Critical Analysis of American Liberalism

Recent years， there are more and more shooting accidents happened in American. According to American shooting accident， the article analyses different aspects of liberalism and expound writer’s own opinion of liberalism.

1.The origin and information of American liberalism

With its highest international standing status and super power， America is having a great effect on the present world than any other countries. As an important American ideology， liberalism also relates too much to American policies and diplomacy. People usually connect the developing power of a country with its soft cultural environment like thoughts and creeds. However， the liberalism thought in America is variable. It has deep complexity in aspects of cultural origin， social foundation and historical development which cannot be neglected. Although America is the most influential country in our world， is its traditional or modern thoughts or creeds are completely correct and only bringing benefits to this country？

The source American liberalism thought came from Europe and the earliest liberalism of Europe can be found in some old philosophical thoughts in renaissance such as humanism， religious reform and man’s natural rights in eighteenth century. Scholar Hebrew said that once： “The individuality of everyone receives more attention from other people. That’s a type of liberating from the shelter of groups.” （Ma Qiang， 2007， p.1） But the most influential development process was from the end of eighteenth century to the middle of nineteenth century： the colonial period. Colonists from the United Kingdom brought liberalism thought to the North America. The colonial period was the heyday of classical liberalism as well.

The classical liberalism main emphasizes the following points：

Government may not intervene people’s life， including people’s normal life and economic affairs.

Individual freedom and rights shouldn’t be infringed.

Advocate individualism and free enterprise. In the aspect of economy， this was reflected on the economic individualism.

Believe the religion’s and family’s functions and effects on society.

Believe the importance and necessity of education （Li Xiang Ma Jing， 2015， p.1）

Before I give the further discussion， I want to introduce a new concept first： conservatism. It sounds like the opposite side of liberalism. The history of American political thought consists of the changing development and influences of liberalism and conservatism. There are many kinds of explanation of the relationship between modern liberalism and modern conservatism. According to the website article “The America liberalism and conservatism”， the writers think the conservatism means the traditional liberalism （or classical liberalism） thought which had reflected in the content of American constitution in America founding era. In other words， it is the thought that appears for many times to hope America should never abandon traditional liberalism. The primary thoughts and hopes of modern conservatism and traditional liberalism are almost the same things. It is different from the normal concept of liberalism in Europe： the modern conservatism of America asserts the most previous part of liberalism in western political thoughts （Peng Chunyanet al. 1999， p.1）. For modern liberalism， it stands for a kind of liberty includes “socialism” after President Roosevelt presented the Roosevelt’s New Deal. The biggest difference of these two liberalisms is that the traditional liberalism thinks that government （especial the federal government） must obey the limits of American constitution and shouldn’t intervene the society and economic affairs in aspects of people， states and local limits but the modern liberalism advocates that government should intervene society and economic affairs.

Combing all above information， we can see that the modern liberalism and modern conservatism are both the branches of classical liberalism. In some other special points of view， the modern conservatism doesn’t exist at all.

For now， liberalism is always the one of the mainstream thoughts of America and having effects on American economy， politics， culture and even the general mood of society.

According to the article： “Theory journal of American liberalism”， the forming reasons of American liberalism includes three points： Firstly， people yearn for liberty by their light of nature. To resist the powerful European government， American looked for a system to save their rights from damages. Secondly， the lack of a kind of religious value in American history. Finally， the separation of three powers and federal system provide condition to the development of liberty （Li Xiang Ma Jing， 2015， p.1）.

2.Case analysis

In American history， all American have an access to hold a gun. It is also considered as one of the most important individual rights. American are the only people who can hold guns in their own country all over the world. There was a shooting accident happened in Las Vegas， Oct.1st 2017. A sixty- four years old white people from 32 floors shot the other people in the square who were attending a concert and then he killed himself by a bullet. This shooting accident caused 59 people’s death and 527 people injured. After this accident， all America flied a flag at half-mast to grieve over people’s death. There were also so many other shooting accidents happened in American history.

Now these accidents make us think about that： should America keep assessing people to hold guns or stop this policy？ What are the deep reasons of these shooting accidents happened？

In the book American gun history which was published in 1975， it said that “Guns are the symbolize of order and the totem of conservatism”. Why the book talked about conservatism？ The reason why American attach importance of gun is to resist violence. In the War of Independence， gun is the last thing they can use to against despotic rule and guard their own rights so that the second American amendment to the constitution stipulates that the right of the people to keep and bear Arms not to be infringed. At that time， the drafter of American constitution Jefferson thought that people only have the right to hold gun， they have the rights to exist and pursue liberty. American constitution stipulated that any content of constitution can be changed according to the situation except this one. As we can see that people’s thoughts were conform to the classical liberalism. That’s undoubted and easy to understand. But time pasts fast. In the recent decades， America has already gotten rid of government violence and the actual effect of people holding guns have changed： most of time the effect of guns is protecting people themselves and their families’ life security. With the shooting accidents happened one by one， American government had also done something to stop. For example， although the American constitution is the base line of American， it is difficult to changed itself or the people’ attitudes to the constitution. One year after the New Deal came to the world， America had enacted many laws to control people holding guns and some people even thought that America should forbid the right of holding guns. These kind of forbidding thought were influenced or stood for a new thought. That’s modern liberalism thought. In 1933， the New Deal formed in America. The forming process and the content were influenced by the modern liberalism and stood for modern liberalism. The thought of liberalism was changed so that the policy was changed. However， the principle of people holding guns was stipulated by the America constitution and cannot be abolished comprehensively. These conservative people thought the guns are the real things they can use to protect themselves and rights but forget what caused these terrible accidents. It was just like a vicious circle in their mind. If the government forbids their right of holding guns and confiscates their guns， the last base line of their life security is gone and they will feel they are all in danger. That must cause lots of violence and the society will become chaotic. The whole America maybe will be caught in unprecedented danger. Because of this hypothesis， these prohibitions didn’t work out too much.

As Chen Zaitian （2013） said in his article about American gun problem， another important reason of America cannot forbid people’s right of holding guns is that there are many associations which have very strong ability and power are opposed to the American congress （p.1）. For example， the National Association for Gun Right is a powerful organization in America and it has lots of branches all over the country. On the one hand， it exerts a lot of pressure to the American congress though its large funds. On the other hand， it has a big lobby and advocates people that they should hold their guns and against the government. In 2013， focus on the problem of a series of gun controlling draft resolutions， American congress argued for a long time about the problems such as forbidding to sell guns to the people who had criminal record or mental diseases， forbidding guns in schools， forbidding to sell the guns which have same features with military semi-automatic rifles and so on. The interferential effects from the National Association for Gun Right is also the main reason of the guns controlling draft failure which was presented by Obama in Apr. 4th 2013 and voted down by senate.

In sum， most of the people who against gun right agree with the classical liberalism thought. In other words， they are too conservative and influenced by the conservatism. Comparing with these conservative American， the people who want to forbid guns believe the modern liberalism thought. They are influenced by the New Deal and their thoughts are with a view of the present condition. As we can see， the liberalism thought is changing： from classical liberalism to the modern liberalism. Some people change their mind and become the modern liberalists. Others people don’t change their mind and become the modern conservatism. Different people have different thoughts about liberalism and right of people holding guns. That’s a normal sense of people and civilization.

3.Personal ideas

In my opinion， I think modern liberalism is better than classical liberalism and America should forbid people holding guns. Firstly， time is passing and era is changing. We cannot always use some old and outdated sights to look at present world. America is not the weak and chaotic country which was ruled by England anymore and has been among the top country of development degree. People and country are changing so that the policy should change with them. I never think American constitution is incorrect but some contents of it are not suitable with this era we live now. I understand the behaviors and thoughts of people who against forbidding guns. They don’t want the past terrible things to happen again but they haven’t realized the real reality. People don’t need guns to protect themselves anymore in nowadays. Until now， there are too many shooting accidents happened in America. Even though people have guns， there are still chaos and lots of people lost their life in America. I think that’s not liberty but another horrible way to take people’s liberty away because people are dying. They even don’t have right to live. Before we stop these things happening， how can we talk about their liberty？ American government should already forbid people holding guns.

References：

[1]Ma Qiang.Simple analysis of American liberalism politic thoughts [J].Legal System and Society，2007，3：p.1.

[2]Li XiangMa Jing.Simple analysis of American liberalism[J].He Bei province：He Bei Province Business Magazine，2015，9.

[3]Peng Chunyan，et al.The America liberalism and conservatism[J].The Liberation Army Foreign Language Journal，1999，4：p.1.

[4]Chen Zaitian.Why America can’t control guns[J].Global People， 2013：p.1.

[5]Yang Siyi.Liberty and crisis：the American culture behind the shooting accident in Las Vegas[J].2018，1：p.2.

【作者簡介】李雨潼，北京師范大學-香港浸會大學聯合國際學院。