Understanding Principles and Being Principled
Values, Principles, and the Betterment of Humankind
Since we started publishing in early 2024, much of our content has been focused on the ongoings of political and cultural issues and events in the United States. Today, we would like to go in a different direction by talking about first principles, or fundamental truths that one cannot dispute with oneself. We are talking about those truths that derive from one’s values, beliefs, and/or ethics.
While this hopefully provokes some thought that leads to a better understanding of one’s own beliefs, it does have context within the usual Meet Me in the Middle focus areas of culture and politics. Specifically, it is our hope that each voter in America take the time to understand their own beliefs, the values they hold dear, and the foundational principles on which those values and beliefs are based. Then we hope that each voter makes an earnest effort to track those principles, values, and beliefs to a specific candidate in each election. It sounds simple enough, but it gets tricky when the information you hear about each candidate might be terribly misleading.
Beyond principles, it is also worth contemplating one’s desired outcome. Where do you want to see your family, your community, your nation, and your world in 10 years, in 50 years, or in 100 years?
Distrusting Oneself
Many people place a lot of trust in themselves as they develop or establish their own system of beliefs and values. And to the degree that they are honest and moral, that self-trust is probably a good thing. After all, one cannot believe they are a good person without trusting their own judgment, can they?
What if we asserted that not enough people distrust themselves? What do you think that means? It is easy to hear someone else’s opinion — even as it pertains to a subject of expertise for them but that is unfamiliar to you — and find it difficult to fully trust what they have to say. But how often do you question your own knowledge? How often do you interrogate your own understanding of a circumstance or issue and scrutinize the ways in which you could be wrong about something?
What is “right” and what is “wrong” — these are fluid things that change over time, usually by learning lessons and drilling down to the fundamental principles, a full understanding of which provides a basis for adjusting the principles by which we live. It is worth evaluating your own values/beliefs/principles from time to time to ensure you understand how you arrived at each of them. Be open to challenging or even disagreeing with your own principles when evaluating them.
The introspective person can benefit from conjuring some healthy amount of distrust of himself or herself, at least while evaluating his or her own values, principles, and beliefs.
The Foundation of Western Civilization
Out of the gate, let us just propose that the religion of Christianity was one of the most, if not the single most, impactful cultural influences of Western civilization. What made it so influential is the principles perpetuated by the Christian vision of society — a vision which has certainly evolved over time. Sure, there was some burning of witches along the way, but the Christians eventually figured out that kindness and respect for one another’s rights and privileges as human beings are good things. And, with these foundational concepts, Western dogma yielded the greatest and most prosperous civilization in the history of the Solar System.
In general, atheists do not have a dog in the fight when it comes to how “believers” worship. But those “believers” do have sway on the culture of the society and the community in which atheists live. Go have an honest, judgement-free conversation with an atheist about values and principles and you will likely find a lot of congruity with Christian values and principles. Asked to choose between a culture dominated by Christian values and principles as opposed to, say, Muslim values and principles, most American atheists will likely choose the Christian-based culture. But without the beliefs that drive Christians, why would an atheist align culturally with a Christian? We would suggest that the answer has to do with how the principles make sense and simply work.
Philosophically, is it worth considering that it might be better to resist a movement away from the values and principles of a religion that was foundational to the structuring of the United States of America? How instrumental were these foundational principles in the growth and prosperity that the U.S. has enjoyed over the nearly 250 years since her birth? Where would the U.S. be without those foundational principles? Where will it be in another 50 years if Americans and their elected officials continue to abandon those principles?
Long have there been American citizens who have deviated from the values and principles of Christianity. In recent years, increasing numbers of American citizens are deviating from Christian values and doing so to greater extremes. What does the finish line look like for these folks and would actually satisfy them? Is there an optimal balance between the values and beliefs that they claim to support and those who would preserve Christian values? As the world deviates from Christian values, does it seem to be more stable or less so? At what point is the baby (the foundational concepts of America) being thrown out with the bath water for the sake of a greater “progress” that has not yet proven itself to be so great?
Policy vs. Principles
Politicians are in charge of policy. This is true for the politics within any organization, whether it is a small business, a local city government, or the massive behemoth that is the federal government. In all scenarios, policy is the currency of politicians and compromise is the mechanism by which that currency is exchanged. Regardless of how it is used, policy is, simply enough, the set of rules instituted to govern an organization or system.
Principles are different. Principles are fundamental in nature and represent something that is true. What is absolutely true for one person may not be true for another — they have different principles. We here at Meet Me in the Middle believe that the vast majority of Americans do not differ severely on their fundamental truths. The differences among people arise because of the information they digest and rhetoric they permit to influence them.
Far less than policy, it is principles that make things so interesting about the divisive debates in modern America. This is where people err in conversations about politics. They fail to focus on the opposition’s principles, their fundamental truths, and their desired outcome. Conversations among individuals with differing policy views rarely begin with a discussion of first principles. Anyone (politician or private citizen) who is in favor of any policy should be able to distill the benefits of that policy such that there is a clear connection to one or more of their own foundational principles.
Individuals arrive at their own beliefs, values, ethics, and principles as a result of the sum of their life experiences. There is no reason to believe that any individual shares the same set of principles as another. But if everyone understands both their own principles and the impact of a policy, then the conversation has some basis on which to constructively progress. It becomes less about policies, which tend not to provide for a very interesting conversation, and it becomes more about core beliefs and values, which can lead to quite interesting discussions — especially if two people have similar principles but different policy positions!
Liberal and Conservative Principles
According to an article by Sam Jacobs entitled Classical Liberalism, “A classical liberal is someone who advocates for private property, economic freedom, the rule of law, free trade, and a republican style of government that protects free speech and freedom of association.” Hmm? That does not sound like the defund-the-police, jail-the-opposition, censor-the-dissent, ignore-the-constitution “liberals” of the 2024 Democratic Party, does it? In fact, it sounds an awful lot like conservative doctrine! Let us dig into the real principles of liberals and conservatives. This subject could be an article unto itself, but we just want to highlight a handful of key points.
From the 2017 article Principles of Liberalism by Paul Crider, “Liberalism is often defined in terms of the primacy of individual liberty.” From the U.S. Congressman Mike Johnson’s 2018 summary entitled 7 Core Principles of Conservatism, “The birth of our great nation was inspired by the bold declaration that our individual, God-given liberties should be preserved against government intrusion. That same conviction informs our conservative policy decisions still today.” You can see that true liberals and conservatives share a belief in individual liberty! How about that for some common ground?!?! We found it interesting that Mr. Crider wrote, “Any ideology that ignores or denies this separateness of individuals, or that asserts the individual is of less moral importance than some group, is to that extent illiberal.” For those who are less tuned into independent journalism, this is a key point: the Democratic Party’s “woke” agenda is illiberal by this definition, due to their commitment to prioritizing groups before individuals. In fact, most informed “classical” liberals have awakened to the realization that the Republican Party aligns with their liberal values much more than the Democratic Party.
Crider states, “Each individual deserves freedom just in virtue of their humanity and their abilities to reason and participate in society in moral ways. A person has a certain inalienable dignity as an individual just by being capable of enjoying free thought and action. Those societies and belief systems are illiberal to the extent they fail to respect the dignity and liberty of individuals on account of these factors.” Johnson writes, “Because all men are created equal and in the image of God, every human life has inestimable dignity and value, and every person should be measured only by the content of their character.” Inalienable dignity? Inestimable dignity? Well, well, well… did we just find some more common ground?
Crider discusses “peace” and states, “One of the historical reasons liberal principles coalesced in the first place was to end ethnic and religious strife, and to find a way diverse people could live together in peace.” Johnson discusses “peace” from a different angle, “The first obligation of the federal government is to provide for the “common defense” of the United States by securing our borders and protecting our homeland and our strategic interests abroad… because America serves in a natural role of moral leadership in an increasingly dangerous world, and weakness invites aggression, we must remain the strongest military power on earth…”. Ok, so we have some different takes on peace, but are they mutually exclusive? It is certainly possible to use Johnson’s peace-through-strength approach to end ethnic and religious strife? [Side note: Johnson’s writing was published years before the Biden-Harris administration initiated the current border crisis — that is, he was not writing about the “securing our borders” in 2018 to be politically aggressive in 2024.]
Crider did not discuss the role of government from a liberal perspective, but it is explained on Britannica.com as follows: “Modern liberals held that the point of government is to remove the obstacles that stand in the way of individual freedom.” Johnson says, “For individual liberty to be championed, government must be reduced. We believe, as our founders did, that legitimate government operates only by the consent of the governed, and is more efficient and less corrupt when it is limited in its size and scope.” Sounds like conservative values are pretty dang liberal, doesn’t it?! The difference between the “modern liberal” view of the role of government and the conservative explanation, is that the conservative wants to accomplish the liberal goal of individual liberty specifically by keeping the government from getting too large and wielding too much power. Why would a liberal ever want to yield power to the government in the first place?
The classical liberal supports the Rule of Law. Per Jacobs article, “Classical liberalism refers to the philosophy of individual liberty, property rights, and rule of law that dominated the West from the late 1700s until the mid-1900s.” Jacobs also writes, “By ratifying the constitution, America’s founding generation made it clear from the start that the rule of law, not the rule of men, is what a stable political order should be founded on.” Congressman Johnson writes, “Ours is ‘a government of laws and not of men,’ and the rule of law is our foundation. To maintain ordered liberty and a civilized society, public and private virtue should be encouraged and justice must be administered equally and impartially to all.” Once again, even though we may detect differences between Democrats and liberals, we are not getting overwhelmed by the differences between the liberal and the conservative.
On the website for the Institute for Liberal Values is a page titled What is Liberalism? The first paragraph states, “Liberalism is a political and economic philosophy that prioritizes individual freedom, equality, and protecting individual rights and liberties. It emphasizes the importance of the rule of law, free markets, and limited government intervention in the economy and society.” Congressman Johnson says this about free markets: “Government often stands as the greatest obstacle to the progress and prosperity of free people. Free markets and free trade agreements allow for innovation, improvement and economic expansion as risk-takers, entrepreneurs and business owners are given the liberty to pursue the American dream and create more jobs and upward mobility for more people. We believe competition should be encouraged, and government intervention should be limited.” WOW! Republican Congressman Mike Johnson, you sound like a full-blown liberal!!!
And that really is the point, isn’t it? The difference in principles is small when comparing someone who is liberal and actually understands liberalism and someone who is conservative and actually understands conservatism. There is not some huge gulf between the principles of a classical liberal and modern conservative — thus our past claim that John F. Kennedy, one of the historically great Democratic politicians, would most likely be a Republican today. But if the Republican Party is so very nearly aligned with classical liberals, what does that make the Democratic Party? They are a group that has succumbed to some bastardization of principles that frankly are in complete violation of classical liberal concepts.
To our friends on the Democratic side of the aisle, THIS is our challenge to you: for all that is good and wonderful in this world, please come to terms with your own principles and make certain that the candidate you vote for intends to implement policies that promote your principles before you ever vote Democrat again. Chances are that the other guy might just do a better job of promoting liberal principles (even if you hate his guts). And if the Democratic candidate refuses to reveal her policy, instead misdirecting policy conversations to topics that do not matter, well… that should tell you all you need to know — and she certainly will not be providing any certainty about how her policies align with your values.
Bringing It On Home — Be Principled About Your Principles
Most people around us are principled. They have some hardwired connection with what they believe to be true and right and good. Not many people are willing to admit how easily they might abandon their own principles, but it happens all the time. People say they want to defund the police, but they surely want a cop to show up if their home is invaded. People say they believe in free speech right up until someone offends them. People say they believe in the rule of law, the basis of which is the U.S. Constitution — but that goes out the window when the Supreme Court overturns an older unconstitutional ruling. Some people believe that “the underprivileged” deserve some special treatment but then elect politicians who install policy that hurts the ones they aim to help (worth a read is some of Thomas Sowell’s work to understand more on this).
How do our principles align with elected officials and candidates for office? American society is suffering from an epidemic of getting caught up in rhetoric and neglecting their own principles. They forget that they actually care more about the well-being of their children or grandchildren than they do about making sure a book containing incestuous rape of a minor stays on an elementary school’s library bookshelf. They get caught up in the fatalistic, the-end-is-nigh, alarmist climate rhetoric rather than supporting the only presidential candidate with a strategic approach to not only end climate change, but to permanently reverse it. They believe they are humanitarians, but they support the candidate who propagates the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians in wars in distant lands while also standing by border policies that enables a drug abuse epidemic, promotes human trafficking, and encourages the rape of woman and children.
As we approach the November presidential election, every American owes it to themselves and to their country to be truly introspective in an attempt to understand their own principles. Each American must do their homework to understand how a candidate’s policies and positions align with their principles. If you are honest about your principles and thorough about understanding how those principles are going to be advanced by the policies of each candidate, you should feel no guilt for your vote — even if the candidate you vote for disgusts you.