Intellectual's Ideas versus the Average Man

Guest Editorial by Roxanne Albertoli:

Thoughts on why it is the intellectuals, not the decent average men, who set the ideas of a culture/society, and how this affects the US’s self-defense.

Listening to a talk show host (Michael Savage), he said that when (not if) the Muslims drop or detonate a bomb in America, and some of you out there want to organize yourselves into a militia to defend yourselves, and your families, that you will be stopped by our government. He said “you'll be jailed, while they put a ring of police around every mosque in America” to defend it against the justice people want to dispense.

I think he's right. He cited the fact that the mayor of Seattle did just that when a Muslim man kidnapped a young girl (late July, 2006) to get into a Jewish Center, then proceeded to shoot, with two handguns, 6 unarmed women, one of whom was pregnant, and killing one of them. The mayor proceeded to encircle the mosques (and synagogues) of Seattle with police to protect them.

I wonder now if even a nuclear hit on a US city will startle people into their senses and realize it's their head on the chopping block, literally. The mental malaise in the US goes very deep. I see how the past 50 years of public education’s teaching of appeasement and “diversity” as ideals have had a bad effect on people's view of what’s right. By always compromising, equivocating, taking it on the chin, empathizing with other's pain, wringing hands over our great wealth and opportunities which forbids us (evidently) from destroying another country that's attacked us (too assertive/arrogant/un-humble), leaves average citizens confused on what's right anymore.

Taking a devil's advocate view, I can see the idea that we're too "lucky", too wealthy and happy, to defend ourselves from "pipsqueaks", that to hammer back with all our might looks to the world like we're in overkill, arrogant, not sufficiently magnanimous. Such a view is deceptively simple, and it’s incorrect.

It’s one reason why Ayn Rand said it doesn't matter that the average man’s ideas are better than the intellectuals, in that the average man wants to save his life, his country, and that he knows it's better than religious or tribal nihilism. The average man cannot defend his views philosophically, as they must be by the intellectuals, against the following types of popular culture ideas: That the strong MUST help the weak. That to do otherwise is to be arrogant/unkind/a not-nice person. That because fortune has smiled upon you, the strong, you must help the weak, turn the other cheek, bend over backwards to take it on the chin, etc. Then you prove how good you are.

It takes a philosophical approach to combat this. That it isn't good fortune or luck that made America productive, wealthy, or gave her citizens the “can-do” spirit. It was reason, logic, the proper political foundation (Founding Fathers) and freedom (for men to act) that created it. That America almost was and can still be lost. That it takes a monumental, almost inconceivable amount of unwavering reason/ applied rationality and denial of immediate gratification, over a long time, to achieve a country like this. (Denial of immediate gratification NOT being a sacrifice.) For the world to demand that America give up its dearly bought freedom, wealth, and opportunities, by allowing ourselves to be attacked without retaliating, is treason to the men and women who worked so unrelentingly to achieve this country. (That would be a sacrifice, i.e., giving up a greater value for a lesser value.)

Because of this, America owes nothing to anyone, although she is a friend to any country that wants help with knowledge to build a free and prosperous society. To be attacked for being good (which is the motive behind 9/11) makes any pipsqueak country that does so not only fair game, but on such grounds those aggressors must be destroyed. To not count the costs of the attack on 9/11 is to invite every thug head-of-state and gangster nation who wants to spit in America's face to do so. A government's only real job is to defend its citizens’ lives and freedom.

A corollary issue is it also takes an intellectual to explain how the Welfare State’s giving its’ citizens everything, besides all its other ill effects, makes them feel undeserving of being protected. That is, of not feeling any moral indignation at some thug who comes to kill them. Fear yes, but no moral indignation that would galvanize a person, or a society, to action. The Welfare State does this by undermining and ultimately destroying the connection between our survival and our freedom to think, work and trade; the freedom that is as absolute a requirement for human life as food or shelter. By smothering you with taxes and “entitlements” the Welfare State’s end result is that you feel no consequence, good or bad, from any “choice” you make. Choice is not allowed except in non-essential matters. Thus surviving, living, is “granted” from the state. With the decline in living standards is a concomitant decline in moral standards. Feeling as though ones’ life is important and a solemn responsibility that no one may direct but oneself, becomes an anachronism. Living in a Welfare State robs most of its’ inhabitants of the need to think, to find solutions to the challenges of life, so they lose the passion to live, they lose reverence for their lives. A country that is a Welfare State must either revert back towards freedom, or thugs (internal or external) will conquer it. It’s either or.

Crossposted at The Dougout