Nuts & Bolts of Americanism

Devlin Bronte Rachele

Bedford, Pennsylvania

Monday, October 19, 2020

Dear Evan,

So, what is Americanism? How does it work? What are its roots? These are very good questions. I think a great way to start to gain a good grasp of it would be in an example.

Let’s say you are a child of about eight and you have a sibling who is close in age. One day you are both in your house and are enjoying your childhood just simply playing. However, there is a toy which belongs to your sibling and at the moment your sibling is not playing with it. You like it so you start to play with it. Both of you are playing separately just enjoying yourselves. Suddenly your sibling notices that you are playing with his toy. In an immediate fit of “Mine, mine, mine” territoriality he grabs the toy and exclaims that it is his and not yours. As he tugs at the toy pulling it towards him you pull back yelling that he isn’t playing with it right now. Unable or unwilling to resolve the issue you both go running to your local authority, your parents.

Laws can be a very useful tool when applied efficaciously. However, they can also be a hindrance to a society when not used wisely. When used to control or as a crutch instead of facing challenges. As you and your sibling argue your case before your parents, the ad hoc authority, they are more than likely debating what will be the easiest course of action to return things to how they were before the altercation erupted. They may in fact already have a verdict worked out relying on the law. In this case the toy is the property of your sibling so its disposition is solely up to your sibling. Case close and all tied up with a nice bow. They may even believe they have taught you a valuable lesson about respecting personal property. Or they may use a slightly different approach. They may go with the idea that since your sibling wasn’t playing with the toy and you were that they see nothing wrong with you continuing to play with the toy. Again this may be seen as a lesson to teach sharing, thinking of others, and patience. Truth is they may be teaching a whole other set of lessons regardless of what they had hoped to accomplish.

First one which comes to mind is to be dependent on an authority to make your decisions. You learn to allow others to decide your life’s fate instead of taking charge of your own life. You have learned to be subservient. You learn to be limited to the society’s laws and the understanding of those laws. If you were the one who did not get your way you may have learned to think the system is stacked against you. You may or may not have a true understanding of why the decision was not in your favor. Chances are you have learned to resent both the authority and your sibling. You have been taught to see one another as rivals for the approval of the authority. You may work to develop ways to influence the authority to your favor. If the decision had been in your favor and not your sibling then your sibling might feel the resentment and allow the anger to simmer below the surface. Whoever had loss in this case they may dwell on the defeat and see it as a reason to get back at the other in ways which include not helping or working with the other. You may even learn over the years and through various other cases to have no respect for the authority and seek ways around it. This all sounds a lot like the world around us now. There is a reason for subterfuge in trying to sway future decisions.

Let’s back up a little and try something a bit different. This time when an altercation erupts over the toy the authority or your parents don’t rule over you this time. Instead they act as referees in helping you to work out things between you. If they do insist on anything it is for you and your sibling to calm down and gain control of yourselves. Instead of laying down the law they encourage you to see each other on the same team and to hammer out a deal which both of you can respect and follow. They help you to understand each other’s point of view. You may have another family member who has had no part of the altercation such as another sibling who can also offer suggestions along with your parents. They help you to explain what has happened and extrapolate things to work with as you work toward a mutually benefiting agreement about the toy. If there is an impasse then perhaps the toy is removed from the equation until you are able to work things out or even a temporary deal until a real solution can be found for the time being. Main thing is nothing is written in stone and whatever you come up with can be altered and adjusted to future needs. In the end you work out a reasonable solution between the two of you with the assistance of your parents who have acted more as referees to enable the dialog than a supreme authority. Most importantly, only those who were actually involved in the altercation make the decision.

This helps to nurture a different situation altogether. You are encouraged to workout a solution which is mutually beneficial. It gives you a chance to understand the other’s perspective. The whole process helps you to learn to communicate your feelings, concerns, ideas, and such constructively. You have learned to stand up for yourself in a constructive way. You learn that solutions are only limited by your imagination and working with others creates a gateway to far more possibilities. You don’t see the situation as us versus them, instead you are taught to think in terms of we are in this together. You learn to see how your actions affect others. You may even learn that you are part of a far larger picture. Since nothing was forced there is an ability to accept the decision which you both created eliminating the need to rebel or revenge. Most of all, you have learned to live your life. You have learned that it is your life.

Let’s look at a far more mature situation. Let’s say you own your home. I live up wind from you and I also own my home. I burn my trash. It is my right and my choice. However, since you live downwind from me my smoke and ash does affect you. You approach me and I say it is my property and my right and I continue. You go to the authority and file a complaint against me. We are brought before the authority. We argue our cases and they make a decision based on our ability to present our cases. This can include any expert opinions which could cost as much as $1,000 an hour or even more. We may lobby others against the other in the hopes that through the support we get what we desire. It really doesn’t matter what the authority has decided. Chances are they may have even enacted a law or regulation to clean their hands of the situation. In the end either you or I have prevailed at the expense of the other. You and I will see it as a trespass against our rights, my right to use my property as I see fit and burn and your right to protect your property from ash residue, your right to breathe fresh, clean air. We both may feel violated and have developed a true animosity towards one another. We may see the authority as being against us and unfair. We may seek ways to get around the authority’s ruling. We were originally in opposition to one another but now we are pitted against the other.

Under the other method we are brought before an authority which encourages us to work things out. This authority may encourage others to offer their ideas. They may have access to records on similar situations and resolutions in the community or from other communities. Others affected are allowed to make their statements and propose their ideas. Again only those who are involved are the ones who decide on what is to be done. In the end all efforts are on all those involved finding a mutually benefiting solution. If for the time being a mutually benefiting solution is not found you and I can find one which works until a real solution can be found. Still in the end, nothing is written in stone and the whole thing is open to ideas on how to reach a mutually benefiting solution. Who knows, in the long run those involved might find that mutually benefiting solution. You might create a whole new way of eliminating waste and perhaps a whole new business. You have learned much about yourself and others in your community. But most importantly you have learned to work together and not be dependent on others to make your decisions. You have learned to not see one another as a competitor but as colleagues who are in this together.

This is the very essence of what I call Americanism. It is the belief that we can be encouraged to work together. It is the idea that if given the opportunity to rule from the bottom up instead of being imposed upon from the top down people could achieve an amazing potential. It is a belief that if given the chance to think, propose, and debate ideas in an effort to find mutually beneficial ideas there is the real possibility of a nation evolving socially. Under leadership imposed down there is a handicapping of the nation. With the idea that we can work together to find solutions which are mutually beneficial there is an awakening. There is the development of confidence, of empathy, of understanding a larger picture. There is a development of unity. There is hope. We could find that through cooperation we can achieve far more than through competition. We learn to think and to work with one another and to take others into consideration. We have opened a door which could lead to the ability to truly evolve.

Where did this come from? With the mother country more than a round trip of a month or two away our Founding Parents had little option but to look to one another for assistance and to work out things among themselves. Their dependency on the Crown had grown weaker as they learned to count on their family, neighbors, and community for solutions. It was if the spell of being dependent on a central, omnipotent authority had been broken by carving out a life from the woods of the New World. Even still they were between a rock and a hard place. On one side was the vast Atlantic Ocean on the other side was a continent populated by an indigenous population that wasn’t too pleased about the colonist being there. Our Founding Parents had to think and be resourceful to maintain a thin stretch of land they had. Also as I had mentioned before they were well read. They had especially learned from the Classical Age and saw themselves as a new revival of that Age. Along with learning to get along with their neighbors and what the classics had taught them they found that creating meeting places to work out solutions was a great approach.

Another major factor in framing this solution is that our Founding Parents understood oppression. Their families had come to America to look to be free from the religious persecutions. They had come to remove themselves from over saturated markets to find opportunities. They had also come as a condition of imprisonment. Either you work a few years for your crimes in the colonies or face prison and possibly death in the mother country. They saw the oppression of classes. John Hancock may have been the richest man in the colonies. He may have been a fantastic businessman. George Washington may have been the richest man in Virginia with vast land holdings. But both could have all of it taken away, confiscated by the Crown. They also had to seek permission from the Crown through the Crown’s representatives to be able to do certain things which included even opening a business or with whom they were able to trade. They knew what it was like to have someone else impose their will, their agenda on their lives. They did not like it. They thought of a better way.

They would send representatives to express their wishes to Philadelphia and created the Continental Congress. There these representatives would propose ideas and debate them. Their idea would either stand the test of scrutiny under debate and be accepted or it would fail. But even in failing it might ignite another idea which would turn out to be better. Problems would be addressed and ideas proposed and debated. These representatives would then vote on the proposed solution. As time went on and problems were resolved they soon realized in an age when kings were deemed to be not only the ruler but God’s appointed representative on earth that maybe they didn’t need a king, or queen, or duke, prince, princess, viscount, earl, baron, count, or whatever to lead them. They started to realize that instead of having someone up high with no idea of what it was like to be the little person imposing their will down that maybe they could rule from the bottom up through working on their issues together.

Eventually, we did break with Great Britain in an eight year struggle. During the entire conflict George Washington and other military commanders were in charge of their units in which they would converse with their officers in war councils over what to do and in turn were supported by the Continental Congress still made up of representatives from various communities. In the end they would form more Congresses to form and ratify the Articles of Confederation which created a government of state houses full of representatives which then sent representatives to a National Congress which elected a President of the Congress. When it was shown to be too weak by Shay’s Rebellion these representatives met again and form a federal government in which the centerpiece was Congress with two chambers, the House of Representatives and the Senate. We can see a reoccurring theme of a venue in which issues would be discussed with the introduction of ideas which were debated and hopefully turned into a viable solution.

But overall it was a nation in which a person was encouraged to express themselves as evident by the First Amendment. It was a nation where ideas were allowed to flow and bounce off of one another forming other ideas. Where the individual was allowed to explore and discover. It was a land where communities could count on one another. Where states were allowed to experiment with different solutions while the others could watch and see what happened and know if that solution would work for them. It was a land where the individual was allowed to think and dream. This is the birthplace of the idea of Americanism, which is simply an idea that people can not only rule themselves but will evolve as they rule themselves unlocking enormous potential in the process as they evolve and grow.

However, much has changed and I will explain some of the problems I see which have eroded what could have been and has reduced us to a nation just like all the rest instead where one gang over powers and imposes its will on the other gang. Where it is just back and forth as each side gains more seat than the other in our think tank which I call our Congress and State Houses. I feel it is important to explore these parts of our society which has caused us to degrade to the current state of being a nation just like any other instead of being a true beacon of freedom, of future hope. How we descended into the madness of having our troops forcing our will in many other nations just as Great Britain had tried to do with us.

Have a Great Day,

Devlin