INDIVIDUALISM

     

If you have liberty you will have all the growth you want.  America is about protecting our rights to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness (property).  It's an individualist concept that makes Americans greatness.  The idea that you can pursue your own life and values.  The concept that life is important, that happiness is important.

If you want to make a moral argument, if you want to have a moral discussion, you have to give reasons.  We need to have discussions based on reason and fact.  Everyone needs to put on the table what their standards are.  State why this is your standard and defend it.  And if you can't, we're not having an intelligent discussion.

I'll tell you my standard.  Human life and the needs of human beings, not just for survival but for flourishing and happiness.  Humans are basically producers, creators and not depending on other people fundamentally.    My goal is for human life on Earth.  Life is a process of self generating and self sustaining action.  Human being need values in order to keep living.    Life is seeking your purpose.  Most importantly life is an individual process a personal process.  Morally this means we are all morally equal.  We are all beings with our own lives and our lives are our own.  We all have an equal need to gain values, we are all equally entitled to do what our lives require.  But we must take responsibility for our lives we must all make choices.  To be human is to be physical.  To have needs like food, shelter, clothing and medicine.  It is also to be spiritual.  With needs of conscienceness, like the need for inspiration, meaning and knowledge.  Life is to have social needs that derive from the values we can get from others.  Needs like friendship, information and trade.

Bush believes in big government, in collectivism.  He has funded religious organizations, taken over education and moved away from individualism.  Bush doesn't talk about the proper role of government in society.  He has taken liberty out of the discussion and replaced it with growth.  The neo-conservatives and the left have the same philosophy.  The neo-conservatives are nothing but big government advocates.

Business is based on the pursuit of self interest and personal happiness.  The mind is a source of well being and the mind must be free in order to invent new products and services.  When you have government intervention it discourages innovation, risk taking and obstruct the process of wealth creation.

Business and politics create the intellectual roots of statism. There is risk in an increasingly mixed economy. The risk that politics can corrupt and threaten business.  Free individuals create wealth, wealth, makes possible the creation of a middle class.  The middle class means people don't have to work from sun up to sun down.  Some will become entrepreneurs and that creates an even larger middle class for the next generation.  Entrepreneurs don't work hard for the money. They work hard because they love what they are doing.

There is a need for recognition of individual human self interest. The United States was founded on the idea that you had the right to pursue life liberty and the pursuit of happiness (property).  However, there has grown the idea that if you do succeed shouldn't you be helping others.   Or even worse that the idea of individualism means do what ever you want, reckless behavior, indulgence and not being ethical.  This translates to human beings as nothing but  impulsive and self indulgence.

What Americans do is use there minds to figure out how to use nature and resources to transform our environment for our own good.  We need to look out for our own self interest, without using force against others, doing what we love in life guided by reason.  Think of what the world would be like if everyone called on the best within them.  This would be a world in which we could all be enriched, entertained and inspired by each other.