The spark
that inspired this post occurred several years ago when I attended a city
council meeting in my town on the subject of widening the road that abuts my
neighborhood. I happened to be in favor
of the widening but most of those present appeared to be against it (because tripling
the population without expanding the roads somehow preserves “quality of
life”). A woman whom I recognized from
my neighborhood got up to speak and began by saying, “I think I speak for
everyone here when I say we are not in favor of this plan.” This made me pretty angry. Who was this stranger who presumed to speak
for me? How dare she?
Since that
time I’ve had to battle others who’ve attempted to usurp my power by virtue of
some real or imagined association. I was
on the board of my HOA when the adjacent farm land became the subject of debate
regarding its development. A home
builder was asking the City to re-zone the land from low density to high
density so that he could squeeze more homes onto the site. Needless to say many residents in my
neighborhood were opposed to this. At my
urging, however, the Board took no position on it, and this did not sit well
with some of the homeowners. Essentially
what they wanted was for the Association to fight the plan. I had to explain that the HOA exists for the
expressed purpose of maintaining the common areas of the neighborhood and
enforcing the covenants – period. It is
not our duty to fight this battle but more importantly it is not our right to presume to speak for all of the
homeowners with respect to what happens with the land next door. What about the residents who were okay with
the plan (and there were some of those)?
Sadly, the principle that each person owns the right and freedom to
choose to be the sole spokesperson on his own behalf is a foreign concept to
some.
These
experiences opened my eyes to the reality of the fragile nature of individual
power and liberty. We are in a constant
struggle to preserve our own power, often in ways that we don’t even realize;
which leads me to Lesson #1:
Any time you attach yourself to a
group for one purpose you become vulnerable to those who would syphon away your
power by hijacking the mission of your group, party or association, and this
will come at the expense of your personal liberty.
A prime example
of this is the labor unions. Supposedly
created to bargain with employers on behalf of employees, unions are notorious
for using (or should I say abusing) the power and money trusted to them to
advance the political agendas and power of its leadership without regard to the
personal political inclinations of its members. What you gain in work benefits comes at the
great cost of empowering those who wish to control the bigger picture.
And then
there are groups like the AARP. The AARP
began as an association of retired teachers needing health insurance but has
since grown exponentially in membership and in political influence by expanding
its services to offer a broad range of discounts and other benefits. It admits to (or should I say brags of) being
an advocacy group but frequently advocates on the side of issues and agendas
that starkly conflict with the principles and ideals of many of its members, who
may not realize what’s going on. Those
who agree with the AARPs activist agenda are enjoying greater power at the
expense of those who don’t, and this same dynamic is going on in thousands of
organizations throughout the country.
Corporate
executives are getting in on the game now too.
Not long ago Overstock.com issued a statement about “the company”
standing in support of same-sex marriage, as if its employees are no longer
entitled to their own views on the subject and must adopt the group view
dictated by Overstock’s executives. What
brought this on? Was there some issue
about Overstock selling a rug or couch to a same-sex couple? What gives Overstock’s management the right
to presume to speak for all of its employees on an issue like same-sex marriage? Whatever happened to each individual speaking
only for themselves? Ditto for Starbucks
on the subject of race and every other company that has the audacity to presume
to speak for all of its employees on matters of personal opinion unrelated to
their work. It’s a peculiar and perverse
new style of corruption, in my humble opinion.
All of us
are susceptible to the temptation to take power that doesn’t rightfully belong
to us, there’s no doubt about that; but can anyone debate that those on the Left
have elevated this loathsome practice to an art form? Consider this quote from the Communist Party USA website:
“One of the most crucial ways of increasing
the strength and unity of the working class as a whole is organizing the
unorganized. Working-class unity depends on uniting all the diverse sectors of
the multiracial, multinational working class in the U.S. … Speeding up the organization
of unorganized workers is one of the most important challenges to labor and all
progressive forces.”
“…and all progressive
forces.”
“Unite.”
“Organize.”
Turn your power
over to us and sell us your soul for a few more easy dollars. And the only question people ask is, “Where
do I sign?” before the years go by and then they begin complaining about the sad
state of the world. So here’s Lesson #2:
Like flies to a dead body, every
group or association that creates the opportunity to usurp the power of
individuals and place it into the hands of a few will inevitably see progressives
creep their way into leadership positions.
What’s most
frustrating is that we don’t always have a choice about the associations we
become party to. Everyone has to belong
to the club of citizenship somewhere, so it’s no surprise that the Left persistently
preys on this special opportunity to rob us of our individual power and liberty
and take it for themselves. Just listen
to Barack Obama in Tuesday night’s State of the Union Address (or as I prefer
to call it, The Annual Scolding of all Non-Democrats) as he detailed a long
laundry list of what he and his leftist cohorts have unilaterally decided our
membership now obliges us to do or to give:
- “We” must provide
“free” college
- “We” must retrain
people who lose jobs (in addition to providing unemployment benefits) and
provide “wage insurance”
- “We” must reward
the businesses that Obama & Company approve of
- “We” must cure
cancer
- “We” must prop
up Obama’s donors in the “clean energy” industry
- “We” must invest
in the future (they’ll define this for us)
- “We” must manage
“our” coal and oil resources (which means they will manage it for us)
- “We” must
put aside our instincts and ignore the reality of radical Islam
None of
these things, and so much more that’s been demanded from us over the decades,
were part of the bargain when the Constitution was ratified, of course. And yet we live under the illusion (or
pretense) that the Constitution acts as the by-laws for our little club. So Lesson #3 goes like this:
The power of WE usually comes at a
cost, and that cost is the power of ME.
You can
never escape the club of citizenship, so if you cherish your individual liberty
and power you’d better stand up and defend the Constitution … and never stop.
~CW
