The word independence is everywhere in American life, even to the point of overuse. When a word becomes too common, it loses its meaning. That is certainly the case with this one.
He traces this to a fundamental American vision. We would replace the aristocracy of old, with barons and lords on landed estates, with a citizen-based meritocracy. We would all work our way toward becoming masters of our own domain. We would not need to be compliant and obedient subjects. We would all become kings of our own realm.
I think about this walking through nearly any American neighborhood in the suburbs. Europeans find the scene pretty funny. Everyone has a lawn. Each resident is charged with keeping it up and is judged by others if he fails. All of these are truly just European-style estates but in a miniature form. That is the cultural ideal in America.
Every man a king, goes the old phrase, and there is a lot of truth in it. At our founding, we left the idea of earthly kingship behind. If you read Thomas Paine, you will be startled by how much he rages against the monarchy, jeering at their privileges and clothing and power. It’s pretty obvious that he despises monarchical government, and his contemporaries felt the same.
They felt like they had stumbled on an insight—that the people could rule themselves—and they were sticking with it, betting everything on it, and maniacally focused on proving the point. They did, and the new system worked for a very long time, so long as the idea of independence loomed large in the American frame of mind.
At some uncertain point, mostly in the 20th century, the idea of independence gave way to other ambitions: the plan, the empire, the systems, and the grand collective goal. This always comes down to one thing. More power to the state and less power to the individual. Independence as individuals and as a nation took a backseat to the collective dream. This has come at the expense of our liberty.
If we are to recapture the American Dream, and greatness along with it, we must revive the real meaning of independence. It means much more than having a home with a lawn, though that might be part of it. It means the ability to make decisions for yourself and your family without your peaceful wishes being overridden by bureaus and the designs of experts.
To value independence means trusting people to manage their own lives. That’s not as easy as it may sound.
The other day I wrote an article calling for an end to the Department of Education. I said that states, communities, and families could manage education on their own. I gave evidence from history and from existing data on expenditures versus outcomes.
A nice person wrote me an objection. How can we be sure that stupid will do what is right? Don’t we need force and government power to get families and communities to teach the kids who otherwise would languish in ignorance and illiteracy?
I sent my correspondent some literature on the subject from American history along with some chatty discussion of homeschooling, hybrid schools, and community capacity for generating educational options.
It didn’t matter. She kept coming back to the same theme: she just doesn’t trust people and instead wants to force them. All the evidence of educational failure in the current system could not convince her. We had reached an impasse. She fundamentally distrusted the capacity of society to generate outcomes better than what she had dreamed up in her head that she would do by force.
At that point, I was at a loss as to how to convince her. She doubted the workability of independence. She didn’t believe in freedom. There is simply no way to overcome such a view. I do think she could come around, but it is going to take much more than a text-based email conversation to do it. She needs to read, reflect, and rethink.
We all need to do this. As we look back on the Founding Fathers, we find a generation that feared and hated tyranny much more than they worried about the social consequences of freedom. None of them believed that freedom and independence would create utopia. But they did believe that freedom is the best system to guarantee against despotism and likely produces the best possible outcomes we can expect in a deeply flawed world.
Rallying around that insight, they set up a new system of government, and mapped out their philosophy for the ages. They explained in such detail because they knew they had a unique insight, and it would require explanation to make it stick. We need to revisit this explanation today in order to rediscover the meaning and intent.
At some point after the Cold War and perhaps much earlier, the idea of a global American empire took hold among the elites. It spilled over into every area: trade, culture, technology, and everything. These global institutions that emerged are not subject to any kind of plebiscite. The American people cannot control them. The billionaires and multinational foundations do.
Now comes the corrective. People want to put America first. That is because the people want to be in charge once again, in a way that is consistent with the promise of our heritage. We have to be able to vote for representatives, and they have to have power over the bureaucracy. If we do not have that, we do not have democracy. And we certainly don’t have independence so long as the World Health Organization rules our bodies and the World Trade Organization runs our businesses.
Reclaiming independence means letting go of these global institutions and returning government to the people. That’s a big ambition, much easier to say than achieve. But at least we are getting back on the right track. We’ve tried empire. We don’t like it because it compromises our freedom and independence.
Again, the foundation of America is the Declaration of Independence. Its signing is our birthday. It’s more important than any other document in our history. It is known the world over. Its themes changed history. The world loves it. We should love it too. It should be the foundation of American life. All reforms for the future should look to it for guidance.
