Which Is More Important People or Values?

The question is: Do we possess the values to get the American people out of this mess?  

At the time of its founding, America was based on the idea that each individual human being had certain inalienable rights including Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. We did not say only Englishmen had these rights, or only White, free men had these rights. In an environment that was filled with religious intolerance, nationalism, sexism, racism and slavery, we founded a nation that repudiated these atrocious practices.  

George Washington refused to serve more than two terms, because he placed values ahead of any type of personal cult such as occurred with the British monarchy. Washington’s point was that Americans should not have loyalty to a leader, but rather our allegiance was to the Constitutional values that had been recently adopted. 

In the 1830's, when Alexis de Tocqueville visited America, he saw the threat we faced in founding a nation on the inalienable right to Liberty when men’s passions ran to supporting Equality and Group Rights. Group Rights basically mean an individual does not have inalienable rights, but those rights derive from the group to which he belongs. Under the philosophy of Equality or Group Rights, life’s goodies are divided up among people based on their group membership. In a way, Equality is the enemy of a republic which is based on individual liberty. 

The Evil of the ‘Us vs. Them’ Mentality 

Equality, Group Rights, White Supremacy, Identity Politics contribute to internecine warfare. People take sides based upon who their leader is, and how much power and wealth their leader or leaders promise them. A prime example is the conflict between the Shiites and Sunnis, with their ceaseless fighting and bloodshed. The Hatfields and McCoys on an international scale. 

One thing is true about Americans who subscribe to the group notion that their side is always right, and the other side is wrong. In politics, neither the GOP nor the Dems are all right or all wrong; both display a mixture of right and wrong. Each party has leaders and followers who are wise and those who are fools. Recently, both sides rejected facts in favor of faith while insisting it is the other who is using fake facts and generating fake news.  

Two Central Problems Which No One Wants to Face 

Trump has some good policies that are better than some of the policies the Dems have been pushing for the last 20 years. Trump also has some atrocious policies, but he is mentally ill. The Dems could have some decent leaders if the Pelosi-Schumer cadre would step aside before the Dems devolve into an orgy of “progressivism” -- which boils down to Group Rights. 

America Has the Tools to Become a Decent People 

E pluribus unum was our motto for over 170 years and appears on the Great Seal of the United States. The literal translation is “From many one.” According to some, it referred to the 13 colonies which formed one nation. However, on a more profound level, its meaning parallels Cicero’s pronouncement: “When each person loves the other as much as himself, it makes one out of many…” All the Founding Fathers were well-schooled in Cicero and his thinking strongly influenced our becoming a republic rather than a democracy. 

At the core of e pluribus unum is that every individual contributes directly to the whole. This concept of the individual’s inalienable liberty rests at the heart of our national identity. 

Sad to say, in 1956 America succumbed to Group Rights and during the McCarthy Era and the Red Panic, we changed our motto to “In God we trust.” Not only did we trash the inalienable right of individual liberty, but we violated the First Amendment of the Constitution in a blind furor to prove that we were God’s chosen and the godless Russians were spawn of Satan. 

In the same era, we excluded Blacks’ full membership in American life with the case Brown v Board of Education 347 U.S. 483 (1954), which refused to admit that segregation was a deprivation of Liberty. Instead, the Supreme Court chose to end segregation because “Separate was Not Equal.”  While constitutional cases would accord Whites with the inalienable rights of Liberty, Blacks were provided the non-inalienable and non-constitutional right of Equality. The court wrote: “Segregation with the sanction of law, therefore, has a tendency to [retard] the educational and mental development of negro children and to deprive them of some of the benefits they would receive in a racial[ly] integrated school system.” This hideous pronouncement, steeped in the racist belief that Blacks were inferior, is still causing horrible strife in America life today. Brown v Board of Education should have been one line. “Segregation deprives the individual of his/her inalienable right of Liberty and hence is unconstitutional.” 

Likewise, in saying that we judge a person by the content of his character and not by the color of his skin, Martin Luther King rejected group rights. 

Individual Inalienable Rights Are the Value by Which Our People Will Live or Die 

Our nation will tear itself apart unless we return to the inalienable rights of the individual and White Supremacy is considered as odious as Identity Politics. Our nation needs to dedicate itself to guaranteeing that no person is classified by some specific status like Black, White, Christian, Gay, Transgender, female, etc. and then suffers some liability due to his or her classification. Likewise, one’s assigned status does not confer special rights upon any individual. 

Never again should any American tolerate a leader who labels a whole group “as criminals and rapists.” While individual inalienable rights are not a magical incantation that can rid us of our current turmoil, returning to the core values of the Declaration and the U.S. Constitution will put us in a far better position to move together as a nation.E pluribus unum.

(Richard Lee Abrams is a Los Angeles attorney and a CityWatch contributor. He can be reached at: [email protected]. Abrams’ views are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of CityWatch.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.