INDIVIDUALISM FRAGMENTS WHAT WE NEED THE MOST

A fragmentation of our Federal Government is taking place all around us but we seem not to recognize what is happening. The question is; “Are we just cycling through a phase as a society or is there something more sinister about fundamental social organization taking place?” A growing wave of individuals declaring their independence from any government control is sweeping the country; people declare they do not have to follow the law is they do not agree with that law. A certain element in our country declare we should not belong to the United Nations because if we do, we give up or sovereignty. We also hear about “individual” state’s rights in more and more debates at higher and higher levels of governance, for example, accepting Common Core option would destroy our states sovereignty, was the declaration of the winning side in the North Carolina State Assembly. This extends down to the level of the individual. A plank in the party platform of one of the major political parties involves “reestablishment of individual’s rights”. Most commonly, speed limits are for everyone else but not me. The words of Rand Paul still ring in my mind; he declared that a business owner has the right to decide with whom he will or will not do business and how they do business; he was adamant that he was talking about private business and not government services as if Federal law stops at the doorsill.

This sentiment seems to be sweeping the country. Examples are, a wedding cake business made news when the owner refused to bake a cake for a same sex couple; a pharmacist refused to sell birth control pills because of his religious beliefs; and a long list of stores has banned guns from their shops and stores. For many, the infamous Hobby Lobby case that allowed privately owned companies to discriminate based on the religious beliefs of the owners stands out as a wrongly decided case.

In one sense, it is something lawmakers should debate when making every law. A debated over individual rights, verses states rights verses federal jurisdictions is healthy in a democracy. In another sense, extreme really, 330 million people living and doing business in one country would be in chaos if we all lived as individuals. As was mentioned under the subject of highway speed laws, laws, no matter what they are, apply to everyone else but not to me. When something goes wrong, I often hear someone say, there ought to be law. I also hear people say we should do away with government regulations. They are talking about laissez faire economics but government regulations most often aim at curbing criminal activity and not controlling a free market.

This confusion between laissez faire economics and criminal activity seems to be the driving force in modern society for the blossoming concern over individual freedom. This trend is easily traceable; big business is where the money is and money is the driving force of political opinion. The Supreme Court has all but guaranteed that with the destruction of labor unions and their most recent Citizen United ruling—their Hobby Lobby decision is just an extension of the ruling. The Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufactures, for example, are business unions, which are legal; there is no Taft-Hartley Act to “regulate” or other wise restrict their formation and there never will be. Just like speed laws on a federal highway, that law applies to everyone else but not them. They are individuals above the law. Corporations spend million of dollars everyday in Washington DC and on the nation media to preserve their individuality.
What they are saying is that their individual rights trump all laws. They want no regulation or laws, they do not want to pay taxes, they do not want to be restricted in any way. I repeat; the words of Rand Paul still ring in my mind; in the eyes of the business owner, they will decide with whom and how they will or will not do business; state and federal law stops at their doorsill, which is the lesson big business is teaching and that is what the people are learning. It is fragmenting the thing we need the most, the thing that will do for us what we cannot do for ourselves, which is our government. Of course, you have learned on Fox News and on TV that you don’t need big intrusive government; what they don’t say is that you do not need government because big business will take care of you.  

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