Independence Day celebrates individual rights

Today is Independence Day, the day on which Americans celebrate the Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies in America from Great Britain. One thing that is often forgotten is that the American Revolution was a rebellion of Englishmen against their government. They were a remarkable group those revolutionaries, risking their lives by committing treason against the Crown. They were intellectuals like Thomas Jefferson, polymaths like Benjamin Franklin and pragmatists like James Madison. Some, like John Adams, came reluctantly to the cause, while others like George Washington were enthusiastic revolutionaries. What they had in common was a belief that

individuals that are sovereign and that moral governments can only rule with the consent of the governed.

Those brave founders signed a declaration that enunciated a philosophy that was radical for the times. It wasn't completely original - other Englishmen like John Locke and Thomas Paine (who went to America to join the revolution) had already expressed similar sentiments - but it went against the the predominant philosophy that had endured since Aristotle and Socrates - that individuals are sacrificial lambs to the greater good. They turned this prevailing wisdom on its head and said that human beings have inherent rights including the right to pursue their own interests (described in the Declaration as 'the pursuit of happiness') and that these rights cannot be subordinated to anyone's view of the collective good.

The Declaration also stated that governments exist only to protect the rights of individuals. This is, in my view, perhaps the most under-appreciated principle contained in that powerful document. It means there cannot be conflict between the actions of a moral government and the rights of the individual. How can that be true, you ask? Surely part of the role of government is to arbitrate between the conflicting rights of its citizens?

The answer to this dilemma is that there is no conflict between the objectively-determined rights of individuals. Conflict arises because of subjective claims that are not genuine rights (such as 'the right to a job'). The rights that the Declaration refers to are by definition universal and they impose no obligation on anyone other than to respect the same rights in everyone else. There is no conflict between a government that regards its role as solely to protect rights by this definition and the rights of the individual because they are one and the same thing*. This suggests that many, if not most, of the actions of the United States Government today are immoral and inconsistent with the Declaration (and the US is certainly not unique in this regard).

There are many who claim that the Declaration and the US Constitution are anachronistic. I think, on the contrary, both documents were incredibly farsighted. It is not these documents that are the problem today but successive governments abrogation of them.

* I have expanded on this subject before here.

National Socialists are Socialists

This week a UK "crime commissioner" (I understand that this is a civilian who oversees the police, not someone who commissions crime) named Dr Rachel Frosh was forced to resign for equating Socialists with National Socialists after an outcry from people on the political left.  Her posting on Twitter can be seen here.

The reaction to this is wrong on so many levels.  

Firstly, it is incredibly hypocritical.  How often do you read and hear comments from the political left-wing comparing the beliefs of their political opposites with Nazism?  What is good for the goose is surely OK for the gander.

Secondly, it is not offensive to equate one political philosophy with another.  Frosh did not say any individual was a Nazi; she didn't even equate a political party with Nazism (unlike the original post that hers was in response to, which said the British National Party members were Nazis).

Thirdly, the comparison is correct.  National Socialists were, first and foremost, Socialists.  Hitler was at pains to point out, as the quote in Frosh's posting states, "We are Socialists."  Why else would he have called his party the National Socialist Workers Party?  Nazis believed they represented the workers against the oppression, just like all other Socialists.  Nazis made scapegoats of those they saw as oppressors (the Jews mainly) just like other Socialists (who scapegoat capitalists and the bourgeoisie).

The most important common factor is that both regular Socialists and National Socialists believe the individual must be subjugated to the interests of the collective.  They differ only in their definition of the collective - Nazis believe the important collective is the race and the state, Socialists the proletariat.  Once you accept that the interests of the individual can be sacrificed for that of the collective, however you choose to define it, you legitimize any act against any individual that stands in the way of collective. Socialists and National Socialists agree on the principle, just not the definition of the collective's interests and the means to pursue them.  They both believe that a political elite should define those interests.

This issue raises the question of the popular terms used to define political beliefs in the world today.  "Left wing" and "right wing" are not different ends of a political spectrum.  Nazism and Socialism occupy the same philosophical territory.  The other end of the spectrum is not some other variation of these philosophies, it is the belief that the rights of the individual are paramount and the only moral basis for political action is to protect those rights.  This is the philosophy that has found expression down through the ages via Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, John Locke, Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson, and has found its fullest expression in the writings of Ayn Rand.