America wasn’t built on morals. It was built on reason.
I reject everyone’s morals universally. All but my own. And everyone else should do the same.
Morals are personal beliefs that guide your life. They establish the base conduct for one’s self, or at least the standard to which one aspires.
But one should reject any morals that are assigned to them from others. Should I or anyone else tell you what your morals should be, I or they are wrong. Both in the content and the intent. And while people may share some or many moral views, this is and should be solely because of coincidence or because those morals align with reason in how it promotes the well being of people.
And when I say that America wasn’t built or founded on morals, I do not mince words. The USA was founded on reason, and our Constitution says so in the preamble.
In order to form a more perfect union.
This says in striking clarity that we are not following the dictates of some arbitrary authority, but rather that we are building a nation, a union of many, that can and should grow better as it ages.
The founders rejected the rule of those that claimed prescribed authority. In its place they put the will of the majority, as negotiated by democratically elected representatives who used reason to achieve the desired results.
What were those desired results?
Establish justice.
Insure domestic tranquility.
Provide for the common defense.
Promote the general welfare.
Secure the blessing of liberty.
Not a lick of morals to be found here. None. And this isn’t because the founders were amoral, though by today’s standards we must conclude that the ownership of other humans as chattel can hardly be considered moral. And it should be noted here that in forming a more perfect union we ended that practice. See how well this framework of government works?
And it isn’t because the founders didn’t have personal morals to guide them. Everyone at every time has had personal morals to guide them.
The founders recognized that no one set of morals could be accepted by all as a framework for government. And that if it was to be a government of the people, it could not be one that selected the morals of a particular group. And they made that clear in the Constitution as well. After laying out the branches of government and the duties of each branch, they added ten amendments. These first made clear where the power lies (with the people,) and also established that amending the Constitution was the method of making the union more perfect.
The first amendment made clear that there would be no state religion, nor would anyone be prohibited from practicing any religion they choose. Herein it was made clear that morals are personal, and that it doesn’t matter how many people agree to a certain set of morals, it cannot be allowed to use them to establish law.
How then, do we do so?
By asking if the law helps in establishing justice, ensuring domestic tranquility, providing for the common defense, promoting the general welfare, and securing the blessings of liberty.
This is the core of what we built, and should ever remain the core.
We The People.
These are the first three words of the Constitution. And their importance cannot be overstated. More than anything written in the Declaration of Independence, the opening of the Constitution was world changing. It was the first time in all of history that a government was formed by the people, and designed to govern with the consent of the people. There are no three words that are more important in the history of government.
People forming a government to see to their own needs. Not a king declaring his authority by virtue of birthright. Not an emperor by right of conquest. Not a theocrat claiming divine authority. Not even, as in ancient Rome, a body of senators from a single class who had formerly been advisors to kings. The American experiment is The People selecting from among their body, representatives to speak and make laws on their behalf. And in so doing they put trust in the basic concept that most of the time, most of the people will agree on the right thing. And the one exception is dealing with the rights of the others.
Here the concept is referred to as majority will; minority right.
That is, the majority gets to select the leaders and in that way agree to the structure of government and the laws of the land. But they do not get to use their majority to deny or abrogate the liberty of the minority.
A minority can be a race, an ethnic background, or even the losing party in an election, as they become the minority simply by not winning. As an example, a majority cannot strip the minority of their right to vote. The majority cannot vote to install themselves as a permanent government, as it denies the right of the people to vote for a different government in future elections.
After the formation of the US Government, Ben Franklin was purportedly asked what they had created, and his famous response was, “A Republic, if you can keep it!”
But why might we not be able to keep it? What might wise old Mr. Franklin have envisioned that would put the new Republic at risk?
He, as with the rest of the founders, were schooled in reason. They were steeped like strong tea in the understanding of power and the tempting elixir that it represented to those who seek it. It is the nature of power to concentrate. It is the duty of a republican government to ensure that it does not.
The power is and rightfully belongs to the people. If there is one constant and unassailable truth of the United States it is this. Remember the first three words of our governing charter, of our Constitution: We The People.
The founders spread the power out and to the people. The first branch of government is the Legislature. That is the largest body. The People’s representatives. They are tasked with making laws. And in a body of people representing the whole of the country, it is all but impossible to find a set of morals that all would agree to abide by.
This means that they have to argue and debate the benefits and detriments of proposed laws, and determine how they measure up against the five checks from the preamble. Establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty.
Reason and persuasion.
Is it perfect? Not yet, but then, no one claimed it was – only that we work to make it more perfect.
Could it ever be perfect for everyone? No, unless everyone accepts that it must work for everyone, and sometimes that means it doesn’t benefit you.
And when this country was founded, we had a lot of “more perfect” to work on. Then, only white, property owning men could vote. By today’s standards it was abhorrent. It was misogynistic, racist, and classist. But it was a much broader base of power than it had been before. And over the years we saw the errors of our ways, at least somewhat and to some degrees, and we made it more perfect. We have near universal suffrage today. I say near universal, because we do still deny by law the voting of certain groups of people, such as prisoners in many states. And all three branches of government are populated to various degrees by members of every group. And yes, that is a good thing.
Who would accept a government made up entirely of people who were different than them? Would a white supremacist accept a government entirely black? Would a man accept a government where men weren’t allowed to vote?
So the opposite must then be true. The basic element of our government is The People. And thus the people, all of them, must participate. And if someone does not like a particular color, gender, sexual identity, or other, having a say in our government, or having one’s own identity group have only a minority say, then they must come to reason. They must accept that it would be wrong for any individual or group to be denied participation by dint of some feature or condition. In short, they must get the fuck over it.
And we should all want every group to participate, and all the peoples voices heard. It cannot be the America that is best if we have preferred citizens and secondary citizens. We cannot stand long with some group owning control of government and considering largely their own wishes first. And when it comes to morals, some people and some groups are so certain of the morals prescribed for them, that they abandon reason and demand national adherence to those beliefs.
We, all of us. We The People, need to make certain that the government is Of, By, and For All of The People.