What the United States Stands For

Commentaries On The 9/11 Commission Report

By Christopher Effgen
The Disaster Center
August 15, 2004

The 911 Commission tells us that, "The U.S government must define…what it stands for."

The Executive branch may provide the world with a definition of what an Administration stands for. Congress too may pass a joint resolution about what it stands for. Yet, the definition about what the government of the United States stands for can only be understood by studying the founding of the Constitution and the amendments to it. The Constitution can be altered by amendment or the States could call for a convention. Under our system, what government stands for depends upon the people who are the source from which the just powers of government are derived.

The founders were forced to ask themselves what they stood for. The simple answer is liberty. For those who fought the revolutionary war, the object for which they were prepared to lay down their lives and property was the liberty to continue to enjoy the life that they and their ancestors found in America. The founders understood that they needed to stand together to protect the rights and liberties that they found here or surely they would be destroyed separately.

When the Declaration of Independence was unanimously passed they expressed what they were standing for.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

The Declaration reflects the founder's individual experience of life in America. Individuals experience life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The effort to make these words meaningful for all the people is now part of the legacy and history of what later became the United States of America. The balance of the Declaration consists of a preamble and a list of abuses against the rights of the people, by the King of England and of acts Parliament.

Groups of individuals who do not have the political power are generally are those who attempt to carry out revolutions. This was not the case with the founders. They did not seek to remove or replace their systems of government. The reason they "revolted" was to preserve the kind of life that they and their ancestors had found in America. Concepts related to the nature of that life can be perceived in part by reading the section of the Declaration quoted above.

To understand the concepts that motivated the founders is important, but to understand what the government of the United States stands for we need to consider the Constitution. Preambles to constitutions generally do not have any legal force, but this is not the case with the Constitution of the United States.

"We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

In spite of the inclination of some politicians, no part of this preamble can be construed to be superior to any other part. The blessing of liberty is not more important than the general welfare. Nor is the common defense more important than justice or domestic tranquility. They must be considered together or they will be destroyed separately.

The founders risked all to preserve the kind of life that they found in America. This generation, the custodian of that inheritance, is in danger of sacrificing the blessings of justice, domestic tranquility, the general welfare, and liberty in the name of national security.

Following the 9-11-01 attacks a general mood developed in the Executive and Legislative branches that the highest priority of the government must be National Security. These individuals argued that without security all the other purposes for which the national government was established to achieve could not be accomplished. The people were told that there is to be no going back to the old ways of doing things.

Before we tear apart the Declaration and the Constitution of the United States, we need to understand the cause for the old ways of doing things.

The present age of mankind began in western European nations around the year 1600. The seventeenth century is a period known for its great creativity, unprecedented bloodshed, and religious wars that hardly left a corner of Europe untouched, it also saw the development of natural law. The cause of these profound changes was the development, practice and the fruits of the scientific method.

The chief characteristics of thought prior to the age of the practical application of the scientific method was that everything was connected to and dependent upon everything else. A deterministic order was ordained by god.

The nature and use of things could only be explained by discovering that underlying order. The arrangement of things, and the characteristics which govern their use, was discovered by learning the traditional explanations of what things were intended to be. Prior to the age of the development and practice of the scientific method, people and things were understood as having characteristics that were governed by their connection and relation to everything, which in turn limited their potential uses.

The scientific method involves taking things from the whole, placing them in a controlled environment and conducting experiments that can be repeated by others. The significance of observed phenomena could then be explained by hypothesis, and hypothesis, being concept, could be used to predict the results of new observations or measurements.

Science is based upon the distinction between the contingent and the necessary, that which distinguishes event and structure.

The development and practical application of the scientific method led individuals to study the events and structure of society and government. From this it was observed that all functions of government could be classified as Executive, Legislative or Judicial. This led to an examination of historical forms of government and philosophical writings related to government's ideal form.

At the time of the founding of the government of the United States these works contributed to discussions related to the form of government that should be adopted. Arguments were made in series of letters published in newspapers at the time. A collection of these letters, in book form, is known as The Federalist Papers.

Philosophers used the scientific method to speculate that at one time individuals lived in a state of nature and were free to do what they will. They hypothesized that individuals at some point determined it was in their interest to surrender certain powers to authority for the sake of mutual security and the benefits to be derived from commerce. The founders of the United States embraced these ideas in the Declaration of Independence when they wrote that "Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." In this view, the rights of individuals are unlimited, except where the people have granted enumerated powers to government.

With respect to the exercise of the powers granted by the people, government could act with the authority and immunities that have by tradition been excised by sovereigns. But, where no such power had been granted, or where the government has waved its sovereign powers, government is forbidden to act and the actions of bureaucrats may not be protected by immunity. These concepts have generally been confirmed by judicial determinations in cases arising under the Constitution, and generally apply, except in certain cases arising under emergency.

As under the scientific method, the founders or their ancestors had moved from a culture in which society placed deterministic limitations on their capacity to develop their faculties, and in America found a state of freedom in which life was an experiment.

The difference and significance of the observed phenomena (the life in America vs. the life in England) could be explained by hypothesis. The concept that explained the difference was liberty. Life in the colonies was seen as an experiment, in which the distinction between the contingent and the necessary, that which distinguishes event and structure was the liberty to develop one's faculties.

The clearest expression of what America stood for in the minds and lives of the founders was expressed by Madison (called by some the father of the Constitution) who wrote in the tenth of the Federalist Papers:

"The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government."

The artificial limitations that existed in England to the aspirations and ambitions of individuals were not found in America. The diverse backgrounds of the colonists and their individual accomplishments, (impossible in England) led the founders to understand that the protection of these diverse capacities, against artificial limitations, should be the first object of government.

The founders had a keen appreciation that if liberty was lost, it could not be recovered.

They understood that it was the liberty to use their diverse faculties that led to their rights of property. The first object of government was to preserve the capacity of individuals to do the productive work that god or nature, gave them the capacity and opportunity to do.

A government that makes the protection of the diverse faculties of individuals its first object creates an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests because, so long as people are free to be creative, to speak freely, and to engage in all types of commerce, special interests, whose acts are destructive of that liberty could never succeed.

The danger of a uniformity of interest can be seen in every one of "The Commentaries On The 9/11 Commission Report" that we have placed here on this site.

Uniformity of interest led to policies being adopted that enabled 9-11-01 to take place. It led to the need for the families of the victims of 9-11-01 to have to fight to find the answers to the questions about how and why their loved ones died. Uniformity of interests has created an employment atmosphere where those who would disclose wrongdoing by the Federal government fear being rebuked, and fired. In order to disclose wrongdoing one should be prepared to resign or quit. This oppressive work environment existed both before and after 9-11-01. Uniformity of interests has infected every branch of our government, media, corporate and legal systems. Its cause and consequence is the domination of policy making by special interests without regard to the public interest.

There are millions of employees in the government sector, but few dare utter an opinion that does not conform to the uniformity of interest of their agency or of the administration in power.

The founders understood the danger of uniformity of interests. There was hardly a one among them who could have even have dreamed of becoming the person he was, had her or his parents not left Great Britain.

It appears that we had been going backward for a period of time before the attack of 9-11-01, and that in consequence of the attack the speed at which our culture is degrading, to a more primitive form, is accelerating.

Among the consequences is that we are moving to a stage of development in which, the rights of the individual to develop and use their faculties is no longer the primary irreducible element upon which our system of government is based. If this course is not reversed, the rights of property, which arise from the freedom of individuals to develop their faculties, will lose the basis which justifies their existence.

This document is located at
http://www.disastercenter.com/911_8.htm

Commentaries On The 9/11 Commission Report
For Those Who Loved Them
Risk/Threat Management
The Terrorism Center
Deep Institutional Failings
WMD -- Weapons of Mass Destruction
The 911 Commission Report and the Markle Foundation's Recommendations
An Example of Data Matching
The Accuracy of Data Matching
What the United States Stands For
The 911 ReportThe complete Commission Report in PDF format (7.4 MB)

Christopher Effgen [send him an mail] is the owner of the Disaster Center web site, and has been active in reporting about disasters by digital means since the site was established in 1996. He has authored articles dealing with wide variety of disaster related topics including risk/threat management, neural networks, the science of disaster communication, and compiled numerous disaster related statistics (many of which are hosted on this site). He is active as a participant in national and international forums promoting disaster mitigation towards the goal of sustainable development.