Here in America, we could paraphrase J.F.K’s words, as follows: We prefer the Rule of Law in the age of self-determination to unfettered lawlessness.
America began in the historic fight for Self-determination known as the Revolutionary War. The desire to have our own way is deeply rooted in our DNA. It defines us on the World Stage, and it is our greatest asset. Unfortunately, we also suffer from a corollary attitudinal flaw, the belief that the rules somehow do not apply to us. We can see that tendency playing out in the large resistance to mask mandates and vaccines. Many Americans live by the following wrong-headed doctrine, Can’t Nobody Tell Me Nothin!
America’s dualism is especially at logger-heads on the political scene. The Founding Fathers chose a system of Representative Democracy for us, but we the people almost never endorse the agendas our representatives set for us. Nothing they do in Washington ever seems to fit. Every initiative is met with outraged consternation.
Proposed: Let’s try to find a balance between the outcomes we would personally like to see and what is ultimately best for our country.
The picture alleges that JFK said “world” law. Reactionaries are rightly skeptical of over-centralizing political power up to planetary proportions. We think that governance should begin with self and family, then neighborhood, community, voluntary associations, then state. Federal should be the smallest. We oppose a world government to enforce world law. This does not preclude international agreements, but they are not guarantees.
But the League of Nations did not prevent the Second World War and according to NPR, “In 1994, Ukraine signed an agreement with the U.S., the U.K. and Russia under which it gave up its nuclear arsenal in return for certain assurances.” So now we will “keep our word” and provide “assurance” when Russia, with thousands of nuclear warheads, forces Ukraine back into a union that has existed mostly on, rarely off, for one thousand one hundred forty years.
The history of big government does not bode well for world governance, world law.
I don’t think you mean “all” of us when you say that “belief that the rules somehow do not apply to us.” The laws apply to us when we are caught breaking them.
You wrote opposition to mandates is “wrong-headed.” Instead of picking on private employers, a rational policy could have instead been to vaccinate all the illegal immigrants at the southern border. Then mandate vaccinations to all recipients of any federal money.
For 2020 and 2021, the death rate from Covid for adults was around 27 times greater than from the flu. The voluntarily vaccinated are now highly protected. In children, the death rate is around the same as seasonal flus—in schools the disruptions caused by mask mandates are huge, and compliance interferes with young children’s learning. High school wresters were ordered to not shake their opponent’s hand.
“Can’t Nobody Tell Me Nothin!” you demeaned. According to a paper by researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh, August 2021, “People with a PhD are the most hesitant when it comes to getting the Covid-19 vaccine.” One factor may be an oversupply of PhDs in some fields. Another possibility is that PhDs are intimately familiar with bureaucracies.
Our Founders chose a representative republic. They correctly feared the mob and dictatorship, so they sought to spread political power thinly.
You said, “we the people almost never endorse the agendas our representatives set for us.” If you mean consensus with no opposition, then I agree because that is not possible without totalitarianism which we oppose. But I think large majorities agree with maintaining most existing government programs. Most Republicans support Republican agendas, most Democrats support theirs.
“Nothing they do in Washington ever seems to fit,” you said, and “every initiative is met with outraged consternation.” Sir, please constrain your deployment of “nothing,” “ever” (I do acknowledge the “seems,” thank you), and “every.” They really don’t fit.
The optimal “balance between the outcomes we would personally like to see and what is ultimately best for our country” is more freedom and personal responsibility and smaller government. “Personally like to see” and “best for our country” are highly subjective. “Optimal” can reach near objective status when variables are measurable, and desirable outcomes agreed upon.
In this pandemic, mandates are not optimal. A future plague may be far deadlier. Big stupid government and hyper sensationalist media continue to erode public support for institutions. The federal government which told schools in 2013 that boys who say they are girls may use the girls’ toilets and compete in girls’ sports has lost credibility. It would be nice to restore some reason before the next big crisis.
The federal government lost so much credibility that the people elected Donald Trump president in 2016 and Biden-Harris in 2020.
It could get worse.
Richard: You said, “We think that governance should begin with self and family, then neighborhood, community, voluntary associations, then state. Federal should be the smallest. We oppose a world government to enforce world law.”
WinLoseorDraw agrees with your idealistic hopes for the future, hopefully not too distant. We should, first and foremost, be better able to govern ourselves and without interference from more powerful entities. That day must inevitably come.
JFK, sitting in the chair he was elected to occupy, must certainly have seen things from a slightly different perspective from you and I. He may have said to himself, “People like Reactionary Richard and WinLoseorDraw are good people, but what could they do in the face of genocide in some far away land?” He would have to answer himself with one word, “Nothing!”
Please note that neither JFK nor I called for the all-encompassing world government with global power that you rightfully fear. He called for World Law in the face of Mass Extermination. He did not call for an entity to rule the world. He only praised and preferred, as I do, the Rule of Law.