Commentary 45-Vision of a Better America

Vision of a better America becoming a reality

Posted on Wed, Aug. 27, 2008reprint print email
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By LEONARD PITTS JR.
lpitts@miamiherald.com


'I knew that I was witnessing something special,' Bob Adelman says of watching Martin Luther King Jr. deliver his famous 'I Have A Dream' speech. 'King had put down his prepared remarks and was speaking from emotion.''

He spoke of the promise before he spoke of the dream.

In the first part of the momentous speech he gave at the Lincoln Memorial, the part school children don't memorize and pundits never quote, Martin Luther King, Jr. reminded a watching world that in writing the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, the founders were ``signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.

''This note,'' said King, ''was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.'' His evocation of this great American promise may be less well-known than King's description, moments later, of his great American dream, but there is, nevertheless, a straightforward clarity to it that compels.

Because where race is concerned, what is American history if not the story of how that promise was repeatedly broken? As King put it five years later in the last speech of his life, 'All we say to America is, `Be true to what you said on paper.' ''

But America never did.

Except that now, here comes Barack Obama, son of a Kenyan and a Kansan, striding to the podium to accept the nomination of his party for president of the United States. It comes 45 years to the very day after King said he had a dream America's promise might someday be fulfilled, 100 years and a day after the birth of the president, Lyndon Johnson, who helped nudge that dream toward reality. The timing requires you, if you have any music in your soul, any soul in your soul, to reappraise both the promise and the dream.

That's what we've been doing lately in our various ways in our various Americas. On the sidewalk outside a Gladys Knight concert, a vendor sells a T-shirt depicting King and Obama shaking hands above the legend, ''Sometimes, dreams come true.'' Meanwhile, they are passing around a ''joke'' on the Internet that has Obama picking Sylvester Stallone as his running mate: ''Rambo and Sambo,'' goes the punch line.

The two extremes have one thing in common: slack-faced disbelief. Could it be? Could it really be?

Apparently, it could.

The realization coalesces something some of us never dared hope and others never dared fear: the idea that one day America would take its promise seriously.

And if that realization requires African-Americans to recalibrate their cynicism about what ''they'' will and will not allow black folks to achieve, it seems plain that the greater shock and sense of dislocation is borne by ''they,'' who must now recalibrate their assessment of what black folks can achieve. Small wonder ''they'' have responded frantically, crying with ever more shrillness that this Obama character is something other, something foreign, something strange. Something not really, truly American.

They have grown used to defining ''American'' as a certain skin color, a certain religion and heritage. They have forgotten that ''American'' was, first and foremost, a certain ideal.

Thomas Jefferson stated it thusly: all men are created equal.

The Pledge of Allegiance says: liberty and justice for all. And King, in that speech 45 years ago, spoke of the day ''all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics'' would harmonize upon a song of freedom.

Not truly American, they say? On Thursday, a nation whose credo holds equality to be a birthright will see a brown-skinned man, son of Kenya and Kansas, assume leadership of a major political party. No, it is not the panacea, not the End of Race in America. But it is striking evidence of a promise fulfilled, a dream redeemed.

How could anything be more American than that?


My Commentary:

Comments
MLK's reaffirmation of America's founding ideals was a vital foundation for the success of the early civil rights movement in abolishing legal segregation. But his later embrace of socialism as an ideal seriously undermined his legacy.

That is because socialism (i.e., collectivism) in all of its forms...communism, fascism, nazism, welfare statism, et al...is incompatible with those ideals. Collectivism means the supremacy of the group, and the subordination of the individual to group whims. The "the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"... which includes property rights, without which no other rights are possible...belongs to the individual human being, and only the individual human being. Collectivism is the denial of individual rights.

Rights are a moral concept that defines one?s freedom of action in a social context...i.e., in relation to everyone else. Socially, rights impose a single moral obligation on all of us...to respect the same rights in all others. Unalienable means that each individual is free to act in his own interest according to his own judgement free from coercive predation and exploitation by others...i.e., his rights are absolute. This means that there is no right to the unearned...to healthcare, to an education, to a job...provided by someone else, except in the case of voluntary, uncoerced charity. There is only the right to be free to achieve those things by one's own effort, and in voluntary association and trade with others. To be free from coercion means to be free of all coercion, including governmental coercion. The government's proper job is to protect those unalienable rights-"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men"- which are possessed by all people, at all times.

There is only one social system under which these conditions are possible. That system is laissez-faire capitalism.

Obama embraces the opposite. He implores Americans, especially the young, to abandon their own personal pursuit of happiness...their dreams, career goals, and desires...and instead embrace the theme of his campaign. Service and sacrifice, he says, are what America is about. But a call for servitude to one's neighbor, one's community, the state or the nation...and the call for Americans to sacrifice, not to pursue, their individual values and happiness...is as alien to American ideals as one can imagine. It is the siren song of socialism, not capitalism...of tyranny, not freedom.

Obama should correct the contradiction in MLK's legacy, by calling for policies that are consistent with every individual's unalienable rights to his life, his liberty, his property, and the pursuit of his own happiness. He won't, though, because he is a collectivist through and through. Obama's America is one of servitude and sacrifice, not the pursuit of happiness. His is a vision not of a better America, but of a poorer, less free America.

Yes, it is a significant American milestone that "a brown-skinned man, son of Kenya and Kansas, [will] assume leadership of a major political party." But only when all Americans recognize the true meaning of the words "the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" will we have "striking evidence of a promise fulfilled, a dream redeemed."

How could anything be more American than that?


Posted by: Zemack

8/28/2008 6:51 PM


Other's Commentary:

Zwemack labeling any program to even out the playing field and the wealth of this rich country with names such as socialism, communism welfare state or what ever is a shameful behavior in my opinion and only play for people who already share your world view.

Here is another label for you oligarchy as in the form of government we are now enjoying under the Republicans where we have government for and by the top 1 percent of the economic population.

Sorry if I am more concern about the sick and poor then I am for the shareholders and CEO of the health insurance companies and therefore wish us to join with the rest of the Western world and get universal health care for all.

Sorry if I don?t think that anyone should need to sleep and find food in a garbage container even if they are too mentally ill to take care of themselves.

Sorry if I don?t think that we should continue a system that have the top few percent of the population owning and controlling the whole country for their and their children benefit and the hell with the rest of us.

Yes you are right we could go too far in the other direction but I will start worrying about that after we start acting like a caring society for the least people amount us and stop the decline of the middle class.


Posted by: WRM
8/28/08 8:02pm


My Commentary:

WRM

"Zwemack labeling any program to even out the playing field and the wealth of this rich country with names such as socialism, communism welfare state or what ever is a shameful behavior in my opinion and only play for people who already share your world view."- WRM

Welfare statism is based on the principle that the state, acting for the "good" of the collective, holds the unlimited power to confiscate the privately produced wealth of its individual citizens and that that principle supercedes the good of those citizens. It holds that rights are a collective (i.e., group), not individual, attribute. It is the negation of individual rights. "Any program to even out the?the wealth of this rich country" is welfare statism. It is a form of socialism different from communism or Nazism only as a matter of degree, not substance. If you can tell me how welfare statism is fundamentally...i.e., in principle...different from any other form of socialism, I'd like to here it.

"To even out the playing field" is the very purpose of the words of the Declaration of Independence that Mr. Pitts, and MLK quote. That all men are created equal possessing the unalienable rights of life, liberty, [property,] and the pursuit of happiness is intended to do just that. It means that rights are inseparable (unalienable) from each as an individual, and are held equally, by all people, at all times. You can't get a more level field than that. All wealth is produced by people exercising those rights, and "any program to even out...the wealth of this rich country" through the coercive power of the state is nothing more than legalized theft and violates the principle of "unalienable rights" and negates this country?s founding ideals.

"Sorry if I am more concern about the sick and poor then I am for the shareholders and CEO of the health insurance companies..."- WRM

That statement inverts an immutable fact of nature...production comes before consumption. The wealth that humans need to live and flourish...from nails to computers to food to healthcare...does not just materialize in nature but must be produced through a process of reason and productive work. Wealth production requires certain social conditions to occur...freedom and a rights-protecting government. Every individual must be free to think and act on his own rational judgement, to set his own goals and to strive to achieve them by his own effort, and to engage in voluntary trade with others, free from coercive interference by others. The American ideal of unalienable, equal rights is the principle that guarantees the proper social conditions for man to produce. Anyone who disregards the unalienable rights of life, liberty, [property,] and the pursuit of happiness of "shareholders and CEOs and the top few percent of the population" or any other producers cannot claim "concern about the sick and poor." Production comes before consumption, and individual rights comes before production. That is not my worldview. That is an indisputable fact of man's nature and of reality.

It is not your concern for the sick or of those down on their economic fortunes that I object to. It is your means of helping them. Charity is a worthwhile pursuit only if it is uncoerced and voluntary. Each individual, possessing unalienable rights, must be free to decide who, when, and in what capacity he will assist others based on his own value-judgements and his own available resources. Someone who wants "a caring society" would not force his own idea of worthwhile charity on others. Claiming "concern about the sick and poor" and then demanding a government program to force others to pay for the luxury of your compassion makes you out to be thoroughly PHONY.

If charitable help for the down and out and increased economic opportunity for the poor is your goal, then increased production of wealth should be your first goal. This means unalienable rights and capitalism, not welfare state programs that confiscate wealth and violate rights and thus diminish production and economic opportunity.


Posted by: Zemack

8/29/2008 6:14 PM


Other's Commentary:


Zemack the society as a whole set the structure for wealth creating and as such, we all therefore have a right to share in that wealth. No individual have the power to create wealth without using the inter-structure that the social as a whole had build.

Is it not strange that the granting of public lands by the millions of acres for example to the railroad companies in the 1800s for the public good is fine but not the transfer of some of the wealth to the poor also for the public good is somehow wrong?

It is somehow fine to grant land and share the cost of a ball park in down town Miami to a private firm to the tune of hundred of millions of dollars but not to build low income housing costing millions!

The poor should not to have to plea for health care it should be their right to not die due to being on the bottom of the economic ladder and that right is accepted by every Western Country but for our.

There is a balance in everything and maintaining a strong self interest in creating wealth to benefit you and your family is in the society interest, however so is taking care of the mentally ill and the sick even if they are on the bottom of the economic pile.


Posted by: WRM

8/29/2008 10:30 PM


My Commentary:

WRM, 8/29/08

The "structure"...the proper social conditions...for wealth creating are "set" by nature and the requirements of man's survival, not "society as a whole". Those social conditions need to be discovered, not "set" by the arbitrary whim of "society as a whole" or any group or individual. There is no "society as a whole", as opposed to its individual members. The great achievement of the Enlightenment thinkers and of America?s Founding Fathers was to discover, and implement, those social conditions. The result was the first nation on earth to be established based on the supreme value of the individual...all individuals...his unalienable rights, and a government designed to protect those rights. They recognized the power of every person's rational faculty...his reason...and established the individual freedom to act on his reason, which is nature's requirement for man to survive and thrive.

All wealth is produced by individuals, whether acting alone or in voluntary cooperation with one another. It is not produced, nor owned, by "society as a whole". There is no "whole," no supreme tribe, in America. There are only individuals possessing rights to freedom of action and freedom from predators. The only proper way to "share" wealth in a free and just society is through voluntary trade to mutual advantage...not by force, governmental or otherwise. Likewise, America's infrastructure (roads and bridges) was built mostly by private contractors and paid for by taxes. If your property rights are forfeited because you use the roads and bridges that your taxes helped pay for, as you seem to be claiming, then that is one of the best arguments for why governments shouldn't own or finance any infrastructure.

The building of the railroads was a great achievement of productive industrial geniuses who brought great benefits to their fellow men and helped lay the foundation for the great prosperity to come. Unfortunately, that achievement was marred by government interference. Some of the railroad builders used political connections to obtain government grants, subsidies, franchises, and legal protection from competition (which created the infamous coercive railroad monopolies). That was wrong and so is taxpayer funding of sports stadiums and a whole host of socialism-for-the-rich schemes. Corporate welfare handed out by politicians flush with taxpayer money in the name of "the public good" is a violation of individual rights.

There is no right to healthcare. There is no right to any manmade product of any kind. There is no right to wealth created by someone else. For a right of that kind to be ensured, the government would have to force others to pay for it through taxation, and force producers of that product to provide it...I.E., to rob and to enslave. A power of that kind in the hands of politicians is the path to tyranny, which is where we are heading. The government's only proper function is to protect individual rights, not violate them. People who are not poor should not be punished for their economic achievements, by being forced to support people who have the same freedom to achieve but didn't.

I agree on this much, WRM. Acting in your own self-interest to create "wealth to benefit you and your family" is, indeed, a benefit to "society." That is because of one simple reason?"society" is only so many individuals. And you, and every individual, is a part of society. When an individual benefits himself through his own productive work, he thus benefits society because he is society. He benefits ?society? in another very important way...by providing a product or service that others find valuable enough to buy (to trade for). By "maintaining a strong self interest in creating wealth to benefit you and your family," you are lifting others up as well. And the most productive individuals?those that grow businesses (without government favors) provide jobs as well. But you cannot reverse cause-and-effect. When the state starts violating, rather than protecting, your right to the pursuit of your own self-interest and happiness by confiscating your wealth for someone else?s unearned benefit...however needy...then the engine of prosperity and freedom is headed for destruction. There is no balance between wealth creation and wealth confiscation?between production and theft...between voluntary charity and forcible redistribution...between the protection of individual rights and their violation. Once you?ve granted to government the power to trample the people's rights some of the time, you have crossed the line to where rights are no longer unalienable. And once you?ve abandoned the principle that rights are unalienable, where do you draw the line on government?s expanding power and the people's shrinking freedom? You can't. You no longer have any principle to stand on.

Voluntary, private charity is the way to help those few who are truly unable to help themselves. Destroying the freedom that enables wealth production will not help them, or anyone else, except the rulers.


Posted by: Zemack

8/31/2008 7:58 AM