The Individualists..

by George Will

"(The) American frame of mind began in 1623. "Mayflower" (the book) illustrates a timeless fact of politics everywhere - the toll reality takes on ideology - and a large theme of American life: the fecundity of individualism and enlightened self-interest.

The first important book-length manuscript written in America was "Of Plymouth Plantation," the journal of William Bradford, the colony's governor for nearly 36 years. Not published in full until 1856, it was then avidly read by a nation bent on westward expansion and fearing civil war.
In a section on private versus communal farming, Bradford wrote that in 1623, because of a corn shortage, the colonists "began to think how they might raise" more. After much debate, they abandoned their doctrine, brought with them on the Mayflower, that all agriculture should be a collective, community undertaking. It was decided, Bradford wrote, that "they should set corn every man for his own particular, and in that regard trust to themselves." That is, they "assigned to every family a parcel of land," ending communal cultivation of that crop.

"This," Bradford reported, "had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any means." Indeed, "the women now went willingly into the field, and took their little ones with them to set corn; which before would allege weakness and inability; whom to have compelled would have been thought great tyranny and oppression." So began the American recoil from collectivism. Just three years after the settlers came ashore (not at Plymouth Rock, and far from their intended destination, the mouth of the Hudson), they began their ascent to individualism.

So began the harnessing, for the general good, of the fact that human beings are moved, usually and powerfully, by self-interest. So began the unleashing of American energies through freedom - voluntarism rather than coercion.

So began America."
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This version of America lasted for quite some time. Then the Democrats, angered by the fact that they no longer had slaves, began the gradual process of turning at least some of the population back to beholding souls who would not plant their own crops in order to survive, but relied instead upon their Masters, strike that, elected officials, to dole to them an unearned share.

Today, some among us strive for a return to individualism, but seperating the feeders from the public trough is not an easy task. We could employ them to build walls, mend fences, and be on guard for invasions, but all one has to do is glance upon the ones employed to monitor airport security, for example, and creating another generation of disgustingly obese waddlers who shirk responsibility and scream out in indignation when asked to actually perform a modicum of work might be a bad idea after all.

And in this day and age not enough would vote to send them to a new Liberia, so it's back to the drawing board on how to fix America.