The American Theme

I think that it is better to refer to this shared experience of ours not as the American Dream but, rather, as the American Theme. A dream might not be realized, even if it is unique to each individual, but a theme can be realized in success or failure, and across a range of circumstances. So what is it? Well, again, it could be unique to each individual, but I contend that unless we have common theme to govern our shared experience, we won't have a shared experience for very long.

I define it this way: Individual liberty and individual accountability; Local government and local accountability; State government as the default, Federal government only as the Constitution allows; Malice towards none [...] Charity for all; and... well... all of those other great, American ideals that characterize American Values, notwithstanding everything that we, as a nation, have done to erode our own values.

At the very base of everything I've just described is the individual's rights. If a society cannot protect the rights of the individual, then there is, in effect, no social contract (Rousseau, 1762). And if a particular group experiences this lack of protection by its individual members, it can be argued that there is no social contract at that level either, but we should all be offended, because a crack in our foundation is not a local concern. It is a threat to every layer that rests upon it. Therefore, we should all be mobilized to protect this most basic right, and be clear-eyed when the mobilization is coopted.

The more polarizing forces in our society would have you confuse rioters with protesters, and, worse, confuse the right to protest with the right to riot. In reality, rioters do more damage to protesters than they do to the owners whose property they destroy, because they pervert the effort to defend the very foundation of our society. It does not mean that protests will not need to be modified to diminish the risk of riots, or that police response should not be pervasive and swift when it comes to rioters, because, after all, if we are marching in protest against the abject disregard for an individual's rights, to the point of murder, then we cannot justify someone else's murder as a side-effect of that march, even if perpetrated by outside parties taking advantage of the situation.

I think that this is the most complicated collaboration between individuals, groups and governments that we can undertake as a society, which can only be resolved by intelligent cooperation. I cannot even begin to offer solutions, outside of recognizing that we need solutions. Sometimes recognition is a good start, and that is my main objective here.