Skoorb: Moonbeam is nutty, but this is funny
M: Skoorb, check out this article by a nut case named:
"Richard Girard is an increasingly radical representative of the disabled and disenfranchised members of America's downtrodden, who suffers from bipolar disorder (type II or type III, the professionals do not agree). He is impatiently waiting for his credentials, warrants and law enforcement backup to begin arresting Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, et al., before the United Nations or Spain beats him to it. While waiting, he is editing Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, trying to make it comprehensible to someone who is not a Rhodes Scholar. It surprisingly calms the worst effects of his bipolar disorder, helping to keep him out of the funny farm."
I think it relates well with what Dari posted.
This is his article of the disease I was speaking of, the cult of the individual:
The Cult of the Individual
by Richard Girard
www.opednews.com
"That leaves the American citizen, 125 million strong, with his faith in individualism and what it will do for him--mainly without his rent, his job, a decent suit of clothes, a pair of shoes, or food. His faith in this free-for-all individualism has now led him to the place where his fellow individualists of greater strength, cunning, and greed are in a position to say for how much, or rather, for how little, he shall work, for how long, and whether, he shall be allowed to make any complaint or even seek redress in case he is unhappy or dissatisfied, ill-treated, deprived, or even actually starved. In fact, his faith in this individualism as a solvent for all of his ills has caused him to slumber while his fellow individualists of greater greed and cunning have been seizing his wealth, his church, his press, his courts, his judges, his legislators, his police, and quite all of his originally agreed upon constitutional privileges so that, today, he walks practically in fear of his own shadow."-
Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945), American novelist, "Individualism"- Seen in Destructive Phase, The Progressive, January 9, 1932; reprinted April 9, 2009.
The open struggle between the rights of the individual and the needs of society and the state is a relatively recent one in human history. No prophet or priest of ancient Israel, philosopher of ancient Athens, or politician of ancient Rome, would have dared to argue that the needs of the individual ever outweighed the needs of the state. Proclaiming such a position in public would have earned you exile or execution in any of these three founding cultures of Western Civilization.
The formal philosophical beginning of individualism can be traced directly to René Descartes and his concept of cogito ergo sum: I think, therefore I am. (I personally prefer William Sloane Coffin's version, amo ergo sum, I love therefore I am.) In the moment he used himself and the recognition of his thinking as the first step in his system of knowledge, Descartes established the importance of the individual in relation to a philosophical system and, consequently, the world.
Over the next four centuries, philosophers have argued over the moral ascendency of the needs of the group versus that of the individual, in much the same way theologians argued freewill and predestination from the Dark Ages to the Reformation. Intrinsically related to this argument is the question of an individual's freedom, where he derives that freedom from, in both a theoretical and a practical sense, and what relationship-if any--does that freedom have with both the beliefs and needs of his community and the state? Additionally, is this freedom, and that freedom's associated rights, objectively discernible, or are they purely subjective, limited in both scope and use by time and circumstance?
This suggests to me that the first question that must be answered is freedom an object to be striven for, an end onto itself; or is freedom a subject to be experienced, a means to an end rather than an end in itself?
I believe that freedom is a subject, not an object. Freedom is a state of existence to be experienced, not an idol that can be grasped and held like a child's toy. Nelson Mandela came out of his many years of physical confinement realizing that South Africa would never truly be free while it was held by the bonds of hatred and fear. When you attempt to make freedom an object to be grasped, you invariably deny that freedom to someone else. White South Africa held their "freedom"- so tightly, that they were bound to their fear of Black South Africans as if they were prisoners in a chain gang. Black South Africans were every bit as tightly bound to the hatred of the injustice of apartheid visited upon them by White South Africans. Mandela left prison with a key that unlocked the gates to a new and more inclusive freedom for both sides.
Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence wrote of our right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."- We must understand that the freedom required to attain and enjoy these rights, and the rights themselves, is not the actual goal itself. In psychological terms, our goal as human beings is not to have (or possess) an amorphous, ill-defined freedom; every human being's goal is to be free to attempt to attain these goals.
Mutual respect for one another's rights is the true basis for being free. Furthermore, the denial of any group's or individual's rights are inherently dangerous to anyone and everyone who enjoys freedom. If, through the law, you (individually or as a group) can deny a group or individual some right or freedom that you now enjoy, then at sometime in the future the same logic can be used to deny you a right or freedom that you have heretofore enjoyed.
For Americans, our preoccupation with wealth has in many cases led us to conflate freedom and being free primarily with the right to acquire and use our property (wealth), rather than the rights of all of our fellow human beings to live and be free. This in turn has led us to grasp our individual perceptions of "freedom"- so tightly that they have shackled our lives, rather than use our freedom as wings by which we may best live our lives and be free. Like the South Africans, we are imprisoned by our beliefs about what freedom is, while at the same time binding millions of our fellow citizens with unrequited needs--including a job with a living wage, and an adequate level of food, housing, medical care, education, and real opportunity--that they must have to truly be free.
Burdened by the misapprehension that freedom and what we desire are somehow identical, too many Americans have become enamored with what to me is an idolatrous fixation: that our own individual freedoms--both real and assumed--matter above all other considerations and responsibilities within our society. This way of thinking has led us to our current economic meltdown, the alienation of ourselves from the other people in our lives and communities as well as ourselves, and the exaltation of material possessions over human interactions and human needs.
This is not to say that the rights of the individual are unimportant, or even that they are always secondary to the needs of society. A balance between the two is needed: the individual must be free to achieve the goals of who and what he wants to be, within the limits of his own gifts that give him the capability to achieve his dreams. This must be done while allowing other members of society to achieve their own dreams, and in such a way that neither success nor failure is guaranteed. It is morally wrong to make failure impossible; just as it is equally wrong to make success impossible, such as was the case for African-Americans seventy-five years ago.
Here is a basic assumption for the purposes of this article: I believe that we can all agree that you cannot truly be free without some concomitant degree of responsibility. If that is true, to what extent does that responsibility go beyond the responsibility for just ourselves, to include responsibility for other people? Is their no responsibility except for ourselves, or is it limited to just our families? Our circle of friends? Our community? Our nation? Or do we have some responsibility to everyone and everything on Planet Earth?
I shall approach this by asking a simple question: to what extent do we derive--in a practical sense--our rights from the agreement of those who are around us?
As I have stated before, in my article "Rights, Powers, Privileges, and Responsibilities,"- (OpEdNews.com, 27 July, 2007), the "unalienable rights"- of which Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence, are--in philosophical terms--natural rights. To quote from the article, "Natural rights are intrinsic to us as human beings, existing, as Immanuel Kant would say, 'a priori,' without proof. To be more precise, the dictionary defines a priori as: 'Proceeding from a known or assumed cause to a necessarily related effect; deductive;' (The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition copyright © 1992 by Houghton Mifflin Company)."-
At the same time, Jefferson understood that in a practical sense, the rights we enjoy on a daily basis are what philosophers and political scientists call "positive rights."- These positive rights are the natural rights which We the People retain when we grant sovereignty, i.e., power and authority, to the government, through the Social Contract.
Our "natural rights"- as human beings, are transformed into "positive rights"- by either the implicit or explicit agreement with the other members of our nation and its civil society as a whole, within the context of the Social Contract (See the "Tao of Government,"- OpEdNews.com, 28 February, 2009, for more on Power, Authority, Sovereignty, and the Social Contract). Recognizing this, Jefferson used this as the foundation for the Declaration of Independence's statement "That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed"-
Our "natural rights"- as human beings, are transformed into "positive rights"- by either the implicit or explicit agreement with the other members of our nation and its civil society as a whole, within the context of the Social Contract (See the "Tao of Government,"- OpEdNews.com, 28 February, 2009, for more on Power, Authority, Sovereignty, and the Social Contract). Recognizing this, Jefferson used this as the foundation for the Declaration of Independence's statement "That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed"-
Rather than attempt to enumerate the rights which we retain under the American Social Contract--which includes our Constitution--I am going to borrow a basic idea from the past. Moises Maimonides was probably the premier Jewish philosopher and theologian of the Middle Ages, respected by his own people and the Muslims under whose rule he lived.
Maimonides proposed that human beings could never--with certainty--say what God was, only what God was not. As an example, you cannot say that God is "good,"- only that God is not "evil."-
So I shall borrow from Maimonides proposal, and enumerate--in a general sense--those "rights"- that we surrender under the American Social Contract.
The first, and most basic, right we give up is the right to create our own "law,"- or take "justice"- into our own hands. As Aeschylus wrote of in The Eumenides, surrendering the right of vengeance in favor of a court of justice, is the first step towards civilization. No vendettas, no feuds, no recovering "what is mine"- at the point of a gun, etc. The simultaneous corollary to this is the implicit and explicit recognition of and agreement to, the existence of every individual member of the larger community's property and civil rights. This includes providing both the individuals and the community with some equitable system for the protection and adjudication of those rights.
The second right that we surrender is a right to unlimited freedom in both the use and expression of our civil rights, and in the use of our property. We cannot use our freedom of speech to slander our neighbors with falsehoods, or incite them to riot against the immigrants on the edge of town. We cannot place a plant to process mercury from our newly discovered cinnabar mine, which lies next to a stream, when a town downstream depends upon the water from that stream for its drinking water.
The third right that we surrender is the right to do nothing. We no longer have the leisure to not participate in the functions of governance, whether at the community, state or national level. We have a solemn duty to participate in the election process beyond the voting booth, in our educational system beyond the payment of taxes, and most importantly, in the justice system--social, criminal, and civil--at every level.
Why, you ask, do I combine the social welfare and justice systems? Because the better the first functions, the less work the second has to do. A prison is--in all but the most extreme cases of the sociopathic or psychopathic individual--an admission of failure by society. It costs far less in the long term to provide programs like Head Start, youth centers, after school programs, extracurricular activities, day care facilities, state supported higher education, public health care for children, and the like, than the $50,000.00+ it costs every year to feed and house a prisoner in our so-called "corrections system."-
The fact that we have three million Americans--one percent of our total population, and twenty-five percent of the world's total prison population--behind bars, shows that our current system is not working. One hundred and fifty billion dollars every year is being used to warehouse human beings, rather than do anything to correct the underlying problems. This amount does not include the additional cost of police, courts, parole officers, or the crimes themselves, that every single one of those prisoners represents.
In addition, as citizens our participation in the justice system must involve far more than serving on a jury, or acting as a witness to a crime. There must also be a proactive component, which includes knowing when to mind our own business and when to report the sound of a child screaming, or something "wrong"- next door. There is also the need to confront and report the abuse of authority by police, civil servants, and elected officials. This last is of utmost importance, because illegal acts, done under the cover of authority, destroys the trust that must exist between We the People and our government at every level, in order for the system to work properly.
Finally, we surrender the right to naïvely believe that by being wealthy, famous, or having a position of respect or authority, somehow gives an individual an extra degree of knowledge or wisdom that is greater than our own. Or, that these advantages somehow preclude them from committing criminal or immoral acts, or should for some reason exempt them from facing Justice. I remember reading an FBI estimate five years ago that "white collar"- crime (embezzlement, stock fraud, etc.) costs the American people ten times what "blue collar"- crime (burglary, armed robbery, etc.) does every year. Bernie Madoff and the current Wall Street scandals demonstrate that this estimate was probably optimistic.
To quote Mario Puzo in The Godfather, "A man with a briefcase can steal more in an hour, than a man with a gun can steal in a lifetime."-
The other rights we might surrender, under certain circumstances, are what I would call "situational"- rights. As an example: our right to own a large hog farm is probably acceptable in the countryside, but it is unacceptable in the middle of a large city. An adult bookstore might be acceptable in a business district that is in an isolated part of town, but not next door to an elementary school. And finally, there is Justice Holmes famous statement, "You can't yell fire in a crowded theatre."-
Having now discussed those rights that we must surrender in order to establish the Social Contract between ourselves, our neighbors, and the larger community up to and including the Federal Government; what rights do we retain, in a practical sense, by the explicit or implicit agreement of those selfsame neighbors, communities, and governments?
The answer, in a practical sense, is all of them.
As I stated above, we all--in theory--have "natural"- rights, which we have a priori, or as Jefferson states, with which we are "endowed by our creator."- We may not always agree what those rights are, in some cases because those presumed rights are self-serving, wishful thinking. A perfect example of this is a male member of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints, who believes he has the "God-given"- right to have multiple wives
In a practical sense--and this is the point of this article--we in reality only have those rights which our neighbors, communities, and the government agrees that we have under the terms of the Social Contract. This is the reason our FLDS member does not have the right to multiple wives.
Fortunately in the United States, the Social Contract happens to have a powerful written component, including the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. These documents, while they are imperfectly written, imperfectly interpreted, and imperfectly enforced, provide a foundation that has survived 220 year thus far. Part of our duty as citizens is to see that these documents are properly enforced, not only for ourselves, but for others. To deny anyone their rights--without due process--is to one day ensure the eventual violation of one or more of your own rights.
For our society to grow and prosper (as a whole) is only possible when we show respect for our fellow citizens, their rights, their property, their dreams and their goals. This includes permitting our fellow citizens wide latitude when they exercise their rights, limited only by not causing harm to others directly or indirectly.
You have--under the Constitution--a long litany of positive rights as a citizen: freedom of expression; freedom of conscience; freedom of association; the right to petition the government; the right to bear arms; the right to privacy; the right to equal protection and due process under the law; the right to vote regardless of race, creed, color, sex or national origin without having to pay for that right, in so long as you are over the age of eighteen, and your right has not been limited through due process. You even have rights that are not explicitly written in the Constitution, but "are retained by the people,"- because the Framers knew that the world changes and they could not imagine what the citizens of our Republic might require in the future.
But all of these rights incur a tremendous responsibility with them: not only to ourselves and our families, but to our communities, our states, and our Nation as well. We have a responsibility to show respect for the rights and the needs of our fellow citizens, as they have a responsibility to show respect to us. We have forgotten the lesson of the Great Depression and the Second World War: we have always triumphed when we think of ourselves as Americans first.