Too Many Un-American Americans
Tibor R. Machan
I
am not sure Senator Rand Paul’s political philosophy is all around
sound but one portion has my support and should have everyone’s. It is
his consistent defense of the (George) Washingtonian idea of limited
government as it pertains to America’s foreign and military policies.
This is especially true as it applies to his recent championing of
withdrawing funding Egypt’s military.
Let
us remember a simple yet revolutionary idea associated with America,
indeed one that has made the country exceptional among all major and
minor political associations. This is the basic, natural right to
individual liberty!
In
more or less complex renditions America has always been associated with
the public philosophy that condemns one person’s using another for a
purpose that this other doesn’t share. Very, very rarely, in some great
emergency only, is it permissible for a person to coerce another, even
for the most noble of reasons (something John Stuart Mill demonstrated
with his example of forcibly preventing someone from stepping on a
collapsing bridge.) That is why slavery was such a blemish in the
history of this country, because it was the gravest of evils
perpetrated, subjugating others to one’s own will without their consent!
It was hypocritical, vile, embarrassing, corrupting.
No
governmental policy that goes directly against the mandate by which
government must operate -- “To secure the protection of individual
rights!” -- is tolerable. Sadly this uniquely novel American idea is
now cast aside by the likes of President Obama and his team of petty
tyrants. The notion that politicians, with their bureaucrats, ought to
regiment the citizenry is all too often accepted by the citizenry
itself, if only because the “public” educational system fails to teach
what the American founders spelled out so clearly in the Declaration of
Independence and the Bill of Rights.
Only if the idea of everyone’s fundamental right to liberty is recovered, will most of what ails us be addressed successfully.
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