I came to the US for two reasons. One was to establish a new office for my company, Verilab. But the other was because I am, in an important sense, an American. It's true I was born on that rugged, rainy, rock known as the UK (for me it will always be The Zeroth State of the Union). And I understand that to some native (small "n") Americans, that accident of birth coordinates makes me as unworthy a beast as a pre-15th Amendment black man, or a pre-19th Amendment woman of any colo(u)r (indigenous folks the world over, even white ones, are always prone to using violent means to deny "others" their basic human rights). But I am an American to the extent that I believe, and live by, and am prepared to die for -- for myself and for others -- what has been most successfully articulated by the Founding Fathers. I believe in the individual's right to liberty. And I believe that right doesn't come from governments (although they can violate it). No man gifted me my liberty (although he can subvert it). It Just Is. Axiomatic. Fundamental. Unalianable.
And of all the nations around the planet, America -- or the US of America, to be precise -- is the one that has most successfully marketed the notion of liberty, and made it understandable to the common man. In practice, the people in the UK aren't dramatically less free than US folks. Certainly they are spied on by more CCTV cameras than I think the average US citizen has to put with; but the US is catching up on the privacy-violation front. But there's a very important difference in principle. I first heard it when driving from Chicago to the University of Wisonsin-Madison with a colleague at Motorola, back in 1990. We were talking about politics and I mentioned that the basic landscape of British politics was Socialism versus Capitalism. He responded:
I didn't get it at first, but the more I spoke to Americans, the more I understood what was going on. Americans of most persuasions -- even those on the left side of the US spectrum -- view the world as being first and foremost a group of individuals from which arises government, and the nation state, and other collective structures. Brits, on the other hand, seem to think that government, state, and collective pre-exist the individuals who populate them. In America, the individual is the seat of worth and moral value, and the various collectives are built of them, by them, and for them. In Britain, "society" is the primary object, and individuals fit in or get pushed aside.
At this point, I'd like to give the point to the US. But I can't, because in the five years I've been here, I've realised that I, the immigrant, seem to have grasped a fundamental principle about freedom that many folks born here have forgotten. And it is this.
One of the most persistent enemies of individual freedom is centralized collectivism. The most common example is Marxism. But the dominance of Marxism as a threat to liberty has masked other forms, possiby more dangerous than Communism because at first they appear more palatable. Nationalism is an example. Patriotism is another. And both are rife in the modern USA. So much so that I'd have to argue that the coutry appears to have been taken hostage by a group of people (some in government, many not) who are as anti-liberty as the Soviet Union was. They believe in collective ownership ("American" jobs, anyone?) just as much as Marx did. They use "citizenship" in the way that pro-Apartheid South Africans folks used "white" or members of Greek City States used "male". They are, in the most fundamental sense of the word "commun-ist".
Be clear on my meaning. I believe that the collective known as "The USA" is a vital one. Nationalism, or Patriotism, in the sense of a faithfulness to the principle on which the nation was formed, are both admiral. Essential even. But let me -- tired poor, huddled mass, yearning to be free that I am -- remind you natives of what some of you appear to have forgotten; of exactly what that principle, so deserving of our faith, is. You do not own America, or the freedom for which it stands. At best, you are its stewards. It is a sacred trust you have been given, and hell mend you if you violate it.
Point to the US for Adams, Franklin, Jefferson and the whole gang for holding these truths to be self-evident.
Point forfeit for subsequent folks forgetting that, for growing hypocrisy despite it, and for making said gang turn regularly in their graves ever since.
A draw, for which both places should be ashamed.
UK 2, USA 2
I still remember my high school philosophy teacher reminding us, when discussing such esoteric topics as "freedom" that there is no such thing as freedom in the abstract sense. "There's not freedom without captivity" he would say, to the protest of many idealistic 17 year olds. But he was correct: there is no freedom without constraints. If you don't agree with this observation, just answer this simple question: "do you mind if I kill your spouse?". If you do mind (and I'm sure most people in happy relationships would agree with this afirmation), then you have just defined a constraint on my freedom. Those who assert to the contrary to not understand what "society" means for once you have a constraint, you have a society.
Paul.
Posted by: Paul Marriott | April 20, 2009 at 03:27 PM
I wonder which of the two are doing better in the propaganda campaign on torturing 'persons of interest' ?
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/03/trying_again_my.html
Posted by: Gordon | April 27, 2009 at 10:36 PM