Harbison: Individuals vs. the Community

Jim Harbison

We are in a world of shifting political and social concepts and institutions. Daily we hear about stakeholders, visioning, and consensus. We hire consultants to conduct focus group meeting to determine the ideal society. They devise what represents the community good or community values. Each is trying to manipulate the data in support of some preconceived objective. We are experiencing increasing regulatory actions at all levels of government to create better communities according to some stakeholder group’s vision. Hilary Clinton wanted us to all believe that it “takes a village” and we are all part of that village.

Hillary Clinton

This “village” is now politically known by another term – “Communitarianism”. A generally acceptable definition is that it is a political and social philosophy that emphasizes the rights of the community or “common good” above those of the individual. Others would say it is the balancing of the rights of the individual against those of the community and “civil society”. It is also the current politically correct term for socialism.
Communitarianism is also a major component of Agenda 21 where the community is now defined as the global village and anything identified as serving the community common good takes precedence over the rights of the individual. Under the U.S. Constitution the “community” has no rights and society is reflective of the rights and responsibilities of the individuals.

Communitarians believe that behaviors in civil society must be regulated. They want to impose values and beliefs that constrain families, residential communities, schools, religious organizations, businesses, development, and voluntary organizations according to their social norms. The problem is that there is no standard of good but different goods for different communities. Some communities can recognize polygamy, others stoning or honor killings, or as in the movie Footloose ban music and dancing. Your freedoms will become subservient to the local community good.
There is a constant struggle between liberals demanding community common good and conservatives struggling for maximum individual freedom. Communitarians believe that there is an undue emphasis on individual rights and are concerned that excessive individualism leads to selfishness (personal responsibility), egocentrism and a belief in American exceptionalism. According to Agenda 21 sustainable development policies you are selfish if you insist on your constitutionally guaranteed individual rights and freedoms.

Karl Marx

For communitarians it is necessary to demand that society be a balance of their moral core values of common good and individual rights. Unfortunately, their community values often trample individual rights. To create their utopian society more activities are identified as unacceptable or criminal such as diabetes, smoking, name calling, heavy energy consumption, neglect (in their view), driving when you could ride your bike or take public transportation. Other examples include areas of public health versus individual privacy, prayer in school, advocate taking your child away because of obesity, or codes enforcement that criminalize behaviors like failure to cut your weeds or recycle your trash.

U.N. Headquarters

Their actions always result in more restrictive laws that adversely impact personal freedoms. The lines between government and non-government groups blur and unelected stakeholder groups will use manufactured consensus to create more policies that will increase the loss of more individual rights and freedoms. Adoptions of Agenda 21 “smart growth” policies advocated by communitarian impose their visions upon those who oppose this increasing government control and intervention.

It is important to remember that our Constitution guarantees the rights of the individual, and not those of the community, to life and liberty. This puts our property and personal liberties in direct opposition to communitarianism and the goals of Agenda 21 and its sustainable development.

Harbison: Individuals vs. the Community