The Root Of The Problem

[Wild Bill]

I found this while looking up a totally unrelated subject (knife laws). It sums up what I believe is the root of many of the problems facing our country today. It's a little long so excerpted the main points that would relate to drug laws.

 

SWITCHBLADE LEGACY

 

by Bernard Levine ©1990

published in KNIFE WORLD August 1990

http://www.knife-expert.com/

 

From its establishment in 1789, the American republic itself, as well as its promises of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, have meant different things to different of its citizens. The most important of these differences can be traced to two fundamentally different and largely irreconcilable philosophical outlooks.

 

Two centuries ago, these differences were widely recognized and understood, because they very nearly prevented the

Constitutional Convention from reaching any conclusion at all. Today the differences are just as deep, and just as

pervasive, but most of us tend to see them only in regard to specific contemporary issues, rather than as more general

matters of philosophy. The conflicts over such divisive issues as abortion, gun control, drug prohibition,

affirmative action, environmental protection, and industrial policy can never be settled by reasoned debate, because the adherents to each side of these issues do not share a common philosophy. Instead the resolution of these issues will be dictated, unsatisfactorily to all, by the naked exercise of political power: the tyranny of popular or Congressional majorities inflamed by media hysteria, or the arbitrary absolutism of the courts.

 

The two irreconcilable views of the nature of our republic that underlie these issues today have been a part of the

republic since the beginning. A clear exposition of these two views is set forth by University of Alabama professor Forrest McDonald in his 1985 book, Novus Ordo Seclorum, The Intellectual Origins of the Constitution. On pages 70-74 he

explains the differences between what he calls puritanical republicanism, on the one hand, and agrarian republicanism,on the other. First, however, he elucidates their common ground.

 

He says that in a true republic, a system of "rule by the public," the vital principle is public virtue (from virtus,

manly strength). In Professor McDonald's words, public virtue "entailed firmness, courage, endurance, industry, frugal

living, strength, and above all, unremitting devotion to the weal of the public's corporate self, the community of

virtuous men. It was at once individualistic and communal: individualistic in that no member of the public could be

dependent upon any other and still be reckoned a member of the public; communal in that every man gave himself totally

to the good of the public as a whole. If public virtue declined, the republic declined, and if it declined too far,

the republic died.

 

"Philosophical historians had worked out a regular life cycle, or more properly death cycle, of republics. Manhood

gave way to effeminacy, republican liberty to licentiousness. Licentiousness, in turn, degenerated into anarchy, and

anarchy inevitably led to tyranny." Thus far did the two republican philosophies agree.

 

"What distinguished puritanical republicanism from the agrarian variety was that the former sought a moral solution

to the problem of the mortality of republics (make better people), whereas the latter believed in a socioeconomic-

political solution (make better arrangements).

 

"Almost nothing was outside the purview of puritanical republican government, for every matter that might in any way

contribute to strengthening or weakening the virtue of the public was a thing of concern to the public -- a res publica

-- and it was subject to regulation by the public. [Puritan] Republican liberty was totalitarian: one was free to to do

that, and only that, which was in the interest of the public, the liberty of the individual being subsumed in the freedom or independence of his political community."

 

This totalitarian view of a fragile and tottering republic, one that would be undermined by the slightest private

indiscretion, one that could only be preserved by an aggressive policing of every individual's private morality in

every minute particular, predominated in Puritan New England, especially Massachusetts. It also found favor in the areas of the South, especially parts of Virginia, where the evangelical Great Awakening took hold. Most southerners,

however, adhered to the agrarian view of republicanism.

 

In the agrarian view, again quoting McDonald, "Virtue meant manliness, and manliness meant independence... the

necessary independence could be had only if a man owned enough land, unencumbered by debts or other obligations, to

provide himself and his family with all their material needs; and this independence... was in the last analysis measured by his ability to bear arms and use them in his own quarrels... In sum, ownership of the land begat independence, independence begat virtue, and virtue begat republican liberty... In the southern scheme of things, private virtue, in the rigorous sense in which it was defined by the Yankees, was unnecessary to the maintenance of republican liberty. The arch agrarian John Taylor of Caroline [1753-1824] put it succinctly: 'The more a nation depends for its liberty on the qualities of individuals, the less likely it is to retain it. By expecting public good from private virtue, we expose ourselves to public evils from private vices.'"

 

If Taylor were to return today, he would nod sagely at our drug "crisis" and say, "end the prohibition and you will end the crisis." The puritans among us (currently a majority, especially in the mass media) would gasp with horror, and predict the imminent demise of our republic.

 

McDonald continues, "Agrarian republicanism was therefore essentially negative in the focus of its militance: it

demanded vigilance only in regard to certain kinds of men and institutions which, as its adherents viewed history, had

proved inimical or fatal to liberty... standing armies, priests, bishops, aristocrats, luxury, excises, speculators,

jobbers, paper shufflers, monopolists, bloodsuckers, and monocrats..."

 

Agrarian republicans, in theory anyway, viewed their republic as well-founded and durable. The puritan view of a

fragile and tottering republic baffled them. Private morality, or a lack thereof, simply had no effect on an

agrarian republic's overall vitality. The only kind of behavior that could endanger their republic was a calculated

self-serving attack on one of its fundamental institutions: private property, equality before the law, free markets, the right to keep and bear arms.

 

Puritan republicans, by contrast, view every sin, indeed every temptation to sin, as dire threats to their republic.

Their response in every case is simple and direct. First ban the sin. Then, just to be on the safe side, ban the

temptation, too.

 

This is not at all a left-versus-right issue. Militant puritans dominate the extremes on both sides. Those on the

right who would ban abortion and those on the left who would ban hand guns both aspire to a puritan police state that will regulate the behavior of their neighbors and themselves -- although puritan leaders often exempt themselves from their own rules.

 

An agrarian, by contrast, might say, "if you oppose abortion, don't have one; if you oppose hand guns, don't own

one; if you oppose drugs, don't use them. He is willing to live and let live, unless someone attacks him or his

republic.

 

There is a fascinating double standard in puritanism, an unwritten rule that the enforcers of private morality are

exempt from its strictures. This applies equally to private life (such as J. Edgar Hoover's homosexuality or John F.

Kennedy's adultery) and to public pronouncements.