One of my hobbies of late has been to learn the origins of many of the phrases in common usage in the American lexicon.  I learned about one such phrase recently at the Riverfront Festival along the Potomac in Alexandria, Virginia.  Tied to the dock there was the pirate-type ship known as the “Bounty”--the exact same ship seen in the movie “Mutiny on the Bounty.”  The guide was telling us tourists of the wretched working conditions on the old British navy ships--the turnover rate for sailors was well over 100 percent for one year--and the tactics used to abandon ship and go AWOL.

One such tactic involved the use of a drug that would so lower your pulse and blood pressure that you would appear dead.  The hope, of course, was that you would be thrown overboard and that you could swim to shore before you drowned.

Naturally, the ship’s governing authorities sought ways to curb this practice.  First they tried tying the bodies of the suspected dead in a sack and then throw them overboard, but that was only partially successful as the deserters would hide a knife in which to cut themselves free.  So, they devised a better way.  They would sew the “dead” man in a sack, ensuring the condition of the man by taking the last stitch right through his upper lip.  It is from this practice that the oft-used phrase “stiff upper lip” came from--one of the many that have been contributed by seafaring men.

I find this example interesting in that it shows just how far man will go to avoid hardship.  Indeed, this is the engine of economic progress, since man has always sought to find ways to accomplish more work through less effort.

But it also shows the great lengths people will go to circumvent tyranny.  One current example I can think of is Cuba.  Right now, the Cuban underground economy is over two-thirds larger than the “official” economy.  People market products and services illegally, and the police officials often just turn their backs, because survival of the populace depends on it.  The disincentives of the communist economy have always failed to provide for and feed the people.

Yet as great as the underground economy is in providing the sustenance of life for these oppressed people, it is always characterized by fraud, deceit, and violence.  In short, vice is fostered at the expense of virtue, since you can’t go to the government to uphold illegal contracts or defend market order.  The best example of this from American history was Prohibition and the gang wars it spawned by the likes of Al Capone.

It is in this way that modern civilization takes a net loss every time the State involves itself where it shouldn’t.  And it is to this end that I wish to tailor my remarks today.

Henry Grady Weaver noted in his book, The Mainspring of Human Progress, that modern civilization is a very recent and very fragile development.  For 60 known centuries, men not unlike ourselves have lived in general misery and many have always starved to death.  “As late as 1846,” Weaver wrote, “the Irish were starving to death; and no one was particularly surprised because famines in the Old World were the rule rather than the exception.”

Why is it, Weaver asks, that only in the last 200 years has civilization progressed to a point where food is in abundance and mankind has been freed up to produce and enjoy the technological wonders of today?  What is it that holds a peaceful and productive society together?

Weaver concluded that it was the intersection of two ideas that enabled this revolution in human life.  These would be the inherent dignity of the individual as expressed by the Judeo-Christian faith, first; and the development of the capitalist economic system in conjunction with a coherent rule of law, second.

The American Experiment, as that expressed in our Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution, represents the fruition of this revolution in human life.  It was codified in the fraction of one sentence: “that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights; that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

In his essay, The Essence of Americanism, Foundation for Economic Education founder Leonard Read explained this fact:

“This revolutionary concept was at once a spiritual, a political, and an economic concept.  It was spiritual in that the writers of the Declaration recognized and publicly proclaimed that the Creator was the endower of man’s rights, and thus the Creator is sovereign.
“It was political in implicitly denying that the state is the endower of man’s rights, thus declaring that the state is not sovereign.
“It was economic in the sense that if an individual has a right to his life, it follows that he has a right to sustain his life--the sustenance of life being nothing more nor less than the fruits of one’s own labor.”

But how did we get to this point?

Plato once observed that civilization is characterized by the use of persuasion as opposed to force.  Indeed, this is the lesson of the apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 10, when he warned that “the weapons of the world” could not be used to spread the Gospel.  In other words, our views on morality and the right-ordering of society cannot be forced upon others, but instead must be pressed upon others through the persuasive efforts of brotherly love and exemplary living.  The great 19th Century French statesman, Frederic Bastiat, extended this concept to state power in his treatise, The Law.  He explained that “since an individual cannot lawfully use force against the person, liberty, or property of another individual, then the common force--for the same reason--cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, liberty, or property of individuals or groups.”  In other words, just as the end can never justify the means in personal relationships, arbitrary force is illegitimate in a collective sense; no matter how well-intentioned the goal might be or how warm and fuzzy it might make us feel.

And so it is through this worldview--of changing the world not by force but by changing yourself first to be “the salt of the earth”--that respect for the individual, and hence, the reliance upon voluntary human action, that the free enterprise system emerged.

Despite its many flaws throughout its history, these principles lie at the heart of what is known as Western Civilization.  These mars against the West represent those times that the West has resorted to the barbarism of the past and denied Natural Law.  Specific instances include the slave trade and the forceful extraction of indigenous peoples from their homes and land.  Both are flagrant attacks on human dignity and property rights.

But the West’s departure from the “might makes right” formula that had always guaranteed the wretchedness of the human condition was certainly evident.  Overall, the Judeo-Christian view of individual man was promoted in the West, and human progress was at long last made possible.

Suddenly, after 60 centuries of universal hunger, misery, and struggle to keep bear life in wretched bodies, on “one spot on this planet, people eat so abundantly that the pangs of hunger are forgotten.”  You see, up until 1776, men had been contesting with each other, killing each other by the millions, over the age-old question of which of the numerous forms of authoritarianism--that is, man-made authority--should preside sovereign over man.  As both Weaver and Read noted, the United States of America chose God as their Sovereign, and designed a government that respected the individual created in the image of God.  It is in America, then, that Western Civilization has blossomed and has most neared the ideal.

The results of this achievement have been nothing short of miraculous.  In the almost 225 years since the beginning of this nation, over half of all economic activity in the history of mankind has been produced here.  Because of this general prosperity, Americans today enjoy better health and longer lives than the richest people in the richest countries did in centuries past.

Before, the most powerful had always succeeded at the expense of the weak.  For one to eat meant another starved.  That is no longer the case in the West.  The rising tide of American prosperity has, without a doubt, lifted all its citizen’s boats.

Allow me to demonstrate this phenomenon:

Three weeks ago, I attended an event at the Hay-Adams Hotel across from the White House.  This most exquisite hotel used to be a hangout for the upper crust of the city.  Anyway, I was having dinner and listening to a speech--a speech that appropriately addressed free markets in a Christian society--in an historic room known as the John Hay Room.  It turns out, that that exact room was the first room ever--in the history of the world--to have air conditioning; air conditioning that was provided for the most affluent, even before the politically powerful in the White House or Congress ever had it.  Now, 65 years later, in perfect accordance with the maxim that “today’s luxuries are tomorrow’s necessities,” even the poorest members of American society reap the benefits of air conditioning at a much higher quality and a much lower cost than the select few did back then!

The life of Ghengis Khan provides for us another example.  Ghengis Khan was at one time the world’s most powerful man, with an empire stretching across all of Asia. With all his military might at his disposal, he still couldn’t chill his drinks or preserve his meat.  Despite this power, he never even had a refrigerator Ice blocks cut out of Siberia had to be transported hundreds of miles to chill Khan’s drinks!  The moral of the story is this: capitalism has provided an almost infinite number of luxuries to the poorest man today that Khan’s whole army could never provide for the most powerful then.

Take any material good, convenience, or advance in technology you like; this pattern holds true for anything you can imagine.  Whether it’s automobiles themselves or their power windows and power locks, microwave ovens or waiters serving your table and food delivered to your door, quality medical care or vacations: these all used to be considered luxuries out of the range of the common person’s budget.  But now they are widely seen almost as necessities to the majority of Americans.

As the late economist Julian Simon has shown, the ancestors of 19 out of every 20 people living today were living at or just above subsistence level 200 years ago.  Meat was a rare luxury for most people and fresh vegetables were unavailable to Europeans for most of the year, no matter how rich you were.  Today, Americans living below the so-called poverty line can purchase a better diet than could European royalty only a few centuries ago.

A hundred years ago, children who had diabetes could only look forward to going blind and dying.  Centuries ago, you had to give up reading as your eyesight grew dim as you reached 40 or 50.  Both conditions are now easily corrected.

Socially and spiritually, man has been freed from merely eking out an existence to now being able to pursue higher things like the arts and literature; to explore and understand the world around him through science; and to learn from past mistakes with the study of history.

Ours is the first age in which material and social gains have been enjoyed by more than a tiny fraction of humanity.  Never before has progress spread beyond the richest people.

In fact, the rich have become our guinea pigs; our laboratory rats, if you will.  You see--and we should probably keep this quiet so the secret doesn’t get out--we let the rich experiment on new additions to the market place while we wait for the price to come down and the quality to go up.  The rich go and buy $1000 VCRs when they first come out, but we wait a few years and can get a much better VCR for less than $200!  They get all the new gadgets on their cars when they often times cause more problems than they solve, and we get them standard a few years later when the kinks are worked out.  And it’s a good thing, too.  For if the rich weren’t so loose with their money, those products would never be around for the average among us to benefit from and enjoy.

Today, the average welfare recipient in the U.S. is better off than 90% of the rest of the world’s population.  The indisputable fact is that the relatively poor in this country are far removed from absolute poverty.  This bears repeating: The relatively poor--those whose riches pale in comparison to the wealthiest among us--are far removed from absolute poverty--that is, being barely able to put food in your stomach, clothes on your back, or a roof over your head.  In contrast, less than 300 years ago, only the most powerful few escaped absolute poverty.  Today, those that wallow in the misery of true poverty are those that live under oppressive regimes where human dignity is denied and oppression prevails.

We often take it for granted just how fragile modern civilization is.  The reality, though, is that for over 6,000 years mankind lived in squalor, with rotting teeth and no notion of personal hygiene.  Human history has been marked by a brutal barbarism that most of us can’t imagine, and, despite our progress, it continues in this very century.

Over 100 million people have been murdered due to the actions of their own governments in this century alone.  100 Million!  And why is that?  It is because the rise of the omniscient and omnipotent State in places like Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Russia, and Mao’s China have denied the Western notions of Natural Law and Creator-endowed rights to the individual.  They denied the effective use of human energies through voluntary exchange and the entrepreneurial spirit, and substituted instead the socialist collective and the centrally planned economy.  God was replaced with the ultimate Golden Calf: the State.  Instead of seeking change through peaceful persuasion, these idolaters forced their view of utopia upon others through the might of the State, slaughtering millions in the process.  Millions have been killed directly by the firing squad and in the gas chambers; millions have died in the labor camps; and still millions more have staved to death as the inevitable result of the failed economic system that is communism.

Jefferson proclaimed that “the price of liberty is eternal vigilance.”  Now, because we have failed to keep watch and have taken for granted our fortune, American civilization stands in jeopardy.

Unreformed ‘60s radicals have overtaken many of America’s institutions of higher learning.  They have supplanted the original university goal of the quest for truth with Leftist political indoctrination.  No longer is Western Civilization taught in a positive light.  Instead, we are told that all cultures should be given equal standing.  Those philosophies that prevailed for the first 6000 years of human existence and in the late Eastern Bloc are touted as equal with the American philosophy of the past 225 years.

These failed philosophies being pushed in many of our colleges are reminiscent of the one at work in Cuba.  Ironically, those who live under that repressive regime aren’t as enthused about communism as some of our American professors seem to be.

Despite their hardships, Marc Olshan--a professor of sociology at Alfred University in Alfred, New York--found that Cubans often take stock of their bitter circumstances and still manage a bitter laugh.  One joke he heard while in Cuba tells of a man so depressed from years of shortages that he decides to commit suicide.  He first sticks his head in the oven but the gas service has been interrupted.  He then goes to fill the tub to drown himself but finds that the water is off again.  He tries to electrocute himself, but there’s a power outage.  Finally, he throws himself from his apartment window only to land on a huge mound of uncollected garbage in the street.  He picks himself up and, out of desperation, limps to the nearest police station where he intends to provoke the police into shooting him by shouting antigovernment slogans.  He walks in and screams “Down with Fidel!” but is frustrated once again when the man on duty enthusiastically shakes his hand and say’s “I’m with you, buddy, I’m with you.”

But it really is no laughing matter.  Despite the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin Wall, Marxist and neo-Marxist thought prevails in many of America’s universities.  The foundations that have made this nation the “shining light upon the hill” to the world are slowly but surely being eroded away.  Egalitarianism, radical environmentalism, homosexual and pedophilia indoctrination efforts, and so-called multiculturalism all run rampant through our institutions of higher learning.  Each of these movements represents an attack on individual human dignity and the family structure that lies at the base of American society.  Each seeks to exalt an ambiguous collective through the centralized state.  And each represents, in one form or another, a return to the philosophy of force that has been so destructive to human civilization down through the ages.

As I have emphasized throughout this talk, humanity’s progress from one of decrepit misery to the prosperity of today was only made possible by two interlocking ideas: the Judeo-Christian recognition of the inherent dignity of the individual before God, and constitutional capitalism.  It is this notion of freedom and peaceful persuasion that has enabled the economic and social progress of the last 225 years.  Unfortunately, it is this notion that is being forgotten.

President Lincoln once recognized that “the philosophy of the classroom in one generation will become the philosophy of the government in the next.”  It is becoming abundantly clear that the philosophy of the Founding Fathers is now all but extinct in our classrooms.  This philosophy has been replaced by a secular humanist one; one driven by a belief that the ends justify the means, and with a totalitarian undercurrent.

As our speakers discussed in further detail throughout this weekend, our enemy is not the voluntary exchange that occurs in a truly free market, and it certainly is not our Judeo-Christian God and His moral code that sits at the cradle of Western civilization.  No, our enemy is the all-encompassing, coercive power that is the centralized State; our enemy is the paganistic attitude that wishes to use that State to its own end.

The Left often dismisses our beliefs as “reactionary,” but they are simply missing the boat.  Indeed, today’s so-called “progressives” may in fact be the most reactionary of all, pursuing the forceful methods of Ghengis Khan’s armies rather than the peaceful persuasion of Plato’s civilization.