Fourth of July, 2023
Sure… blam bang boom July 4th! But please, do it responsibly! That means use a bit of common sense. Remember that fireworks don’t make nicey nicey with dogs. Not to mention veterans with PTSD and old farts like me. And don’t blow your fingers off. Or stare down a roman candle jamming a sparkler in just to get it going again.
Speaking of common sense, Thomas Paine had a few choice words for us in the run up to our own Revolution. He was clear about the creative tension that exists between our desire to be free from the tyranny of the King and the only workable alternative: freely constituted self-government.
I read somewhere that democracy is always aspirational. The reason we think that it seems like an illusion at times is because it is just that; a goal we head towards forever. Democracy is a tease. It’s a request to become civil. It will never really exist, not as such. Instead, it insists.
So yes, democracies are bound to fail. But the reason is not in the concept. To provide access and opportunity to all, to share power in an egalitarian way, to provide hope for the hopeless, these are all extremely worthwhile features of what a democracy should be. The reason democracy fails is that we abandon it in the wasteland of defeatism.
If your argument is that democracy is unrealistic, that human nature doesn’t work that way, well then maybe your “realism” might prefer the reality of authoritarianism. That’s pretty real. After all, it does provide utility. Planned economies seem to thrive, armies march, trains run on time. Everything seems fine. Until it’s not.
I hear a lot about how the only purpose of government is to guarantee our liberty. I call this the “born free” argument, or the “You’re not the boss of me!” mentality. If only wishing made it so. Yes, it should do that, but the deeper truth is that we are born into a messy, complex, interdependent world that demands as much attention to group dynamic as individualistic thinking.
I like to be free to do what I want as much as the next guy. But in “Common Sense”, Thomas Paine pushes us to be clear about our concept of natural rights. If our goal is “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” then how is that ensured? To Paine, the only way to achieve it is to recognize that creative tension between the impulse of personal freedom and the carefully considered, freely chosen path of the social compact required to achieve it for all.
“A government of our own is our natural right: And when a man seriously reflects on the precariousness of human affairs, he will become convinced, that it is infinitely wiser and safer, to form a constitution of our own in a cool deliberate manner, while we have it in our power, than to trust such an interesting event to time and chance. If we omit it now, some [dictator] may hereafter arise, who laying hold of popular disquietudes, may collect together the desperate and the discontented, and by assuming to themselves the powers of government, may sweep away the liberties of the continent like a deluge.”
Pretty close to the bone right now isn’t it? While the first half of that quote is very clear about why the libertarian impulse is inadequate (i.e.: “government is the problem”), the second half sounds like Paine was walking amongst us today.
(A tip of the hat to Heather Cox Richardson for her essay on our July 4th celebrations.)
