Little-Acorn
11-01-2010, 03:04 PM
The American Experiment was a unique idea, tried by a group of men on this continent starting in 1789. It was a based on a novel concept that had seldom been tried in human history. History is replete with examples of government imposing various levels of control on their people, ranging from anarchy to tyranny with everything in between. But virtually all were based on the idea that people had to be controlled in varying degrees, by rulers from above.
Most humans spend most of their waking hours in economic activity: Working at a job, or planting, plowing, harvesting, and marketing goods in a family farm, or writing a book, or shining shoes, or building cabinets or tools or houses, or repairing cars or plumbing or teeth etc. And sometimes they make mistake, and sometimes they learn from those mistakes, and sometimes they do better on the second try, or the third, or the sixth.
The fundamental idea of the new American government, was that the most prosperous, safe, and vigorous country, would result from people largely making their own decisions with NO government controls, each person deciding what to do based on his own self-interest and that of his family and others around him. That an economy would run best if it had NO "overall controller", but was the result simply of people or groups making their own relatively simple decisions about what to buy, what to make, how much to charge for their own goods and services etc. based on what would do them the most good at the time.
As a (present-day) example: The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) might hit 10,000 at a certain time. But not because anybody planned it that way. It hit 10,000 at that time, because a guy in Peoria, IL decided he could pay this much for this stock, and found someone willing to sell it at that price; while a completely unrelated guy in Boston decided to sell a different stock for a different amount and found someone who wanted to pay that much for it; and millions of other isolated individuals making the same decisions in the same way, each hoping to get his own personal benefits from his own sale or purchase. None of them knew what his transaction would do to the DJIA, nor did they care. But the combinations of all their separate acts, wound up putting the DJIA at 10,000 at that particular moment. And then further isolated and unrelated acts quickly drove it to a different level. All driven by people interested solely in their own personal outcome or their own isolated transaction.
Prices and transactions, and even national trends, had been determined in this mostly-random way in the American colonies, and later in the United States, long before the DJIA or any controlling authorities existed. And the people who designed the new American government in the late 1700s, made a conscious decision that the country would do the best, if such individual, isolated events were the dominant, and for the most part the only, driving force in its economy. And since economic matters were what occupied the majority of most people's time, the founders decided that this principle should be what governed the nation. Government should step in (if at all) only when forces arose that prevented people from exercising this ideal. The founders believed that people making their own decisions, despite their faults, failures, and second attempts, would produce better average performance than any ruling elite or group.
Modern liberals are people who disagree with this fundamental American ideal. They believe, to various degrees, that the country will produce more prosperity and safety if government takes a more active role in determining people's activities. They believe in three fundamental notions that conflict with the Founders' ideal expressed above:
1.) That people's individual decisions will trend to a deterioration, not an increase, in overall prosperity in the long term;
2.) That an overall ruling government is capable of controlling or guiding those people in various ways, better than the peoples-own-individual-decisions ideal; and
3.) That an overall ruling government SHOULD control or guide people in those various ways, ways contrary to what those people would have done on their own.
Our government has had a mix of these two philosophies, almost since the nation was founded. In the last two years, we have seen a greater dominance of the liberal philosophy than at practically any time in our history. And the results are clear: government bailouts of companies thought "too big to fail" in contravention of the desires of people who could have bought their products or stock but decided not to. Government taking overall control of many aspects of Health Care, pre-empting decisions formerly made by doctors, patients, insurance vendors, and hospitals.
Now on Tuesday, we will receive the judgement of the American people on this attempt by government to impose its decisions upon us and pre-empt the ones we have been able to make for generations.
And hopefully that government, or the parts of it that the people leave in place, will take the hint, and allow us to return to the ideal that the Great American Experiment was designed to let people live, for the first time in history.
Most humans spend most of their waking hours in economic activity: Working at a job, or planting, plowing, harvesting, and marketing goods in a family farm, or writing a book, or shining shoes, or building cabinets or tools or houses, or repairing cars or plumbing or teeth etc. And sometimes they make mistake, and sometimes they learn from those mistakes, and sometimes they do better on the second try, or the third, or the sixth.
The fundamental idea of the new American government, was that the most prosperous, safe, and vigorous country, would result from people largely making their own decisions with NO government controls, each person deciding what to do based on his own self-interest and that of his family and others around him. That an economy would run best if it had NO "overall controller", but was the result simply of people or groups making their own relatively simple decisions about what to buy, what to make, how much to charge for their own goods and services etc. based on what would do them the most good at the time.
As a (present-day) example: The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) might hit 10,000 at a certain time. But not because anybody planned it that way. It hit 10,000 at that time, because a guy in Peoria, IL decided he could pay this much for this stock, and found someone willing to sell it at that price; while a completely unrelated guy in Boston decided to sell a different stock for a different amount and found someone who wanted to pay that much for it; and millions of other isolated individuals making the same decisions in the same way, each hoping to get his own personal benefits from his own sale or purchase. None of them knew what his transaction would do to the DJIA, nor did they care. But the combinations of all their separate acts, wound up putting the DJIA at 10,000 at that particular moment. And then further isolated and unrelated acts quickly drove it to a different level. All driven by people interested solely in their own personal outcome or their own isolated transaction.
Prices and transactions, and even national trends, had been determined in this mostly-random way in the American colonies, and later in the United States, long before the DJIA or any controlling authorities existed. And the people who designed the new American government in the late 1700s, made a conscious decision that the country would do the best, if such individual, isolated events were the dominant, and for the most part the only, driving force in its economy. And since economic matters were what occupied the majority of most people's time, the founders decided that this principle should be what governed the nation. Government should step in (if at all) only when forces arose that prevented people from exercising this ideal. The founders believed that people making their own decisions, despite their faults, failures, and second attempts, would produce better average performance than any ruling elite or group.
Modern liberals are people who disagree with this fundamental American ideal. They believe, to various degrees, that the country will produce more prosperity and safety if government takes a more active role in determining people's activities. They believe in three fundamental notions that conflict with the Founders' ideal expressed above:
1.) That people's individual decisions will trend to a deterioration, not an increase, in overall prosperity in the long term;
2.) That an overall ruling government is capable of controlling or guiding those people in various ways, better than the peoples-own-individual-decisions ideal; and
3.) That an overall ruling government SHOULD control or guide people in those various ways, ways contrary to what those people would have done on their own.
Our government has had a mix of these two philosophies, almost since the nation was founded. In the last two years, we have seen a greater dominance of the liberal philosophy than at practically any time in our history. And the results are clear: government bailouts of companies thought "too big to fail" in contravention of the desires of people who could have bought their products or stock but decided not to. Government taking overall control of many aspects of Health Care, pre-empting decisions formerly made by doctors, patients, insurance vendors, and hospitals.
Now on Tuesday, we will receive the judgement of the American people on this attempt by government to impose its decisions upon us and pre-empt the ones we have been able to make for generations.
And hopefully that government, or the parts of it that the people leave in place, will take the hint, and allow us to return to the ideal that the Great American Experiment was designed to let people live, for the first time in history.