Democracy in Tea Party America (What would Alexis de Tocqueville say about that America?)
To the "sick" France of 1835, Tocqueville counterposed healthy America, where attachment to the idea that people should pursue their self-interest was no less strong, but was different. The difference, he thought, was that Americans understood that they could not flourish unless their neighbours prospered as well. Thus, Americans pursued their self-interest, but in a way that was "rightly understood".
Tocqueville noted that "Americans are fond of explaining" [how] regard for themselves constantly prompts them to assist each other, and inclines them willingly to sacrifice a portion of their time and property to the general welfare". The French, by contrast, faced a future in which "it is difficult to foresee to what pitch of stupid excesses their egotism may lead them", and "into what disgrace and wretchedness they would plunge themselves, lest they should have to sacrifice something of their own well-being to the prosperity of their fellow-creatures".
... the Republicans gathered in Tampa ... to say that the America that Tocqueville saw no longer exists: Americans no longer believe that the wealth of the rich rests on the prosperity of the rest. Rather, the rich owe their wealth solely to their own luck and effort. The rich - and only the rich - "built" what they have. The willingness to sacrifice some part of their private interest to support the public interest damages the souls and portfolios of the 1 per cent.
Perhaps the moral and intellectual tide will be reversed, and America will remain exceptional for the reasons that Tocqueville identified two centuries ago. Otherwise, Tocqueville would surely say of Americans today what he said of the French then.
http://www.menafn.com/menafn/1093552809/Democracy-Tea-Party-America
Interesting the France (and the rest of the developed world) view their societies similarly to how de Tocqueville views 19th-century America while prevailing mindset of 21st-century Tea Party America has regressed.
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