Over the past three weeks, I have watched with amazement and utter dismay as this movement – “Occupy Wall Street” also known as the “99%” has gripped national headlines. I can assure you now that neither am I part of the 1% that they claim controls the nation’s wealth nor am I represented by the “99%” they claim to represent.
As the name Discipulus Publius implies, I am a student of history – the history of the founding of this nation. This pursuit has allowed me to complete a B.A., a M.A., and most recently, work on a Ph.D. focusing on American history. I have read hundreds of books, some left leaning, some right leaning, and others by those Americans that were there – John Jay, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, George Washington, and most recently, the writings of Richard Henry Lee. While I do not claim to be an expert on the era that gave this nation independence and our Constitution, I do believe I have a fair understanding of the political theory behind this era. As many of these young people have been interviewed by the mainstream media, one thing has become apparent to me – they do not understand the political and economic theories behind the formation of our nation.
I have watched the interviews with a few of the protesters from these demonstrations and am disturbed as they incorrectly blame the United States for all sorts of perceived ills. I have watched the United States blamed for the African slave trade – which history proves that more African slaves went to South America than ever came to North America. Modern scholars claim that 6.45% of all African slaves ended up in the British American colonies; the highest imperial power, Portugal, imported 38.5% of all African slaves. It was the Portuguese that began the slave trade where it was Great Britain and the United States that ended the international slave trade. The United States cannot and should not be solely blamed for the African slave trade.
History demands that it be given no apology and no apology be demanded from it. History is what it is and it takes place in its own era. Often, when teaching U.S. History, I remind students not to judge the past by today’s societal norms. It would be the equivalent of a young dating couple to invite Grandma to go on their date with them – they would not want to be held to the same standards of dating that existed twenty, thirty, or more years ago. If today’s generation, or any other, does not want to be judged by an older generation’s standard, then how can we expect to judge history and its actors by the standards of modern society? Again, how can you explain slavery to a person living in the twenty-first century that has no concept of society or even global norms of the eighteenth century? Many of the students I come across cannot imagine a world without tractors, combines, computers, televisions, or smart phones.
I am not defending slavery, just pointing to the fallacy of the American left. The condemnation of the United States – and the calls of a few of those kids that somehow we are an evil nation – is based on a constant drumbeat of how bad the United States is from the time students begin taking social studies classes in elementary school to the average college class. I am amazed when these students have pointed to how great the European nations are and how we need to become more like Europe – a continent that has a long history of racism, oppression, and tyranny. How does Great Britain get a free pass by the American left when for years they oppressed the Irish in a manner that far surpasses the horrors of the wars that the United States fought against the American Indian. How does France get a free pass for its own horrors it committed in Vietnam or against its own people during the French Revolution? You do not hear the American Left decrying the horrors of the Holocaust, yet on Wall Street, you hear the left blaming America’s Jewish population and demanding they be deported. History demands we pay attention to those that spew this kind of racial hatred lest we repeat the mistakes of the generation that lived during the 1930s and 1940s.
History also demands that we watch the current occupant of the White House, President Barack H. Obama. Considering that he has now come out and supports the “99%” movement, also known as the Occupy Wall Street crowd, claiming that “we are on their side” in this protest movement. This is dangerous considering that many in the Occupy Wall Street movement claim they want a revolution as a means to overthrow the capitalist system and to put in its place a “more fair Marxist system.” Again, history demands we look at the results of Marxism everywhere it has been tried: oppression, suppression of all other opinions, destruction of religion, alienation of those opposed to Marxism, and the confiscation of private property.
The Occupy Wall Street movement again, misunderstands U.S. history. This nation was founded upon the idea that anyone could pursue the ownership of property. The idea of private property is probably one of the oldest concepts in human history. Ownership of possessions, whether it be a car, college education, a house, or forty acres of land share a single similarity – its owner has placed a value on attaining the possession. Humans are, by our own nature, driven by greed and the desire to accumulate items we deem as wealth. Although Marxism seeks to balance out the accumulation of wealth with a fairly oppressive redistribution plan that is based on the concept that each pays according to their ability and each receives according to their needs. The problem with this theory is that it goes against human nature – if a person has no motivation to excel since they only keep what they absolutely need, then they only do the bare minimum required to get by – private and personal investment into one’s own future becomes minimum. Marxism, communism, and socialism may create equality, but as Alexis de Tocqueville said in the nineteenth century, it creates equality in servitude.
