Common Good Versus Tyranny of the Majority

Obama's defenders often point out that those opposing his policies are really opposing the common good. They claim that those that resist higher taxes, government run corporations, and climate legislation are merely selfish, evil, or sinful (yes, those words were all used!)

"Common good" should raise a red flag among freedom loving individuals. On one hand, this phrase evokes an image of individuals banding together to perform great acts of work or sacrifice that benefit almost everyone. A such thing as the "common good" does exist. You see it in the actions of churches around this nation. The most effective and positive actions for the common good come from private and individual action. From time to time the government asks the people to sacrifice for something that can benefit the common good, such as the interstate highway system. It both stimulated the economy and promoted national security.

The idea of the "common good" also cloaks proposals from authorities that benefit fewer people, have less positive impact, but require sacrifices from the people. That is why we as free citizens must scrutinize every proposal that asks us to sacrifice for the common good involuntarily. The government uses high sounding phrases to mask the fact that they want to take your money, freedom, or both.

It is not that many of them do not truly believe it is for the common good. The problem is that we cannot afford to let anyone, especially the Left, define the common good for us in every situation. To many of them, the common good means that they choose what we eat, how often we exercise, and what our kids learn in school and at home.

America has seen many cases where the common good has been a mask for outright oppression. In the 1940s, most felt the common good was served by black Americans being unable to vote, mingle with whites socially, or even fighting alongside whites during World War II. As late as the 1960s several Senate Democrats launched a fillibuster to preserve their interpretation of " the common good" from Republicans and northern Democrats seeking to respect the rights of blacks.

Today those that seek to promote the common good want your money and to force you to purchase a product that you may or may not want. All of this flies in the face of national tradition. Be careful and watch your wallet every time a leftist talks about "the common good."

The Republican Party Will Come Full Circle in the Kanawha Valley This Week

On Friday, May 22nd the chairman of the Republican Party returns to one of the origin points of its noblest crusade. This year the Grand Old Party elected a black for the first time as leader. A successful businessman from Maryland defeated after several votes a man who himself had attended segregated schools in South Carolina. In choosing Michael Steele as chair, Republicans did not embrace a new direction, but reaffirmed their roots as the party of freedom and liberty for all. Chairman Steele's visit to the Kanawha Valley this week has very symbolic overtones.

Few people remember today that the region surrounding Charleston can lay claim to being a cradle of the Civil Rights Movement. Before the Civil War, Booker T. Washington of Malden (about fifteen miles east of Charleston) lived as a slave. By 1900 he grew into the preeminent spokesman for the advancement of blacks in America.

Washington advocated a stance for the black community controversial in his time and rejected today. He witnessed the horror inflicted upon politically active blacks in the South. Washington relentlessly advocated the education of blacks in a region hostile to them advancing beyond menial labor. Ku Klux Klan terror raids bullied and often killed blacks who pushed into the political world in the 1870s and 80s. As a result, he spoke in Atlanta about separate development. Washington told the black community to embrace education and develop themselves economically in the present. When it attained a certain financial status, it could then use its clout to peacefully obtain civil and political rights. W. E. B. DuBois derided this in terms that we would today call "appeasement" but it is clear that the social and political culture of the South was very violently antagonistic to DuBois' immediate goals. Washington offered a path that families and individuals could follow in the nineteenth century without fearing for their lives.

Regardless of how modern ears regard Washington's message, his staunch advocacy of education and establishment of the Tuskeegee Institute helped to advance his cause considerably. Interestingly enough, Washington himself had engaged in political activism as a young man.

In the 1870s, while working in Kanawha Valley salt furnaces and coal mines, Washington opened his activist career as a political orator. He stumped the region speaking on behalf of the Republican Party and its candidates. This took courage considering that Kanawha County had strong Confederate sentiment during the Civil War. It would only take one ex Rebel with a grudge to have changed history. Luckily Washington remained safe as he preached support for the GOP. From this springboard he traveled to the Hampton Institute in Virginia to formally receive an education.

The ideas Washington spoke about to the Republican faithful in the Kanawha Valley in his youth will likely be similar to Steele's. First and foremost the Republican Party has always embraced expansive freedom for everyone. Washington found limits as a young man in that certain jobs were just not open for him. The GOP today seeks to expand access to opportunity while enhancing the incentives to succeed. Democrats believe that all should end up equal in the end regardless of effort or risk. Ensuring this "equality of outcome" means that freedoms and opportunities for the energetic and industrious will be diminished while handouts for others increase.

Michael Steele's visit to the Kanawha Valley this week is indeed hsitoric and symbolic. He has the opportunity here to reaffirm the traditional principles of freedom while charting a new course of action. Success is essential.

Freudian slip? Is your privacy in danger?