“I do not choose to be a common man. It is my right to be uncommon—if I can. I seek opportunity—not security. I do not wish to be a kept citizen, humbled and dulled by having the state look after me. I want to take the calculated risk; to dream and to build, to fail and to succeed. I refuse to barter incentive for a dole. I prefer the challenges of life to the guaranteed existence; the thrill of fulfillment to the stale calm of utopia. I will not trade freedom for beneficence nor my dignity for a handout. I will never cower before any master nor bend to any threat. It is my heritage to stand erect, proud and unafraid; to think and act for myself, enjoy the benefit of my creations, and to face the world boldly and say, this I have done. All this is what it means to be an American.”
So what sort of a character do you suppose penned the above?
He sought “opportunity – not security.” A free-market ideologue for sure.
He would never be “humbled or dulled” by having the state look after him. He was fiercely opposed to welfare statism.
He wanted to take risks, “to dream and to build, to fail and to succeed.” He preferred “the challenges of life to the guaranteed existence.” He was adamantly opposed to bailouts.
He’d “not trade freedom for beneficence” nor his “dignity for a handout.” He was an advocate for limited government.
He took full responsibility for his successes and his failures – he would “think and act for himself, enjoy the benefit of his creations, “and face the world boldly and say, this I have done.”
This gentleman had to have been a fiercely independent entrepreneur. Surely a staunch conservative, wouldn’t you agree?
Today’s Republican voter can only pray that his candidate will somehow wake up, and find such a voice. To passionately, and unashamedly, trumpet the values, the character, espoused in this poem – this poem titled “My Creed” by Dean Alfange, head of the American Labor Party during the 1930s, and co-founder of the Liberal Party of New York in 1944.
If today’s American citizen (let alone candidate), whether pledging allegiance to the left or right, could only adopt the principles of yesterday’s “liberal”, we might, at last, put an end to crony corporate welfare, reform our social welfare system, and show the world, once again, what it means to be a free, strong and prosperous nation.