by Dexter MacBride, JD
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“Sometimes I feel Like a motherless child, A long way from home.” ..American Negro spiritual. This commentary is being written during the December Christmas holiday season. Among the many songs of the season, one has signified, for me, the deepest, most passionate yearning for one of the world’s most priceless treasures:the concept of “Home.” These two lines embrace the concept: “I’ll be Home for Christmas...if only in my dreams.” The emotional power of our concepts, expressed in words, songs, proverbs, aphorisms, reaches and reflects every aspect of human life...aspects such as Law, Economics, Politics, Athletics, Religion, Government, LAW: Several proverbs are acerbic. The Chinese, for example, have a saying “Going to law is losing a cow for the sake of a cat.” Add the Spanish proverb: “The Moors ruin them-selves at their marriages and the Christians in their lawsuits.” Shakespeare’s contribution: “A fish that hangs in the net, like a poor man’s right in the law, will hardly come out of it.” A French philosopher observed: “Both the rich and the poor have a right to sleep under the bridges.” ECONOMICS: The economists have inherited a slogan of great power: “Laissez-faire” which emerged as a tocsin in the French Revolution and which represents one of the great economic principles expressed by Adam Smith in his magnificent “The Wealth of Nations.” Laissez-faire: the power of the individual “to be free to do” in the business of his life without the stultifying encumbrances of Government. A deadly perspective of such freedom was described by Herbert Spencer in his formulation of the concept of “survival of the fittest” capitalism: “...the duty of the economically strong is to drive the economically weak into extinction.” (It is reported Darwin borrowed the phrase to use in his explanation of evolution.). |
POLITICS: This aspect of Government “Representing the People” has earned caustic criticism. Abraham Lincoln observed: “....if this government itself is ever utterly demoralized, it will come from this incessant wriggle and struggle for office, which is but a way to live without work.” A Roman proverb raises the question: “Quis custodet ipsos custodes?” (essentially, “Who’s guarding the guardians?”). ATHLETICS: “Citius, Altius, Fortius” (Faster, Higher, Stronger) is the official slogan of the Olympics and is recognized worldwide. Kaleidoscopic in nature, the Olympics have struggled with scintillant drama, spectator and athlete protection, prevention of harmful substance usage, impedi-tive site selection competition. RELIGION: One of Robert Browning’s poems. “Pippa Passes,” describes a little girl’s early morning passage through a village; she is skipping along, singing a happy song; the lines in her musical testimony declare: “God’s in His Heaven; All’s right with the world!” GOVERNMENT: “All men are created equal....endowed with certain unalienable rights....life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. These two definitive concepts are world-wide Beacons of Enlightenment in the function and conduct of Government ................. This commentary introduced the concept of worldwide, passionate concern for the place we call “Home.” Perhaps William Sydney Porter (O. Henry of short-story fame) expressed the penultimate insight when he said, on his death bed, “Somebody turn up the lights. I don’t want to go home in the dark.” |