A Tale of Two Cultures

The morning of December 26, I listened as two men were speaking in serious tones about not paying taxes should the recent health-care bill be signed into law-which of course it will. One of the guys added that his mother has already stopped paying taxes.

After listening to this talk of tax protest for a brief while, I logged on to my laptop. At RealClear Politics.com, I was greeted by a prominently placed op-ed praising the government's recent health-care legislation. The author of the op-ed was British, and it didn't surprise me too much.

Honestly, I imagine that far more of the American private class agrees with the two men I overheard at the coffee shop than with the British columnist. This is, of course, my opinion based on my observations. But when I look at Great Britain, we seem to be two western cultures living in vastly different worlds.

They have far less liberty that we do, and yet they are OK with that. Moreover, they often find it curious that we are stubbornly unwilling to hand our liberty over to the almighty State. Have they always had a culture that looks upon tyranny with a generally passive eye? Is this another case of the Brits asking, "Why are those Americans thumbing their nose at the king?"

The UK has the most pervasive surveillance state, with personal privacy almost non-existent and government cameras absolutely everywhere. Some communities in England even have trucks driving up and down neighborhood streets at night, taking infrared photos of people's homes (looking for heat loss, an "environmental offense" in some places). They have a state-run health care system that leaves babies to die if they are born too early (you are only a person in the UK at 22 weeks gestation -- and babies born even two days before that are sadly left to die). How do they put up with a monstrous State and why?

During the slow back-and-forth of health-care legislation in the U.S., I have seen the most pointed criticism come from British op-ed columnists. Indeed, it seems that political pundits in the UK are more anxious for socialism here in the U.S. than we are. Maybe it will somehow help justify the government dependence in the UK if they can point at the U.S. and say "see! They need the State as much as we do, so it's not all that bad." The chips-eating Brits love their government, and hand over their liberties. Jolly good for them.

Here in America, we cannot hate government enough. While the British can boast of having voter turnouts of over 60% (in the 1950s through the 90s, they had 70-80% turnouts!), we have trouble getting half of us to bother "cuing-up" at the polls. An almost equal number tax returns are filed. For example 2004 had one of the biggest turnouts for a major U.S. election, and still saw only 122,294,978 eligible citizens cast a vote. That's a 55.3% turnout. That same year also saw only 132.4 million individual tax returns filed. In 2009 all indicators show more and more tax avoidance, and warnings have been issued that a lot more of the general economic activity has moved into the Black Market.

With Rasmussen reporting that public support for the health-care legislation consistently hovering 38% and 41%, expect more civil aggravation, and more refusal to pay taxes. In fact, the last year saw tax day rallies evolve into a full year of planned public demonstrations as the Federal Government grabbed at the banking and the mortgage markets, took control of General Motors, seized more wealth, printed more money, made more war, passed more laws, increased the national debt, made plans to "spend our way" out of problems. Rasmussen also found that just under half of Americans worry that the government is "doing too much." At the year's end, that number went up to 52%. I expect that upward trend to continue.

We are a culture where about half of us vote and pay taxes, and most of the other half wonder why they bother. We are a people mad at the expanding government, founded on a culture of rejecting the State. We are people happily proclaiming we are "Going Galt" while reading Ayn Rand, and speaking of tea parties and revolution once again. If this were happening in Great Britain, people would say "this isn't America. Now, eat your chips and behave yourself!" In fact, isn't that what the British thought over 200 years ago, when the Americans staged the first Revolution? They thought it was curious and odd, and wondered why the crazy Americans didn't just pay taxes and behave themselves.

The difference, I believe, is in our cultural history. The English have a long history of believing that people need to be governed, and that government is somehow divinely instituted. Even when they got rid of their monarchy, it didn't last long. Unable to cope without, they brought back the monarchy a short while later! They have a culture of tolerating government, abuse of power, and of going along with class systems. It seems that they don't know anything else. Therefore people of Great Britain seem be saying "please take our liberty, we aren't using it. And I am sure that the ruling class knows better than we little people."

Americans have a history of believing that people can, and should, be trusted with liberty. Our culture is rooted in suspicion of those with power, and little tolerance of people who try and say that they are the keepers and dispensers of our liberty. Even those Americans who think government is somehow a necessary evil are still calling government an evil. We have a low threshold for abuse, and grow angry with tyranny.

Out of necessity We the People of America are screaming at the political class, "You cannot have our liberty! It is ours, and not yours." We see it as charity to our fellow man to tell the politicians, "You are not the gatekeepers of our freedom!" We cherish our liberty, and we use it. While the British can look upon the ruling classes with so much dignity, we look upon them with suspicion and contempt.

So the people of the UK are going to scratch their heads with curiosity, as We The People stage a second Revolution (which has already begun). Let them. Let them cherish government, and look upon liberty with suspicion. We will continue to be the land of the free, and overthrow tyrannical government. Opposing tyranny has become old hat for us, anyhow. The difference between the UK and us here in America: It is freedom we cherish. It is government we curse. And we are not going to just sit down and behave ourselves in the face of tyranny.

Yes, I am heavily generalizing, and making sweeping statements and very broad observations. There are plenty of British folk who are libertarians, and I have read some recent editorials condemning the expanding socialism in the UK. England has had some prominent libertarian thinkers and icons over the years. Heck, even J.R.R. Tolkien, while not a political writer, stated that his "political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs) - or to 'unconstitutional' monarchy."

But, my point is that there is a clear general acceptance of tyranny in the UK; while there is a general resistance to it here in the US. It seems that not rolling over to tyranny is the American way. We have fought tyranny at home before, and we'll do it again.

Sources:

"52% Worry Government is Doing Too Much." Rasmussen Reports, 27 Dec 2009.

Allen, Vanessa and Andrew Levy, "'Doctors Told Me It Was Against The Rules To Save My Premature Baby'." Mail Online, 10 Sep 2009.

"Anarchism and violence." Wikipedia: the free encyclopedia, 2 Nov 2009.

"General Election Turnouts 1945-2005" UK Political.info.

Kapur, Sahil, "Victory on Healthcare Reform." Guardian, 26 Dec 2009.

Rahn, Richard, "New Underground Economy: Key Indicator, Avoidance of Bank Accounts." The Washington Times, 9 Dec 2009.

"What They Told Us: Reviewing Last Week's Key Polls." Rasmussen Reports, 19 Dec 2009.