Life in the Brazos.com

Ram Galindo
Bryan, Texas

Concept America

Almost 50 years ago to the date, when I first set foot on American soil, I had no awareness that our nation's two and a quarter centuries of institutional life are barely a tweak in the story of humanity. Although we all think we are a mature country now, I wonder about its resilience and durability. Does the system that I have come to love so well have the inner strength to continue tilting the trend lines of progress up to heights never before reached? But why should I wonder? Because humanity's story is the history of political systems almost always destroyed by internal abuse of power, either tyrannical or group-interest based. The pulse of alternating rises and falls of humanity's experiments in organizing itself leave me curious and wondering.

I cannot point to one specific event or date when my wonderings started. But, somehow through my post-college entrepreneurial experiments, I must have subconsciously started to wonder about the origins of the system that allowed the creation of the comforts and freedoms I first saw in New York in the awakening summer of 1956. It now seems that in response to this curiosity most of my non-career reading has been on history and geopolitics. Books I read pointed to the inevitability of the human search for a place and/or a time where freedom could be found. I also enjoyed books about places or systems where no superior power despoiled the value-creator of the products of his or her creation.

This reading hobby led me to a practical, as opposed to a scholarly, personal understanding of the origin, birth and growth of the socio-political compact in which I now live. Its creators, the founders of America, distilled the best of humanity's long history of thinking and experimenting in this endeavor. They managed to capture the very best solutions not just as enlightened intellectuals but also as executives responsible for their application. They brilliantly summarized their system in two seminal documents that started it all, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. I say I acquired a personal understanding of the nature of the system, as opposed to only an intellectual one, because it impacted my life practically and directly. Indeed, I chose to adopt America as the place to make my dreams come true.

Before weaving my personal experiences into the fabric of America, I must first share my personal version of how "concept America" developed. A description of the blending of freedom with the rule of law, as it affects me and all other Americans is the first step. I will start by tracing the origins of both freedom and the rule of law with illustrations of broad and sweeping examples from history. I will choose the examples from ancient history moved only by their usefulness in the making of my points. As I move through time, at the Middle Ages I will turn my vision in more detail to Iberian Europe, simply because it was the cradle of my ancestors. From among many social changes that these examples produced, I will pick out only one or two significant forces from each historical instance. Again I will select them guided only by the need to use them as support for my commentaries on public policy. Then I will proceed to explore, again by intentional selection of specific instances, how the public policies engendered by the historical events discussed affect life in our country.

Thus, my writings will take on a character of a study of the origins and effects of public policy in America. They will attempt to illustrate how America's genius to retain and attract self-reliant visionaries emerged. To make my points about how well we are protecting, or endangering, the genius of America, I will intersperse historical recollections with related present day situations that affect our lives now.

Where are the roots of the American system? There is no fast date for the earliest civilizations that left remnants of their existence or information about how well organized they were. We cannot safely point to any ruin or record as being the first of human history. But it can be very safely said that it took at least 8,000 years of recorded building of the pyramid of progress to arrive at the proper time, the proper system, the proper place and the proper people to achieve such momentous accomplishments as the American Declaration of Independence and the American Constitution. We know that the social freedom that ensued as a result of their universal and lasting acceptance by the American people ushered the most advanced civilization the world has ever known. The universality of the acceptance of these documents by Americans is matched only by the emulation they receive by most non-Americans. How did we get to this point?

Humanity has been experimenting with a wide range of social organizational systems since about 4,500 years before Christ. King Hamurabi in ancient Babylon codified his first set of laws about 1,300 years before Classical Greece. It appears that his dictums were mostly unwritten laws that had been in existence for more than 300 years before him. Despite the fact that they had to be chiseled in stone, the resulting code was longer than the American Constitution. However, though promulgated from the top, it contained provisions for the protection of each individual, giving rise to its popular acceptance by contemporary subjects and descendant kingdoms. In the not too distant Nile Valley, Egyptian Pharaohs imposed written rules perhaps even before Hamurabi to organize already existing societies better. Thus, it appears that it took humanity about four millennia to get from the first promulgated laws to the American Constitution. What are significant are the turning points of history when individual freedom moved up the ladder as an objective of government.

Of the earlier civilizations that left large tracks in our history none excelled for giving opportunity to lowly individuals to seek their dreams. The pre-Roman Chinese, Indians, Persians and other peoples in between, all lived under yokes of dictatorship, under the rule of one man and his close associates and descendants. The basis of their wealth was a little value-creation and some trade, but mostly conquest. There was no faster way to increase wealth than to loot or to confiscate. The longer the rulers lasted, the more powerful they became. Thus, they did not want to leave office ever. Long-term abuse by the strong was the basis of greater power.

The absolute domination of rulers who heavy-handedly suppressed dissent preserved their privileges and maintained a forced status quo. But this approach also precluded the advent of improvements by discouraging their subjects from pursuing dreams. Worse yet, it didn't make the despots many friends. Unknown to the wielders of power, this suppression of individual liberty contained the seeds for their eventual self-destruction. In time, power made the rulers even more selfish and corrupt and blinded them from seeing the forces rising to despoil them of their abusively gained privilege. It happened every time!

Remnants of tyrannical or monarchical addiction to political power still exist in our own system today. Our elected officials, once elected, very seldom limit themselves to the term for which they were elected. Somehow they find a way to justify their continued office holding as a necessary requirement for the happiness of their constituents. Too many politicians have made a career of their jobs, refusing to go back to live under their own laws and unwilling to lose the privileges they accumulated at the expense of the governed. Their symbiotic life with the lobby that surrounds them clearly is addictive. This is a bad sign for the survival of the social compact that created the New York that impressed me so much and that makes America the hope of the world. One of the jobs we, the governed, have in America is to make our political class reflect upon the importance to legislate an end to unlimited terms in office before it becomes a weighty factor toward decadence. I have yet to find an elected official to steadily speak for this cause after winning an election.

In the absence of a policy accepted by elected officials themselves to limit their own terms of office, our constitutional right of petition may give us the way. Theoretically this shortcoming is subject to correction, and therefore the seed of hope is alive. I consider unlimited terms detrimental to my opportunities to keep more of what I make because the longer elected officials stay in office, the more they become symbiotic with lobbyists, who always have their own special-interest agenda. This is always detrimental to the common good and to the enjoyment by everyone of the benefits of his or her creations.