Born on the Fourth of July

“Jim, why do Americans always think the United States is the greatest country in the world? Don’t the French say France is the greatest country? Don’t the Russians say Russia is the greatest? Isn’t it all just an accident of birth?”

This is a question a friend posed to me recently, as she knew I was an exponent of the notion that America is the greatest country ever conceived. While her question is misguided, it is one to take seriously, as I think a lot of people have the mistaken and tribalistic idea that because you happen to be from a certain place that somehow you naturally will identify with that place/tribe as being superior.

Yet as I explained to my friend, I don’t think America is the greatest country because I, Jim Woods, happened to be born in suburban Southern California.

The reason why America is the greatest country ever is because it was created on the philosophic principle that man is an end in himself, and not the means to another man’s end.

The Founding Fathers enshrined this concept in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, documents so important, and so beautiful an achievement of political and moral thinking, that it sets us apart from any other country in history.

Indeed, the corollary concept involved here is that government’s only legitimate function is the protection and preservation of individual rights. And the Founders knew that in order to preserve individual rights, they must restrict the ability of government (i.e., the group) to infringe upon those rights.

So, you might say that this idea, the sacrosanct idea that man is an end in himself, is what was truly born on the Fourth of July.

Now, think about this idea for a moment, because on this Fourth of July eve, the idea deserves to occupy a substantive place in your grey matter, right now.

You see, it is the concept of enshrining individual rights that has made all things in America possible. Think about it. Every value you hold dear implies a valuer free to choose that value, and free to achieve that value.

The fact that you can be who you want, do what you want (as long as you don’t infringe on another’s rights) and think what you want — and have that protected by the very fabric of your country’s founding principles and founding documents — is why America is the greatest country.

My favorite novelist/philosopher, Ayn Rand, wrote the following about her love for her adopted country of America, which pretty much sums up my feelings on this issue:

“I can say, not as a patriotic bromide, but with full knowledge of the necessary metaphysical, epistemological, ethical, political and esthetic roots — that the United States of America is the greatest, the noblest and, in its original founding principles, the only moral country in the history of the world.”

The only moral country.

Tomorrow, as you are eating hamburgers, hot dogs, drinking beer and looking up at the fireworks display, remember you do so courtesy of the morality of the Fourth of July.

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Give Better a Chance

“Freedom is nothing else but a chance to be better.”

–Albert Camus

Even French existentialists know that freedom is essential to becoming a better human. You see, if there is freedom, there is opportunity for improvement. Conversely, if there is no freedom — there’s nothing.

Wisdom about money, investing and life can be found anywhere. If you have a good quote that you’d like me to share with your fellow readers, send it to me, along with any comments, questions and suggestions you have about my newsletters, seminars or anything else. Click here to ask Jim.

In the name of the best within us,

Jim Woods