Volume 6, Issue 43
Telling a person who fears for their family’s safety, in poverty and sensing imminent assault, that they must complete a form and wait for supervision is like telling a drowning man to stop swimming and wait for a lifeguard because he is disturbing the tranquility of the water for other bathers.
Two weeks before an historically critical mid-term election, the acrimony over the proper public policy has become a cognizant disconnect. The current debate has been centered on the narrow point of simply whether or not the migrants should be forcibly rejected at the border. The positions taken by adversarial political party leaders are, one, is it more important to secure the border than to accommodate refugee camps? And two, as a sovereign nation, does the United States have any obligation whatsoever to provide solutions undergirded by government policy to alleviate world poverty?
Progressive millennials are beginning to question the United States’ principal role in the world economy as the leading consumer nation. And further, certain candidates for federal office question the righteousness of capitalism.
Zak Ringelstein is running for U.S. Senate in Maine. He is challenging as a Democrat the incumbent, Angus King, an Independent. He believes that “capitalism unchecked is a complete disaster.”
In this statement, he is correct.
In the Nuttle Report of June 28, 2018, I addressed the issue of the roots of all incivility. In that report, the point was made that John Wesley, the late 1700s Methodist minister, agreed with Ringelstein’s quote. Wesley counseled his peer of the time, Adam Smith, that “the invisible hand of capitalism,” in and of itself, was inadequate to render economic justice. He admonished that to achieve true righteousness required capitalism as a basic economic foundation, guided and supervised by the moral principles of Christianity. “The balance of morality advanced by these two great minds provided the overriding principles which fueled and guided the United States of America to the greatest economy the world has ever known.” This policy partnership of capitalism and Christian principles was the driving force of free enterprise unique to the United States. The idea that a fair wage should be paid for a fair day’s work has been the sinew binding political philosophy in America since its inception.
Never to forget history, we must recognize that the road to economic equality in America has been conflicting, bloody, and divisive. We also should not overlook that the United States has progressed basically on a linear timeline, pursuant to the guiding principles of righteousness, set out by the founding patriots.
The question presented today is, does the United States, as the world’s largest consuming economy, have any moral obligation to alleviate world poverty outside of its own borders?
The United States is just 242 years old. This may seem like a long time to an individual and particularly to a millennial. In relation to established world cultures and the majority of sovereign nations, America is barely a teenager. The U.S. came on the world scene in the latter years of the age of colonialism. The societal DNA of Europe and China was set in stone. Their past historical national personalities still drive their public policies today.
The colonial system did introduce and provide rule of law, civil structure, and government stability. It did not provide economic parity. Africa, Central America, and South America find implementing economic equality difficult because of a remnant colonial structure that left them at a disadvantage.
The European world experiment culminated in World War II. The United States had committed to an isolationist policy. Initially, we wanted nothing to do with World War I or World War II. Because of our close relationship with our allied partners, we rendered aid. After WWII, the United States was the only modern industrial state left standing. With the help of British financial architecture at the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference, the United States inherited the leadership role for the world’s economy in the 20th century.
We didn’t ask for this. We were munificent in accepting the obligation. The United States’ cultural imperative since 1776 has been: protect freedom, limit government, facilitate free enterprise, provide equal opportunity, and respect the sovereignty of other nations' cultures. We as a nation at times have struggled on the proper government policy for world trade and world order.
To the latter point of world order, we have also inherited the role of the world’s police force. We have always acted at the behest of our allies’ request. There are only so many drug lords and dictators that the United States can bring to justice. Part of the breakdown of society in Central America causing the migrant caravan is the brutal oppressiveness of drug lords and their corruption. This evil, coupled with poverty, leaves families desperate without options.
Many millennials like Zak Ringelstein come to the incomplete analysis that, because student debt is so onerous and lack of universal health care is so critical, that capitalism has failed. Therefore, the resulting solution is more government control and distribution of wealth. They ignore and neglect the lessons of history that socialism, communism and less freedom, in and of themselves, generate less wealth to distribute. It is not that capitalism has failed. We have failed the partnership of principles inaugurated at the birth of our country by the ideas of Adam Smith and John Wesley.
Now the world finds itself at the precipice of consequences manifested in historical conclusion. In other words, the social results of neglected principles have left us with the intractable problems that exist in our society today. There is no easy answer for the migrants’ situation. The answers for health care and student debt in the U.S. are just as difficult. Given this, refusing to face the reality of the problems is unacceptable. The crises will not solve themselves. They must be addressed with the commitment to fairness and righteousness. Christian faith dictates the characteristics and requires the obedience of love for fellow men and women.
What then is the answer? Not the United Nations. The foundational principles of a government’s commitment to the dignity of its citizens include, without exception, rule of law, due process, independent courts, free press, and transparency. The U.N has failed in its mission because it has failed to advance these principles. It tolerates among its members the lack of transparency. Most countries today still believe in hereditary rights for power and purpose. In such a culture, generational transition always leads to tighter restrictions to maintain control. Each succeeding power structure casts a greater shadow of darkness.
There is no rational reason or excuse why slave labor, child labor, human trafficking, oppression of women, or drug lord authority should exist today. Such depravity persists because of tolerance by sovereigns protecting their own power.
The United States should never trade with anyone that incorporated any of the atrocities listed above in their institutional economic structure. Perhaps the United States, as the world’s greatest country, should now declare new standards for a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work in the production of anything consumed in the United States.
America has rights. We have the right to defend our borders. We have the right to demand that immigrants obey our laws. We have the right to expect that all immigrants assimilate and adopt our culture. We have the right to one language, english. Every American citizen has the right for the Bill of Rights to be held sacred and by no means ever diluted or compromised.
America has been blessed. Great power begets great responsibility. After WWII the United States was literally all the world had to maintain order. We took this challenge as our God given duty, to support our brothers and sisters around the world, and the sovereigns to which they declared allegiance. In these times the United States finds itself, again, at the critical point in history wherein it is the best hope the world has. It is incumbent upon our character, cast in the forge of 1776, that respect for the individual was the ultimate respect rendered before God. It is critical in our duty to the destiny of generations that we never fail in our duty to honor this moral commitment.
A fair day's wage differs by country and region of the world. Each sovereign should decide for itself, with the compliance of its citizens, as to the determination of a fair day's wage based upon the cost of living in those respective locations.
This will not be easy. It requires a new alliance of nations committed to the five principles of righteous government. To reform a world system as complex as the current global economic infrastructure is beyond an enormous undertaking, it is virtually unfathomable. Why? Because such worldwide relevant morality has never been achieved in 6,000 years of recorded history.
Since World War II, the United States has performed admirably in staying true to its own principles and stabilizing its own economy. America has provided and maintained an open platform for world freedom and economic free enterprise. To extend our freedom and economic fairness to the rest of the world will necessitate partnership with new sovereign allies committed to the same founding principles.
The United States has offered the world an example. We were never very good at telling other cultures what to do. And we have always been uneasy in our attempts. For peoples to pursue righteousness, they must be free under the law to pursue brotherly love rather than live in fear of the law in which government dictates the moral terms.
Finding the balance of morality is not only the responsibility of the government, but also the accountability of individual citizens to perceive and abide by principles of fairness. The awareness and recognition of this human moral law enriches all souls who participate in its truth.
A Winston Churchill famous quote is, "a rising tide raises all boats." The analogy was referring to economics, but could also have been made to spirituality. Rising righteousness raises all spirits.
When all labor is honored with fair compensation, the dignity of mankind is advanced.
When the dignity of mankind is advanced, the purpose of mankind is realized.
And, when the purpose of mankind is realized, all citizens are secure and prosperous in their own cultures.
My name is Marc Nuttle and this is what I believe.
What do you believe?