being an American is more of an ideal than nationality. For example, it is very easy for citizens of other nations around the world to become “American”. I wouldn’t ever think that I would be “Japanese” should I ever obtain citizenship in Japan.
No. America and American is an ideal; a mindset. A mindset that says the individual is sovereign and does not serve the state. The ideal that the individual is given rights from Deity and that those rights are a priori to the state. That at it’s most basic form, the state is nothing but a collectivism that would protect individual rights.
A man has the right to his person, his life and his production. Should some one attempt to violate that, he would be acting within “justice” to prevent that restriction of his rights. The state then, is created to protect the rights of the individual.
Liberals do not believe in this. Liberals feel tha the state comes first and that rights and Liberty are derived from the state. Following, you believe that it is the roper role of government to provide for the needs of the citizens absent any restriction of individual rights. And you feel that to enforce this proper role of state, you can legislate it to be so.
And so it is that you legislate theft.
If you were to ring my doorbell and ask that I provide for the shelter and relief of my neighbor and I say no, you would walk away; perhaps upset, perhaps sad perhaps disgusted. But it would not occur to you to use force of gun or sword to coerce me to provide access to my production in an attempt to provide for my neighbor.
So, instead, you use the force of the state. Rather than knock and ask, you legislate and demand.
THAT is what people mean when they say people aren’t “American”. It means you are not living the ideas that are uniquely American.
Open discussion.
I have come to understand that many of the friends and colleagues I disagree with are not disagreeing with me because they want bad things to happen. On the contrary, I feel that those folks are just as interested in the welfare of our country and the people in it as I am.
