Independence Day

As we celebrate our beloved national holiday, few Americans take time out of grilling hot dogs, eating potato chips, and drinking beer to think about what it truly means to celebrate the birth of this great nation.

In spite of recent events that make many, myself included, question whether or not America is still a free nation, there is one quality about this country that few Americans remember and many forget.

Famous speeches like Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address" and Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" often point to ideas that while significant, lie well underneath the core of American society. Lincoln's speech asked if "a government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." King popularized racial equality and the American dream, asking men to not be judged by the color of their skin but the content of the character.

And while representative government and racial equality are often touted, and justifiably so, as hallmarks of what it means to be an American, to be a member of a free nation, they do little to examine what lies at the core of all American ideas, of everything this great country was founded upon.

Prior to 1776, when a group of 56 men signed a document that made them traitors, the idea of a nation built upon liberty was nothing but a figment of imagination fit for philosophical musing. To suggest that "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights," was an idea so radical for its time that modern men simply cannot grasp the revolutionary nature of the Declaration of Independence, and perhaps more importantly, the ideas and text it contains. For the Declaration of Independence was not just a document establishing the United States of America as a sovereign nation, it established a sovereign nation conceived in liberty, casting off the chains of despotism and tyranny once and for all.

What the Declaration did was cry out in one voice that this is the land of the free, that here a man is judged only by his character and his accomplishments, not by his birthright nor his family history. It established for the first time in the history of the world that a man has right to his own life, that a man recognizes authority to no one without his own consent, that a man is his own mind, his own body, for he is the master of his own destiny.

Modern Americans forget that. We now rely on outdated African proverbs, trite Native American sayings, and angst-ridden Marxist rhetoric to say that a man is only as good as the men around him. We have forgotten what it means to be the captain of our own ship and have instead traded it for berths as slaves on Whitman's ship of state, on the socialists ship of society, on the Christians ship of community. We have surrendered command of our own fates, mutinying ourselves in a vain effort to relinquish our duty to ourselves. And though there are men among us who will say that one man cannot do it all, that we must offer a part of ourselves to some part of society, of government of those around us, they easily forget H.L. Mencken's fair warning on liberty, that "Any man who takes the liberty of another into his own keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave."

This Independence Day remember not the birth of nation, for nation's can be torn apart. Instead, remember the idea, an idea only as old as the nation which is represented by it: that a man belongs to no one but himself. For this is what it means to be independent.

Invictus

By William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul.

A good friend introduced this poem to me, and I think it perfectly summarizes the individualist sense of life. In a succint and powerful few stanzas, Henley describes more about the soul of a man as it should be than the many novels and non-fiction volumes on the subject of individualism, forcing one to recognize such talent that only these stirring words drive me to jealousy, making me wish I had written it myself.

Obama's anti-smoking crusade

In a move rivaling Colorado's 2006 public smoking ban, President Barack Obama has signed an anti-smoking bill which will allow the FDA to regulate tobacco products.

The law will allow for the reduction and control of nicotine in tobacco products, the arbitrary prohibition of marketing campaigns, as well as banning candy flavorings and blocking labels such as "low tar" and "light."

As though Obama was not relying enough on obscure literary and cinematic moments to further his statist agenda (his 60 percent government stake in car dealerships is straight out of Atlas Shurgged), he appears to be taking his latest cues from the 2006 tongue-and-cheek film Thank You For Smoking. According to this Denver Post article, "Tobacco companies also will be required to cover their cartons with large graphic warnings," a regulation eerily similar to Thank You for Smoking's "poison" label.

The tobacco companies have reacted, as expected, with resentment, mostly because the law directly hurts their business. One can imagine the tobacco executives pacing back and forth in their North Carolina offices, grinning with disdain, uttering the film's quintessential conflict.

"People, what is going on out there? When this cocksucker puts Captain Hook on our product, what the fuck are we gonna do?"

Apparently, President Obama thinks he has the answer.

Obama's American car dealerships

President Barack Obama today moved one step further in nationalizing General Motors and Chrysler, assuring citizens everywhere that he is "absolutely committed" to saving an otherwise failing American automobile industry.

All socialist implications aside, President Obama's move is part of larger picture, a paradigm that has rendered Americans blind for decades.

While many commentators will say he is simply trying to save American jobs or that he is appeasing the unions, who helped get him elected, I wish to focus on a much deeper problem: Assigning intrinsic value to commodities.

A car is nothing by itself. It enables us to move, to be free from the bondage of a pedestrian lifestyle. As such, it should be treated as a part of a larger value, the value of mobility, which itself is related to both freedom and individualism.

However, Obama seems to believe, or at least he is publicly arguing, that American cars are somehow better than foreign cars, that there is a certain intrinsic value attached to American-made goods.

This is nothing more than economic patriotism, the kind espoused by localists, environmentalists, anti-globalization advocates, and hard-nosed economic conservatives, all of whom praise American-made products and demonize any outside threat to the sanctity of their credo, "Made in the USA." They hide behind their masks of so-called human rights, of animal welfare, of environmental welfare, of energy independence, of racism, of inhumane hatred; and for what?

So that the world will know that the American Apparel tag on the leggings that sit tight on the ass of a California-born supermodel look just as amazing as the Dearborn, Mich. imprint on the underside of the Ford Mustang muffler? So that the world will know the Chevrolet Corvette is an American icon, that we have not departed from our working-man, industrialized roots? So that children who would otherwise starve without "sweatshop jobs" in foreign nations can be spared of their sub-mininum-wage salaries? So that all our wine comes from Napa and Sonoma? So that all our bananas and pineapples come from Hawaii? So that all our oranges come from Florida? So that all our strawberries come from California? So that we can claim our bold, international superiority over every other race and culture?

May such claims be damned. May economic patriotism be damned.

There is nothing noble or intrinsically valuable about locally-produced fruit or nationally-produced automobiles. Who cares what the color of the skin of the man who made your clothes is? Who cares if our coffee comes from Costa Rica or our bananas from the Dominican Republic? Who cares if Australiza still produces better Shiraz on their limestone coastline than California does in its mediterranean valleys?

May this be a call to us all to realize that perhaps America is not the fanatastic, industrialized, international monopoly it once was. May this be a call that American manfacturers learn that no longer can they rely on consumers to buy an inferior product for an increased price. May this be a call that we all realizes the benefits of globalization: that one can eat Chinese food on Monday, Mexican on Tuesday, Cajun on Wednesday, a hamburger on Thursday, and French fine dining on Friday; or that an 11-year-old boy in Indonesia is in fact better off with a job in a Nike factory, even if he is not paid what Americans believe is due, for now he can feed his mother and his sister; or that the only way to improve the environment is for the world, not just Americans, to realize our reliance on it and our need to replant natural resources in order to sustain our future.

I, like many before me, too have a dream. I have a dream that one day, I will be cruising a free and reborn America in an Italian-made Lamborghini, my only companion my half-Latina wife, herself adorned in jeans produced by a man in another land, one that is now free. Then, and only then, will globalization not be looked at as an enemy of nations, as a violator of human rights, but as what it really is: the only way to guarantee capitalism and freedom to those who are currently without.

Proof that the youth are revolting

An article in today's Washington Post states that interest in government jobs from young people is higher than ever. It cites "growing interest, dismal economy and desire for public service."

One 25-year-old student, Christina Lee, said the troubled economy "definitely" contributes to her interest in the federal government, adding, "With so many people having trouble finding jobs and keeping jobs, I'd like to know that when I get a job, it's secure.

While Lee's concerns about job security are understandable, they are not admirable. The very fact that job applicants (and Lee is certainly not alone) believe government jobs are "secure" says everything one needs to know about the quality and quantity of the United States government: It is nothing short of an overgrown abomination, where any college graduate (or veteran job applicant for that matter) can unapolgetically hide out, virtually untouched, without public scrutiny that asks whether their job is a part of the values of liberty at all.

However, perhaps what is more disconcerting about this increased interest is that many young Americans in the article cited a desire to serve the public for the greater good.

Another student, Matt Hartburg, 21, said, "When they were talking about how they need younger people to step up and work for the government, that's good to hear," he said. "I feel like I'm graduating at the right time."

Ah, yes. The old JFK defense. "Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country."


There are few words uttered by any American president more despicable than calls for service, such as Barack Obama's dictations for public service or John F. Kennedy's request to help your country. Of course, not to pick on Democrats, Republicans are no better. Recall that McCain joined Obama in his demand that we all serve our fellow man.

Why is it that my fellow young Americans hold such revolting philosophical beliefs? Why is it that so many of my fellow young Americans believe that they are required to serve? Why is it that my fellow young Americans believe they should be subjected to someone else's will, whether it be a God who believes he governs or a government who believes it is God? Why is it noble to put others before yourself, even if it means sacrificing your own freedom, your own individualism, your own survival?

Volunteering is not about a debt to mankind, a requirement for public service, a high call from presidents and politicians, or a higher call from a priest or a God. It is about contributing your services and your talents because you want to, because you believe it is the right thing to do. It is about placing one's own volition above the commandments of his fellow men, raising his right hand and saying, "I do this only for myself out of my own free will."

Ask not what you can do for your country, ask not what your country can do for you, ask not what others can do for you, ask what you can do for yourself.

Dystopian advertising

Driving through downtown Denver today, I came across a billboard that read: "Katie steals to feed her kids. You can change her story." An advertisement for Volunteers of America, the sign reads like a dystopian prognostication of a society ruined by circumstances beyond one's control.

Unfortunately, as their Website illustrates, this is one of many billboards in a nation-wide campaign to guilt-trip Americans into volunteering to help the disadvantaged, the indignant, and the impoverished. Other like-minded socialist and/or Christian organizations probably applaud such statements, fearing that without the assistance of their fellow men, an individual will rot in disease-ridden, poverty-stricken neighborhoods. After all, who will protect a woman from a man who abuses her? Who will feed the hungry? Who will cloth the naked? Who will take a man's life into his hands for safe keeping?

At the risk of sounding like a uncaring, misogynistic imbecile who lacks even an ounce of compassion, is it too much to suggest people look out for themselves?

Independence is a hallmark of virtue and is to be celebrated. For a man to stand naked and expect others to cloth him, for a woman to stand in a line and expect others to feed her, for a parent to expect others to raise his child, for a wife to expect others to force her to leave her abusive husband, for a human being to expect any man but himself to control his life: these are merely pathways on the road to serfdom, to human interdependence, to a world where man neglects himself in favor of the group, the commune, the collective. For any grown man who neglects his own life, any man who places his work, his volition, his very ability to survive into the hands of another is nothing more than an immoral leech. Living a life as man qua man means living for oneself, for his own survival, for his own liberty.

Virtue

For years, my mind has been plagued with questions, asking what virtue in the context of individual rights means.

For too long, men have believed that if and when an individual is truly free, it is his or her responsibility to care not for his or herself but for others. It is said by almost all major religions and philosophies that all men should sacrifice themselves for their fellow men. Such religions will say: This is the doctrine given to man by the lamb who was slain. This is the doctrine for which one shall enter heaven. This is the doctrine of true enlightenment. This is altruism, to which we shall all surrender. For nothing is greater.

And yet, this is the doctrine of slaves. It is the scripture followed by disciples, by sheep who require a herder, by men who simply cannot and will not think for themselves. They surrender their minds and bodies to gods, to governments, to masses, to groups of men no more deserving of the adjective virtuous than these philosophies best representatives: Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin.

For virtue is not born of so-called philosophical intuition or of passionate but irrational desires of the heart. Rather, it is born of the mind, where existence exists, A is A, and no man is required to surrender his own life for anyone or anything. That is rational egoism. That is virtue.

And to virtue's best representative, I turn not to a historical figure but a man born in fiction, an individualist created by a woman of liberty, a woman of virtue. As Howard Roark states in Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead: "I recognize no obligations toward men except one: to respect their freedom and to take no part in a slave society."

On Global Justice

After sitting through an hour and a half discussion on "global justice," it occurred to me how hypocritical leftists can really be at times. Fortunately, this rhetorical nightmare on cosmopolitan society amounted to at least one prudent thought.

When a group of capitalists get together and talk about what's wrong with the world, it's denounced as a cult or a conspiracy. When a group of socialists do the same, it's praised as the hallmark of mankind, as a university.

Write that down.