Carly Hawkins writes about Alexis de Tocqueville.#

She's been studying his work all semester and talking about it occasionally. I'm glad that she's finally found love...

I was too tired to say this last week when I was writing about seeing deT's name randomly on Jay's site, but...it was sort of like when you see your crush unexpectedly. The same way you sort of feel socked in the stomach because you weren't expecting it and didn't have the time to mentally prepare to be faced with him. I don't really expect de Tocqueville to be in my life except on Mondays from 2 to 5:30.

And everything she writes about him and all these wonderful quotations makes me want to throw away all the books I have in queue right now and get some de Tocqueville immediately. But patience is virtuous and I will let the ideas stew that I think he will talk about stew before I get around to reading him. Trust me Carly, I am a believer because of you!

 

Many of Alexis' ideas seem very Libertarian and this suggests to me that the common assertion that America was founded upon Libertarianism is spot on and that the vision has been lost from fraud, force, and corruption.

...no one has discovered a political system which equally favors the development and prosperity of all classes in society. These classes have continued to form something like distinct nations within the same nation and experience has shown that it was almost as dangerous to place the fate of all these classes in the hands of any one of them as it is to make one nation the judge of any other nation's destiny.

[ And... ]

As far as I am concerned, when I feel the hand of power weighing down upon my brow, I take no interest in knowing who oppresses me and I am not more inclined to put my head under the yoke simply because a million arms offer it to me.

These suggest to me that Alexis is a believer in the ideas of Self-Ownership and that all organization is based on mutual need and community. Because the only just organizations of control are those that voluntary it makes no sense to allow one group (A) to exert control on another (B) because the need for force is the direct proof that this other group (A) does not have principals that are the best for the second group. (B) Similarly, de Tocqueville does not believe in the tyranny of the masses either. This represents the claim that "no force is made by just by the numbers who support it" and that all leaders should be given influence occasionally and voluntarily - rather than forced upon those who do not want them.

More explicitly, Alexis challenges the idea that public force can be the glue of a rational and happy community:

No great man can exist without virtue; no great nation can exist with respect for rights; one might almost say that there is no society without such respect. For what sort of gathering of rational and intelligent beings have you got where force is the sole bond between them?

Other wonderful quotes about the nature and principle of Freedom and Liberty:

I think that at all times I should have loved freedom, but in the times in which we live I feel inclined to worship it.

[ And ... ]

Today's rulers appear to be seeking to use men to achieve great things. I should like them to think a little more of creating great men, to attach less value to work and more to the workman and never fail to remember that a nation cannot remain strong for long when each individual man is weak, and that we have still not discovered a social formula, nor any political ruse, which can turn a nation of small-minded and flabby citizens into one that is full of energy.

Empower the people and give them control of their own lives.

 

Carly also points on some parts that would be of particular importance to me, and she is correct in gauging those pieces that she selected. Carly knows my tastes and is my political muse.

Carly proposes the idea, and I completely support as far as I know, that Alexis de Tocqueville would have been a blogger and sang praise of them today as he did of the independent, free newspapers of the 1800s.

these are some clips on de Tocqueville and newspapers as the guardians of democracy. I meant to post these probably two months ago, and then again at the beginning of last week. Never happened obviously, but you might find them interesting still:

When men are no longer united in any firm or lasting way, it is impossible to persuade any great number of them to act in cooperation unless you convince each of those whose help is vital that his private interests are served by voluntarily joining his efforts to those of all the others.

This cannot be acheived usually or conveniently except with the help of a newspaper, which is the only way of being able to place the same thought at the same moment into a thousand minds...

So, as men become more equal and individualism more of a menace, newspapers are more necessary. The belief that they just guarantee freedom would diminish their importance; they sustain civilization.

I wonder if he would say the same about blogs for modern culture?

People who are gifted with Freedom and Liberty, as graced upon by great Intellect and Holy God, are nourished by Choice and the ability to form the unions they desire for their own ends. Although these unions do not have any rights that the composite people do not have - that is, they are still obligated by Contract and must bow before Justice - they are vital for organization against those who seek to rob the people of their Life, Liberty, or Property. One of the most fundamental parts of Liberty that has been consistently attacked over time is the right to speak and spread ideas. This was once attacked head on by the displaced British rule and was allowed to breathe once again by the new democracy in America. The pumping lungs of dissent where powered and placed by the many newspapers of the day:

Then a newspaper appears to publish the opinion or idea which had occurred simultaneously but separately to each of them. Immediately, everyone turns towards this light and those wandering spirits, having sought each other for a long time in the darkness, at last meet and unite. The newspaper has brought them together and continues to be necessary to keep them together.

However, newspapers today are not enough. Through increasing attacks on our freedom by the government through more recent acts like the PATRIOT act and older traumas like enforced political correctness and state ownership (or influence) of the media. A new guiding light of freedom must be found to lead the people from the ignorant slavery that the State forces on them. That light is other people, whether on blogs, at Meetups, college newspapers, and other forms of media that remain free.

 

My political journey of study has just began and I plan on reading The Federalist Letters and Democracy in America at the next waypoint. At each summit height and mail drop box, I am finding messages from people who have gone before me like Carly and Alexis who describe their own thoughts on Mt. Monarchy and the Forests of Federation. I'm learning this land and am glad to have this guidance.