Realities of Rugged Individualism

Every now and again the notion that “rugged individualism” is lost in America and that therefore America is in decline rears its ugly head.  

 It has most recently surfaced on the internet as a video clip from the motion picture “Without Reservations.”  This clip is heralded as “John Wayne Schools a Socialist 50 Years Ago—And It’s Still Relevant!” and “John Wayne Mops the floor with Liberal Lady.”  The clip contains the following dialogue delivered by Wayne; “Have you ever heard of some fellas who first came over to this country?  Do you know what they found?  They found a howling wilderness; the summers too hot and the winters freezing.   Did they have insurance for their old age, for their crops, for their homes?   They did not.  They looked at the land, and the forest and the rivers; they looked at their wives, their kids and their houses.   And then they looked at the sky and said ‘thanks God.  We’ll take it from here’…They were men!!” 

Those circulating this video call themselves Conservatives.  This hyperbole is extreme and demands proper perspective.

First, we must attempt a clarification for all these Ideological labels.  Universally accepted definitions and concepts for political labeling and ideologies do NOT exist. Reference A Malat Musing (“Ideology Versus Party”). 

To further clarify, neither William F. Buckley Jr., the once undisputed guru of American conservative thought, nor President Ronald Reagan, subscribed to “rugged individualism” as a cornerstone to conservativism.  Moreover, the most “rugged individualist” to ever occupy the presidency, Teddy Roosevelt, scoffed at the notion.  Suggesting the callousness of “rugged individualism” is at the heart of conservative doctrine is preposterous and does a grave disservice to the rational conservative voices among us today.

Next, we must deal with progress.  The idea that cooperative and collaborative programs, such as insurances, have weakened or softened us flatly ignores the pain, suffering and injustice that were commonplace in the 18^th and 19^th centuries.   Downplaying or demeaning these advances is as ludicrous as believing that only real men would still plow their farm land with donkeys and horses.  

Also, “rugged individualists” seem oblivious to the importance of two national government programs. The first was Lincoln granting homestead protection to everyone who went west.  The second was his set aside program to use government property to build our land grant colleges.  It is therefore disingenuous to suggest that ONLY the sweat of the brow won the American west when Federal Programs also played a huge and vital role in that development.      

Then we are faced with the reality that not everyone is able to till the soil.  We have the handicapped, the poor, the underprivileged.  There are those who suffer from bigotry and discrimination.  Then there are those who spent their lives toiling in their fields only to have nothing to show for it.  They are left to die poor, sick and in pain.  Those among us callous enough to hold to the “survival of the fittest” mindset that is the linchpin for the typical “rugged individualist”, need to spend some serious time with the New Testament.

Finally, how do we accomplish what can only be accomplished through the collective efforts of all Americas if we hold to a “dog eat dog” or an “every man for himself” mentality?  How do we progress and improve our state of being?  Could rugged individualism have been the impetus for the military, police and fire departments or for unemployment insurance, federally insured savings accounts or public schools and libraries???  

And then we too need to look “at the sky and” say “thanks God.” Thank You for a compassionate and enlightened America that dismisses cruel and destructive ideologies to the common good and general welfare of our nation.  And most especially, thank You for the established cornerstone of the collective efforts created between government and private concerns that have resulted in a far better way of American life within our blessed Republic.

History Condemns War Apathy

History is no longer taught in many of our secondary educational systems today.  As such, there are those among us who know nothing of our military and war involvements and have no inclination toward learning anything about them or from them.  There are also those among us who believe that any remembrance of such brutality only aids in fueling a glorification of the horrors and work to ensure our wars be forgotten and left to the past.

It is for those individuals that the following is imparted.

1.     We were attacked at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.  Four days later on December 11, 1941 Hitler made his formal proclamation declaring war on the United States.  We were forced into this horror.

2.      At one point Nazi Germany controlled 3.3 million square miles of land.  All of it  ruled and controlled by brutal barbarism.

 3.      Hitler’s death camps killed 11,000,000 people.  While the world will, and should, never forget the holocaust of the 6,000,000 Jews slaughtered in those camps, we need to also be mindful that 5,000,000 of Hitler’s victims did not have to be Jewish to find your way into Hitler’s incinerators or in front of his firing squads.

Bravery doesn't suggest the absence of fear and terror
It states your strength of character overcame your terror

4.       The invasion of Europe took place on the beaches at Normandy France on June 6,  944.  It encompassed amphibious landings on five beaches codenamed; Juno,    Gold, Omaha, Utah and Sword.   Before the fighting would end, it would claim approximately 10,000 casualties, more than half (6,603) were Americans.

     5.       On May 9, 1945, less than a year  after the invasion at Normandy, the war in     Europe ended and Hitler’s fascist reign of terror was over.

Furthermore, between 1914 and 1946, one hundred million (100,000,000) people were killed in two world wars.

The incredible bravery and sacrifice by all those responsible for victory NEEDS to be celebrated and memorialized on that most significant of dates, June 6.   

We need to additionally commemorate the Manhattan Project.  That program developed the first nuclear weapons, dubbed “Little Boy” and “Fat Man.”  They were dropped on August 6, 1945 in Hiroshima, Japan and August 9, 1945 in Nagasaki, Japan.  Those events ended the war in the Pacific, saving untold thousands of American and allied lives, and equally as critical, halted the next war brewing for world domination by Russia.

Winston Churchill warned time and again that Joseph Stalin was as serious a threat to world peace as Adolph Hitler.  Even though Hitler and Stalin fostered differing ideologies, both hungered for world dominance through war and terror.  In July of 1945 Stalin began his quest by moving his troops toward China, with designs on conquering Japan.

George Patton and other military leaders encouraged attacking Stalin before he could gain any kind of merciless foothold in his vicious and evil campaign.  Meanwhile President Harry Truman knew that once those bombs were dropped on Japan, Stalin would become very skittish in continuing with any form of aggressive military bloodshed.  

One can only surmise how many more lives could, and would, have been lost, not just in the continuation of World War II, but in the unthinkable event of having to extinguish the horror of Stalin’s barbarism.  Such a number is, thank God, left only to the horror of our imaginations. 

What we have learned is if WE MUST FIGHT, WE MUST WIN.  More importantly, WE MUST NEVER INITIATE WAR for it MUST ALWAYS, ALWAYS be the last resort.  It’s barbarism, cruelty and waste – it’s inhumanity - is man’s greatest disgrace.

Maybe it’s time our educators, in their infinite wisdom, consider teaching history again.  Enlightening future generations as to war’s carnage just might prevent the present-day American apathy toward our war killings and deaths from continuing its march forward.  

We are now involved in seven war theaters worldwide.  We have been fighting in Afghanistan for more than a decade.  The media chooses not to report on these wars with any regularity and the American people are silent rather than outraged over our war waste in both financial resources and American lives.  There can be little doubt that a woeful lack of historical knowledge by current generations has contributed greatly to this awful malaise.  The greed and avarice of “The Forever War Crowd” has the upper-hand which does NOT purport well for America.