On Friday, September 11, 2009 the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights and the Competitive Enterprise Institute held a briefing at the National Press Club for Tea Party Organizers. Perhaps 300 people listened to four talks on the historical, economic, and moral bases of the tea party protests.
My own talk–15 minutes plus Q&A–focused on the need for a moral principle to integrate tea party activities: the principle of Individual Rights. This is America’s Founding Principle–the idea that guided the American Founders, more than any other, to establish this nation, and to create its limited government. About two dozen crowded around me afterwards, wanting more information and asking questions about the meaning of rights.
Here is an audio of the talk: Press Club 9-11-2009 Rights
The audience response confirms one of my key selling points: when speaking about rights, don’t water down the principle. Speak in clear, unambiguous terms about each person’s right to his own life and liberty, and his right to pursue his own happiness. People today are surrounded with mealy-mouthed slogans, with arguments based on costs, and with claims that success can come only through compromise. People are hungry for a clear statement of a moral principle–because they need guidance on how to understand the many issues with which they are confronted every day.
Don’t argue about incremental steps toward statism–about a 7.5% versus 8% sales tax, about health care co-ops versus a government option, about a carbon tax imposed by legislation versus EPA diktat–for each of these is the same thing in principle. Don’t allow a tea party to be reduced to a series of disconnected issues, approached willy-nilly and without a guiding thought. A tea party without individual rights is not for anything, and cannot have any lasting influence.
The next day, September 12, I had the distinct pleasure of standing near the speakers’ platform at the foot of the capitol steps. I saw a sea of individuals that reached from behind my left shoulder, across my entire field of view, to over my right shoulder–and stretched from the steps of the capitol to beyond the Washington monument. I cannot offer an accurate count of people–where are the overhead images?–but it must have been close to a half a million or more. The signs I saw were almost all hand-written; very few were manufactured, and many decried socialism. I met people who had driven from Detroit, and had come from Nebraska, California, New Mexico and Georgia.
The speakers did not, by and large, offer much intellectual content. This was a rally, and given that most speakers were given only 3 minutes, the overall effect was to boost people’s awareness that they are not alone in their concern for the growth of government power and the increasing attacks on our freedom. There was a rap music group that performed conservative themes, a couple of politicians (Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina for instance), and a young black woman who argued passionately against an obsessive focus on race. Yaron Brook of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights was cut-off at two minutes, but managed to make the point that your life is yours, that to be the best person you can be is the truly American way to live, and that you are not your brothers’ keeper.
All in all, this was the most amazing public gathering I have ever seen. I do not agree with everything said. I do not agree that religion, which values humility and sacrifice before a divine being, can provide the basis for individual rights. I do not agree that there is any difference between “Give unto the poor” and “To each according to his need.” History shows that the most religious periods–Rome under Christian emperors, the dark ages, Calvin’s Geneva, the Religious Wars of the Reformation, Holy Mother Russia–were defined by stagnation, oppression and warfare. This history was broken only when the American Founders elevated the individual’s self-interested right to his own life into a founding principle, and established a government limited to that purpose.
But the protesters of 9-12-2009 stood by their own energy against the power of the state, and expressed a healthy sense of self-esteem. They demanded that American politicians cease attacking the freedoms of American citizens, and cease adding to the tide of government power that threatens us all with moral, political, and financial catastrophe.
I must disagree with a couple of your statements.
You said “I do not agree that there is any difference between “Give unto the poor” and “To each according to his need.”” But there is a difference. “Give unto the poor” is an individual choice and encourages us to show charity to the unfortunate around us, but does not require us to give to those who choose not to work or who will use the money for purposes that we do not agree with. On the other hand, “To each according to his need” is the government taking from those who have to redistribute as they choose, leaving no individual choice.
Second, you said “History shows that the most religious periods–Rome under Christian emperors, the dark ages, Calvin’s Geneva, the Religious Wars of the Reformation, Holy Mother Russia–were defined by stagnation, oppression and warfare.” These were not necessarily the most religious periods, but periods in which the church and government were essentially the same. Christianity played a very important role during the American colonial period and the early days of this country, but again, it was an individual choice and not dictated by the government.
Otherwise, I’ve found what I’ve read on your site so far to be interesting and good.
I strongly agree with your point that religion, when connected to political power, becomes coercive. But why has Christianity so often been used for political purposes? Why has America’s government followed the essential dictate “give unto the poor” to its logical conclusion: the enforced redistribution of wealth to anyone who claims to be (relatively) impoverished?
The answer, I submit, is that morality is more fundamental than politics, economics, or law. Morality provides us with principles that govern every area of life. As long people accept a morality that values service to the needy over productivity and profit, the government will become an institution to enforce the morality, by coercing those who pursue profit and achieve prosperity. The American people and their representatives have created a government that reflects this moral claim perfectly.
Thus the president and democratic leaders are now claiming that health care is a moral ‘right’–and that those who are able to buy it for themselves are bound to provide it to others. As government intervention causes prices to rise further, the number of those who cannot afford health care increases, which leads to further outrage about the needs of the poor, which motivates the proponents to further interventions and even higher prices. Thus both political parties pursue the same basic goal, because each has accepted the same moral claim. The result is a vicious circle that is leading us to bankruptcy.
Dr. Lewis,
You’re wrong. THIS was you best speech. It was magnificent.
Yesterday I watched the videos of your talk at the Ayn Rand Center from September 11, 2009 and the Boston Tea Party. I was soooo impressed and inspired that I transcribed them and am now doing a summary and outline of the main points. They now will help me further with some internet discussion I got involved in, where I already was defending capitalism and arguing against socialized medicine….. and, may I add, I´m not even American, but I see the need of these ideas, or for the underlying Principle, to spread far and wide.
Thank you so much!