No, Rubio: The American Dream Is Not Universal

 

MILWAUKEE, WI - NOVEMBER 10: Presidential candidate Republican Sen. Marco Rubio (L) (R-FL) speaks during the Republican Presidential Debate sponsored by Fox Business and the Wall Street Journal at the Milwaukee Theatre November 10, 2015 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The fourth Republican debate is held in two parts, one main debate for the top eight candidates, and another for four other candidates lower in the current polls. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)I’m a fan of Sen. Marco Rubio. He’s an impressive man, and really shines in debates. If he’s the GOP nominee, I’ll relish watching his performances against Hillary Clinton (recall that her only experience facing off with a good debater forced her to run for her first term in this cycle, instead of planning her presidential library at the end of her historic two terms).

Yet, in Tuesday night’s GOP debate on the Fox Business Network, I was struck by what Rubio said about the American Dream, rightly seen as a desire to live in a society of economic and personal liberty:

It’s a universal dream of a better life that people have all over the world.

No, Marco. The American Dream is not universal. Our current moment of liberty is unique in human history, the modern manifestation of the Western Enlightenment, which is 300 years old, but fading fast around the globe. I hope I’m wrong, but I fear Rubio wears the same blinders about the world that George W. Bush once wore as president.

The Enlightenment idea is ensconced in America’s Declaration of Independence: that every human being is endowed by our Creator with “certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” It sprung from a uniquely Western culture, and has only flourished in the West (and, nominally, in former Western colonies). So let’s get right to it: Islamic nations, culturally, do not share those values of liberty. And Islamic culture is on the rise in the 21st Century while Western culture is waning.

Muslims who emigrated to the US and the West in the 20th Century, by and large left their home countries because they personally valued economic and personal liberty over the lives they’ve always known. They chose to embrace a confident Western culture. That does not appear to be the case now — and a big reason for that is the West’s choice to turn its back on its inherited Enlightenment-era culture of liberty.

Japan was culturally and historically not “free” until it was defeated in World War II and re-built by the United States. Other sub-continental and Island Pacific Asian nations only have “free” republics because that political culture was (yes) forced upon them by the West. And the Asian nations with rising Muslim populations are becoming less free (and more dangerous) every year.

Eastern Europe? The former satellites of the USSR — which defined “not free” for most of the 20th Century — have rightly embraced liberty. They were denied personal and economic freedom for generations, but always craved it because it was there, just over the border, or just over the Wall … if only they could escape. The former Eastern bloc may soon have to fight, in a very real sense, to keep their relatively new liberal societies.

South and Central America? A mixed bag, obviously. But their nations had the ability, culturally, to embrace at least the mechanisms of the West’s version of a free republic. So there was something to work with when the Commies retreated and/or the dictator was deposed.

Africa? This this where the academic Left’s endless post-WWII harping about the sins of colonialism guilted the West into completely and unconditionally ceding its political power and influence. Any attempt to “impose” Western values — as had been done in Japan and South Korea — was labeled a continuation of oppression and exploitation. So, the job of leading these nations to the sunny uplands of liberty was left to the corrupt and feckless United Nations. As a result, Africa is the least-free and most-dangerous continent on earth. With a few notable exceptions, the African countries not controlled by Islamic fascists are “republics” that are miserable, kleptocratic, and oppressive oligarchies.

The Middle East? In the 20th Century, the West would purchase “stability” for the people (and, it turns out, the world) through trade and payoffs to strong-men and monarchs with mixed results. See: Egypt, Libya, Lebanon, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia from the end of WWII to 2001 or so. (The common trope: “He’s an oppressive, greedy bastard, but at least he’s our oppressive, greedy bastard.”) But we’ve seen since the Arab Spring — presided over by Obama, who internalized academia’s values and made Western guilt official United States’ policy — that majority Muslim countries tend to choose submission to Islam over liberty when given a chance to vote.

Like George W. Bush in 2001, I once believed that the yearning to be free was “universal.” I once believed that, in the heart of every human being was a desire to live in a liberal and virtuous society in which it is immoral to ask a man to first dedicate his life and labor to an outside authority instead of to himself and his family. But that desire is not inherent in all humans at birth.

Yes, we in the West believe that all of mankind is endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, but that fact must be taught; it must be part of the culture of a people and a nation. If it isn’t, liberty has little chance of success on a societal scale … and it appears to be a harder sell to many societies on the globe than either George W. Bush or I thought it was.

History, and the nature of man, tells me that the peak of global liberty is in our past, not in our future. I don’t expect Marco Rubio to actually say that, but I expect him to know it.

Published in Foreign Policy, Politics
Like this post? Want to comment? Join Ricochet’s community of conservatives and be part of the conversation. Join Ricochet for Free.

There are 33 comments.

Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.
  1. Vice-Potentate Inactive
    Vice-Potentate
    @VicePotentate

    This is really an argument of semantics and rhetoric. A confident western civilization can make the universal freedom claim and work towards its fruition. Abandoning western enlightenment assertions leads to the feckless multiculturalism that stops assimilation in the first place. Everyone wants the benefits of freedom, surely that’s not debatable. The question is, do we have the institutional structures and vigor to guarantee these benefits? Abandoning the universality of freedom undercuts the ideas and institutions that make it possible.

    • #1
  2. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    Vice-Potentate: Everyone wants the benefits of freedom, surely that’s not debatable.

    I’m sure it is debatable.

    • #2
  3. Tom Meyer, Ed. Member
    Tom Meyer, Ed.
    @tommeyer

    Jim Lakely: So let’s get right to it: Islamic nations, culturally, do not share those values of liberty. And Islamic culture is on the rise in the 21st Century while Western culture is waning.

    I was totally onboard with you up to the bolded section. For all the setbacks, disappoints and disasters, most the world is starting to look more like the West than like Islamic countries. Sure, it’s messy. Sure it’s depressing. Sure there’s some ugly malaise on our part that depresses the heck out of me.

    Look at, to take the most obvious example, India. Again, lots of things to worry about and hardly an unabashed success, but sheesh it’s encouraging to see the world’s second most populous country — and one with a large Muslim population — come into its own and to do so largely in concert with our values.

    • #3
  4. Tom Meyer, Ed. Member
    Tom Meyer, Ed.
    @tommeyer

    Jim Lakely: The Enlightenment idea is ensconced in America’s Declaration of Independence: that every human being is endowed by our Creator with “certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

    … Yes, we in the West believe that all of mankind is endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, but that fact must be taught; it must be part of the culture of a people and a nation.

    I think that second point is really key. Calling our inalienable rights’ existence “self-evident” was a brilliant rhetorical flourish by Jefferson, but it’s also not true.

    If it were true, the world would be a much better place.

    • #4
  5. Vice-Potentate Inactive
    Vice-Potentate
    @VicePotentate

    The Reticulator:

    Vice-Potentate: Everyone wants the benefits of freedom, surely that’s not debatable.

    I’m sure it is debatable.

    That’s why I’m saying its a semantic argument. If by freedom you mean the benefits of freedom, it is in fact universal. If by freedom you include the trade-offs used to guarantee those benefits,we’ll just use the first couple of amendments as shorthand, then it does seem debatable.

    • #5
  6. Brian Watt Inactive
    Brian Watt
    @BrianWatt

    Jim, Jim, Jim – Was that Rubio’s argument, really? That people all over the world want to replicate America in their own countries? Or just that having a better life for themselves and their children is a universal aspiration? Obviously a great portion of humanity has been lured by the promises of socialism or Islamic theocracies to achieve a better life…and many in those countries live under either tyrannical rule or are penalized for their success. Women, unfortunately, in many Muslim countries are even punished to attempt to aspire or educate themselves — which Rubio mentioned during the last debate.

    I think Senator Rubio is well aware of the difficulties of promoting freedom around the world and is not as naive on this as you make him out to be, certainly not as naive as Mr. Bush that just having an election ensures that a government is in alignment with American ideals.

    Rubio’s characterization of Putin, as an organized crime figure, I think is more accurate than Bush’s assessment of the former KGB colonel when he said, “I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy. We had a very good dialogue. I was able to get a sense of his soul; a man deeply committed to his country and the best interests of his country.”

    Frankly, I’ll go with Rubio’s take on Putin. Rubio, I think has a much better and more realistic grasp of world affairs than Bush had when Bush was elected the first time and won’t have to immerse himself as much on this front.

    Cheers.

    • #6
  7. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    Vice-Potentate:

    The Reticulator:

    Vice-Potentate: Everyone wants the benefits of freedom, surely that’s not debatable.

    I’m sure it is debatable.

    That’s why I’m saying its a semantic argument. If by freedom you mean the benefits of freedom, it is in fact universal. If by freedom you include the trade-offs used to guarantee those benefits,we’ll just use the first couple of amendments as shorthand, then it does seem debatable.

    OK.  I could quibble, but your basic point is probably correct enough.

    • #7
  8. katievs Inactive
    katievs
    @katievs

    Seems to me you’re conflating things here:

    The American Dream is not universal. Our current moment of liberty is unique in human history, the modern manifestation of the Western Enlightenment, which is 300 years old, but fading fast around the globe. I hope I’m wrong, but I fear Rubio wears the same blinders about the world that George W. Bush once wore as president.

    It’s true that the American Experiment is unique, as Marco well knows. But it’s also true that what makes it unique is that it’s grounded on propositions about human nature. It works because those propositions are true of human beings as such. Which is not to say that all human beings are conscious of those desires, never mind ordering their lives by them.

    I’d also dispute the idea that the Western vision is 300 years old. I’d say rather that the good developments of the Enlightenment are developments of a much more ancient Judeo-Christian cultural tradition, without which the Enlightenment could not have come about and cannot be sustained.

    • #8
  9. Ryan M Inactive
    Ryan M
    @RyanM

    Agree.  Good post!

    • #9
  10. Jason Obermeyer Member
    Jason Obermeyer
    @JasonObermeyer

    Why include all of Western Civilization? It’s mostly an Anglo-American way of thinking.  To the extent that there is freedom in the wider world, it is found in former British colonies.  France and Germany’s relationship with liberty has been iffy at best.

    • #10
  11. Bob Thompson Member
    Bob Thompson
    @BobThompson

    Tom Meyer, Ed.:

    Jim Lakely: So let’s get right to it: Islamic nations, culturally, do not share those values of liberty. And Islamic culture is on the rise in the 21st Century while Western culture is waning.

    I was totally onboard with you up to the bolded section. For all the setbacks, disappoints and disasters, most the world is starting to look more like the West than like Islamic countries. Sure, it’s messy. Sure it’s depressing. Sure there’s some ugly malaise on our part that depresses the heck out of me.

    Look at, to take the most obvious example, India. Again, lots of things to worry about and hardly an unabashed success, but sheesh it’s encouraging to see the world’s second most populous country — and one with a large Muslim population — come into its own and to do so largely in concert with our values.

    I see this difference of view, along with the view of those Progressives in powerful positions who don’t see the threats at all, as the crux of the problem.

    It’s not a lost cause but gives credence to the often quoted idea that ‘freedom isn’t free’. We need to wake up!

    • #11
  12. Jim Lakely Inactive
    Jim Lakely
    @JimLakely

    Tom Meyer, Ed.: I was totally onboard with you up to the bolded section. For all the setbacks, disappoints and disasters, most the world is starting to look more like the West than like Islamic countries.

    I wrote differently, so I obviously don’t agree. The birth-rate of Islamic countries is much higher than those of Western countries. Heck, even the reproduction rate of Muslims who have arrived in Western European countries dwarfs that of their host countries. In France, the Muslim fertility rate is 2.8; the non-Muslim fertrility rate is 1.9. In Sweden it’s 2.5 to 1.8. In Ireland — Catholic Ireland! — it’s 3.0 to 1.9.

    I just don’t see how, long-term, the world continues to “look more like the West” when the heirs of those who created liberty-centric Western culture are literally dying off in their own countries. I’d love to be surprised and see second- and third-generation Muslim immigrants in Europe fully embrace the Western culture of liberty — as is the norm here in the United States. But the rise of entire sections of British and French cities that are sharia-light enclaves doesn’t give me a sense of optimism.

    • #12
  13. LilyBart Inactive
    LilyBart
    @LilyBart

    Sen. Marco Rubio…… He’s an impressive man

    Based on What?   That he can give a good sounding speech?   That he’s attractive?  That he has a compelling personal story?

    • #13
  14. Songwriter Inactive
    Songwriter
    @user_19450

    I am with Jim on this. Similarly, I thought GWB was spot on when he spoke of freedom being a universal desire – but I have to come believe it is something almost unique to our culture.

    Freedom is in the very DNA of American culture. We are the genetic descendants of people who left other countries and came here to be free. The folks they left behind may have been content with their shackles.

    What I fear is the gradual erosion of the American love for freedom. I have family members (Texans, no less!) who would probably trade a lot of their personal freedoms for the government-guarantee of the first-world equivalent of “three hots and a cot.” (Affordable rent, weekends off, cable, a car with working AC, and cheap medical care) They are okay with a bigger, more intrusive government, so long as it comes with free stuff.

    • #14
  15. katievs Inactive
    katievs
    @katievs

    Here’s a comparison. This is John Paul II in Veritatis Splendor:

    Each of us has both the desire and the duty to know the truth of our own destiny.

    Is this a claim based on surveys taken about what people want as he travels throughout the world? No. It’s a philosophical and religious claim about human nature.

    Persons are the kind of beings who achieve their destiny through freedom, therefore we have a duty to seek to understand the truth of our destiny.

     

    • #15
  16. Vice-Potentate Inactive
    Vice-Potentate
    @VicePotentate

    Jason Obermeyer:Why include all of Western Civilization? It’s mostly an Anglo-American way of thinking. To the extent that there is freedom in the wider world, it is found in former British colonies. France and Germany’s relationship with liberty has been iffy at best.

    Enlightenment ideas were formed around the correspondence of a new kind of upper class coalescing in France, Germany, and England. The structure of their ideas is similar. The reason that the anglosphere has done so much better than the French or Germans at permanent liberty is the skeptical nature and safeguards the British and their colonial descendants laid against power either monarchical or democratic.

    • #16
  17. Jim Lakely Inactive
    Jim Lakely
    @JimLakely

    Brian Watt: Frankly, I’ll go with Rubio’s take on Putin. Rubio,

    Me, too!

    • #17
  18. Freesmith Member
    Freesmith
    @

    Rubio’s rhetoric is little more than a rationale for the noxious cosmopolitanism which serves his donor base. It was the justification for his “Gang of Eight” perfidy, allowing him to blow smoke on Rush Limbaugh’s and Mark Levin’s radio programs while he conspired with Chuck Schumer to undermine, not conserve, the historic American nation with 30 million new Third World immigrants over ten years.

    Of course Rubio doesn’t really believe that all people have an innate desire to live in liberty and to value independence. He understands that the Cuban experience of the 20th Century is very different from, say, the Puerto Rican experience and that it has resulted in a learned, not an innate, values framework. He knows that if Florida were majority Mexican and Puerto Rican, rather than majority white and Cuban, he wouldn’t be spouting his nonsense in the US Senate.

    As the primary campaign moves forward and the real battle becomes Rubio v Cruz, it is vital that the personal senator of Zuckerberg, Adelson and Singer be revealed for the open borders, cheap labor tool that he is. His faux contrition concerning closing the back door of illegal immigration should not be allowed to hide his zealous desire to swing the front door of legal immigration wide open.

    • #18
  19. I Walton Member
    I Walton
    @IWalton

    The thing is where there is freedom under the rule of law, people who want to be dependent can be, those who want to build an independent future can.  That choice isn’t available in the absence of the rule of law and markets.  Notice I said nothing about democracy.  That’s just a process not a foundation.  So Rubio is right, even those who just want to get on without great independence don’t want to be put upon or ravaged by others.  The other thing is that economic growth and modernization, open markets etc. destroy traditional economic organizations such as guilds and the network of traditional production, integrated with traditional relationships and religion, the organic underbrush that isn’t always explicitly understood.   So we don’t really know how to spread these things as they are culture specific and deeply complex.   This is what happened when the Pasha tried to use new oil wealth to modernize his country.  Of course we completely missed what was going on and offered no help, guidance, understanding, and thereby set the stage for the following disaster.   Yes lead by example, but embrace a degree of humility we almost always lack.

    • #19
  20. Roadrunner Member
    Roadrunner
    @

    Many of the folks that Rubio wants to have overrun our country will not be interested in personal or economic liberty.  Their predecessors support all kinds of limitations on both as well as political liberty.  Rubio and his donors play with fire and cover it with very optimistic words.

    Tom Meyer, Ed.: I think that second point is really key. Calling our inalienable rights’ existence “self-evident” was a brilliant rhetorical flourish by Jefferson, but it’s also not true.

    That is right and it won’t be true here either.  Conservatives play by the rules and it is clear that the Left won’t.  They will use executive power while libertarians and neoconservatives advise to not even politically fight because of this or that poll.  When the Left get the Supreme Court and that is soon, the gloves will come off and we will see how self evident our rights are.  Libertarians and neoconservatives will again give us a good dose of “it is the law of the land now and it is time to move on.”  All the bad actors are in place and their histories portend disaster for our economic and personal freedoms. By the way, most of the Indians and Chinese that come here vote like the Latin Americans that come here.  We can hope for a State like China but we will probably get something more like Venezuela.

    • #20
  21. Frank Soto Member
    Frank Soto
    @FrankSoto

    Jim Lakely: It’s a universal dream of a better life that people have all over the world. No, Marco. The American Dream is not universal. Our current moment of liberty is unique in human history, the modern manifestation of the Western Enlightenment, which is 300 years old, but fading fast around the globe. I hope I’m wrong, but I fear Rubio wears the same blinders about the world that George W. Bush once wore as president.

    This feels like semantics.  Rubio said that people universally dream of a better life, not that they subscribe to the American dream.

    • #21
  22. Tom Riehl Member
    Tom Riehl
    @

    Vice-Potentate:This is really an argument of semantics and rhetoric. A confident western civilization can make the universal freedom claim and work towards its fruition. Abandoning western enlightenment assertions leads to the feckless multiculturalism that stops assimilation in the first place. Everyone wants the benefits of freedom, surely that’s not debatable. The question is, do we have the institutional structures and vigor to guarantee these benefits? Abandoning the universality of freedom undercuts the ideas and institutions that make it possible.

    I studied all the comments so far and am back here to the first one.  The giant stolen base, the phrase that is belied by current events and that is railed against by most of our elites, is in your second sentence: …confident western civilization…

    Would that we actually possessed or deserved that characterization.  And, point two is that rhetoric matters.  Redefinition of accepted usages and denotations undermines our common culture, and thus our institutions.

    Knowing that this is not news or a unique insight, I am waiting impatiently for an historically-based treatment of how such redefinition is terminally undermining the success that was Western Civilization.  Maybe a work similar to Liberal Fascism is percolating.

    • #22
  23. James Gawron Inactive
    James Gawron
    @JamesGawron

    Jim L,

    Yes, we in the West believe that all of mankind is endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, but that fact must be taught; it must be part of the culture of a people and a nation. If it isn’t, liberty has little chance of success on a societal scale … and it appears to be a harder sell to many societies on the globe than either George W. Bush or I thought it was.

    So the problem is that you didn’t realize the tremendous cultural differences that exist in the world and you think George W. Bush also didn’t realize it.

    Odd. How is that a criticism of Marco and what he said? I think Rubio is a very shrewd judge of foreign cultures and the nature of tyrannies. His job is to innumerate the guiding principles we need to know right now. He is doing that better than any other candidate (only counting Republicans as the Democrats are busy destroying all guiding principles). I think you are projecting. Lighten up would ya.

    Regards,

    Jim

    • #23
  24. Spin Inactive
    Spin
    @Spin

    He’s on the stump! What do you expect him to say?  “Well, a lot of people want to be free, but some people don’t, and that’s ok, because in America we want people to be free and if you don’t want to be free you don’t have to come here.”  Doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.

    • #24
  25. Quinn the Eskimo Member
    Quinn the Eskimo
    @

    I think it is meant to convey the idea that the American dream is not just for white people.  I don’t think it is meant to convey that all people everywhere want it.  It is a rhetorical invitation designed to reach out to people.

    • #25
  26. Paul Dougherty Member
    Paul Dougherty
    @PaulDougherty

    LilyBart:

    Sen. Marco Rubio…… He’s an impressive man

    Based on What? That he can give a good sounding speech? That he’s attractive? That he has a compelling personal story?

    Yes, because that is key to being elected President. Because this is the recipe for a successful Presidency. The country is already full of competent and lawyerly people  who can edit the third word in the second paragraph of Sect II. 3.d of the regulation to read slow instead of delay.  The country is full of economists with strong opinions on where supply meets demand, most precisely. The country is already full of people with the talent in cynically dividing populations into faction and pitting them against one another.

    He is impressive because he impresses. That is the job.

    He strikes me as a leader.  A comment on whether you have it, or not: A Marine friend of mine once said told me that there are leaders that you would be willing follow into Hell*. There are others that you wouldn’t follow into Olongapo, not even with pesos falling out of their pockets.  I am impressed that Sen. Rubio has it. At this point, I am willing to follow his optimism.

    * In this instance,  “Hell” is meant to denote a dire and difficult situation where hope is in short supply. If a safe space for the reader is required, “Heck” may be inserted within the readers mental editing.

    • #26
  27. Severely Ltd. Inactive
    Severely Ltd.
    @SeverelyLtd

    LilyBart:

    Sen. Marco Rubio…… He’s an impressive man

    Based on What? That he can give a good sounding speech? That he’s attractive? That he has a compelling personal story?

    Well yeah, all of those things do make him impressive. Also the fact that he has a conservative world view and and will govern that way. He’s not a bone-crunching conservative like Cruz–I’d like that–but then Cruz doesn’t have any of the three qualities you find unimpressive.

    Those qualities are what makes Rubio electable and Cruz likely not. Don’t denigrate them unless you think Reagan’s attractiveness and ability to speak well were immaterial to the implosion of the Soviet empire. It got him elected, it allowed him to sway the electorate and therefore the congress despite full frontal assault from the press, and that in turn led to an escalation in our military that the ex-Soviets say was one straw too many for them.

    Imagine that. If not for a sunny smile and joking disposition fronting an iron backbone, that evil empire might have creaked along a few more years wreaking havoc on its citizens.

    • #27
  28. Severely Ltd. Inactive
    Severely Ltd.
    @SeverelyLtd

    Nevermind.

    • #28
  29. Umbra Fractus Inactive
    Umbra Fractus
    @UmbraFractus

    I still believe Bush was mostly right in what he said; every human would rather be free than unfree.

    The problem is not what he said, but that he only understood half of the truth. Every person wants to be free; it’s getting them to accept freedom for people they don’t like that’s the problem. Iraqi Sunnis, all other things being equal, would love to be as free as Americans; it’s freedom for the Kurds and Shiites they have a problem with. Even Hitler saw himself as a liberator, his oppression of non-Teutonics didn’t count, in his mind.

    Americans are not immune to this; we’ve just been better at keeping those types out of power.

    • #29
  30. RabbitHoleRedux Inactive
    RabbitHoleRedux
    @RabbitHoleRedux

    I thank God every single day that I had the good fortune to be born an American. For the life of me, I cannot understand why it has become impolitic to decry failed cultures and exalt our own unique and wonderful nation.

    I know Marco does, too.

    • #30
Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.