Are we delusional or coward?

This election is very unusual and bothers me a lot in what direction this greatest nation on earth is taking long term, beyond the current financial crisis, beyond this economic down turn, through the next decade and beyond. I think the will and determination of this nation to uphold those fundamental principles and beliefs on which this nation was found is going to be tested once again.  Are American people open up to embrace something new that government should be given the arbitrary power to pick the cutoff of winner and loser, redistribute the wealth created by the successful to achieve economic equality, and generate even more of entitlement rather than of contribution? Instead of helping elevate the bottom, are we Americans visioning equality by suppressing the successful. I’m not rich by any standard, and I’m working hard to realize the inner potential the creator trusted in me.  It won’t be fair to be panelized should I ever realize my potential some day, isn’t it?

Gilbert Chesterton wrote in 1920 in his “What I Saw in America”: “America is the only nation in the world that is founded on a creed. That creed is set forth with dogmatic and even theological lucidity in the Declaration of Independence.” The American ideology is found on individualistic rather than a collectivist view of society: individual rights, including political freedom and private property rights; equality of opportunity (not distribution as my understanding); and limited, democratic government. These ideas are set forth in the great documents of American political life: the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and such great speeches as Lincoln’s Gettysburg and Second Inaugural addresses. The dominance in the US of such a distinct political ideology has precluded certain political solutions and ordained others. This underlying bias shows clearly in America’s approach to economic questions. In the world history, the United States stands as a striking exception that socialism has never been strong in this country.  Why? In part, because the intense individualism derived from classical liberalism has been resistant to the collectivism central to all forms of socialism. American people in majorities in every income, occupational, and educational group, has repetitively rejected ideas of various forms of income limit, because such a financial limit undermines our individual opportunity and achievement.  

Are we not holding up this anymore? If we allow being leveraged by the financial led economic turmoil to believe that Sen. Obama holds the magic wand who can let all our problems go away by taxing and redistributing, we are either indulging self-delusion or acting coward economically, socially and morally, in my view.  Majority rules, which is democracy all about. If the majority of our generation willingly and consciously abandon the creed this nation was found, I have nothing more to say. The question is if we are sure and aware about the choice and its historical consequence.  Although the Republican option is not the best choice either, I have to say it’s the choice doing no or less harm than the Democratic alternative.