How's Your Thinking? D. J. Murphy

Traditionally, the "American way of life" means living Mr. Murphey is associated with one of the large national advertis ing agencies. [ 237] under a limited government, a government that is re stricted by a constitutiona constitution that says, "Gov ernment may do certain things, and government may not do certain other things." Our American form of govern ment was founded and has been preserved and devel oped by citizens who believed that men, simply by reason of being human beings, possess certain human rights that no government, regardless of power or pure intentions, can justly deny for any reason whatever. Or, to phrase it another way : We hold, as our Declara tion of Independence puts it, that ~~men are endowed with certain unalienable rights." That word, ~'unalien able," means that certain rights are ours irrespective of government. Because we didn't get them from govern ment, no government can justly take them away from us.

When a government tries, it becomes tyranny. That's what tyranny means-the denial by government of man's unalienable rights. But what is an unalienable right? What are the rights that belong to us as human beings? To FulfillOne~s Duty A man has a duty, whether or not he always fulfills it, to live and act like a human being. But the ~~duty" is meaningless unless man has freedom to perform that duty. For instance, man is born with an insatiable desire to know truth. But he can't even start to fulfill that desire-that duty-if he isn't free to speak what he be lieves the truth to be, and to listen to others speak what [238 ] they believe to be the truth. Therefore, the right to speak truth, or, as we say, free speech, is unalienable. Another example: man has a duty, as a created being, to worship the God who created him; but it would be unintelligent for a Creator to give a man a duty and not freedom to fulfill it. Therefore, freedom of religion is one of the unalienable rights.

Individual Differences A third example-and one of special importance for our purpose right now: Every man has special talents and abilities. He wouldn't have them if he didn't have a duty and a corresponding right to develop and use them. Part and parcel of this right, and inseparable from it, is the right of private property, because a man has no real freedom to fulfill his economic duty if he does not have power to own and use the material things necessary to the development of his talents and abilities. What's more, he didn't get those special talents and abilities, or his right to own property, from the State. He got them from his Creator, a Power above and supe rior to the State. Therefore, the State can't properly interfere with his right to develop and use them-or with any of his "unalienable rights" except to prevent him from interfering with other men's similar rights. In fact, that is what the Declaration of Independence says a government is for: "to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men."

Thus far, we haven't said a word that any informed [239 ] American will disagree with-because the opposite of what we've been saying justifies the totalitarian state. Down through the centuries, political scientists and philosophers have never found any other basis upon which human freedom can be logically based. If a man isn't free to use and develop his own talents and abil ities, then he's a slave. That's what slavery means-the denial, by force, of man's freedom to use his own talents and abilities the way his conscience and opportunities tell him to use them. A Power Beyond the State See what we're leading up to? We've been explaining the fundamental logic which we as Americans have inherited from the Judeo-Christian civilization upon which all Western culture is founded. If the things we've been explaining are not true, then American freedom is an hallucination-a pleasant dream. But because we, as a people, do recognize that the only alternative to Almighty God is the Almighty State (even though we don't think about it as much as we should) we. have a :firm, rational basis for our American way of life. We have a firm, rational basis for believing in the American Economic System. We have a logical foundation upon which to defend our· conviction that every citizen has an unalienable right to choose his own occupation and to develop his. own talents and abilities subject to no unjust hindrance and enjoying no special privilege.

All economic systems have lots of things in common. [240 ] No economic system could work if it were all wrong. But neither can any economic system ever be entirely right if it doesn't have a foundation in truth. That's why our American Economic System, however imperfect it may be and however much it may sometimes be abused, has in it the ability to develop-to become more and more right. It has a sound foundation. It is based on the moral and spiritual dignity of man. So, keep this in mind: The American Economic System is what it is because it is founded, let us hope solidly, on truth and justice-on the conviction of American citi zens that every man has certain unalienable rights which he gets from a Power beyond the State, that are his because he is a human being; and no man, no govern ment, no society, no majority can justly deny him the freedom to exercise those rights. Inroads by government on man's economic freedom are always "justi:6ed" by labels like "Security." But there must be limits even to security if man wants to avoid slavery. After all, absolute security is only another name for a penitentiary.

Down through the ages, men have learned the value of the maxim: "Put not your trust in princes." In this modem world, the "prince" is the State. [ 2411 FREEDOM OF THE MIND WHAT is the composition of this capital we call Culture or Civilization?It is primarily constituted of things, ma terial objects, books, pictures, instruments, and so on, which have their probable duration, their fragility, their precariousness as things. But this material stock is not enough, any more than a gold ingot, an acre of good land, a machine are capital if there are not men who need them and know how to use them. Note these two conditions. In order for the material of culture to be capital, it also demands the existence of men who require and can use it, that is to say men who have a thirst for knowledge and for the power of internal transformations, a thirst for the development of their sensibility, and who, on the other hand, know how to acquire or exercise the necessary habits of intellectual discipline, those conventions and practices which are needed in order to utilize the treasure of documents and instruments that have accumulated over the centuries.