“Can’t we all just get along?” That’s a famous quote from Rodney King in 1992. Sadly, pretty much every reasonable person would conclude that the 34 years since—easily a generation—have proved that we can’t.
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One would think it would be relatively easy, and for roughly the first 200 years of the American experiment in Republican—not the Party, the form of government established by the Constitution— government it was easy—relatively.
So, what would it take for all Americans to get along, for the social strife separating us to end, and for everyone in our blue cities to be able to walk, unmolested, at any time of the day or night? That’s arguably the way things work in red cities. Why not in blue? And why has our plight made the red/blue distinction necessary? From where comes all the hatred, real and manufactured for political gain?
It’s simple, really. All it would take to heal the nation’s wounds is for every American to voluntarily honor the Constitution and the rule of law it acknowledges and establishes. That, and everything that willingness implies.
The Declaration of Independence and Constitution really were revolutionary, more so than any revolution in history. Both embodied the outlandish idea that individuals have rights, given them by God because they were born human. Unalienable rights that are not and cannot be granted by government, and which government cannot infringe or revoke. That means government has limited powers, not rights, and it exists to serve the people, not to rule them. That simple concept, in concert with the concept that governments get their limited powers from the people, and keep them only on condition of good behavior and acting within constitutional limits, produced the freest, most just and prosperous nation in history.
And we appear to be in imminent danger of losing it all.
Graphic: X Post
For such a society to exist requires a high degree of trust among all citizens. We’ve largely lost that. One can blame racial strife, which is largely black people against white people and pretty much everyone else, on Barack Obama, the man who would heal the planet and stop the rise of the oceans, the man who promised to unite us, but who, in eight years, ripped us apart. Prior to his ascent to the presidency, we had largely eliminated racism. He made it worse, and today, we find racial entitlement common. But despite his worst efforts, the demand for racism so greatly exceeds the supply that evil organizations like the SPLC and other leftists have to manufacture it. Race hoaxes are everywhere, and even when they’re inevitably exposed, race hustlers keep the racial pot stirred.
A positive sign is that Obama is becoming increasingly irrelevant. His architectural abomination of a presidential library that isn’t a library is widely mocked.
Why is there so little real racism? Because most Americans of all races simply want to be left alone and are willing to leave others alone. They don’t take slights, real or imagined, as deadly attacks on themselves, their families, or tribes. Most Americans don’t have a tribe because they understand that tribal loyalties are destructive and that their political loyalty must be to the Constitution, to America, to Americans. Many Americans embrace Lincoln’s admonition of charity for all and malice toward none.
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Among the implications of the Constitution is equality of opportunity. Equality of result is not guaranteed, nor is there any right to it. Merit matters, and so do hard work, intelligence, education, goodwill, delayed gratification, and learning to pay attention.
That’s why DEI is so destructive. It’s eternal grievance, the normalization, indeed the exaltation of hatred and resentment toward those whose intelligence, ability, and productivity reap the material and social rewards due their effort and accomplishment. That’s why when companies and institutions like colleges abandon DEI, they immediately begin to prosper and achieve the results for which they were established.
Some cry for a right to housing, good food, free medical care, free, government-provided everything. No such rights exist. They unknowingly speak of government power, the power to take from the productive to give to the unproductive. Government has no money. Every dime it has comes from the people. There is no free lunch; someone always pays.
My individual rights do not obligate anyone else. They don’t require anyone to give me anything to secure my rights, other than honoring the Constitution. Government is not empowered to take from me to give the fruits of my labor to those who refuse to labor, yet so many want it to do just that.
This is a book-length topic, but it all comes down to one simple concept: willingly honoring the Constitution and the rule of law.
That shouldn’t be so hard, should it?
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Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, lifelong athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer, and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.
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