Boris Johnson’s landslide victory endorses the sovereignty of nation-states and resists the multilateral ideals of regional governance or even one-world government.  Is it not repugnant to every liberty loving individual to think, as the globalists do, that the nation-state idea of governance has run its course?  What was once a mere fringe idea of world governance held by the World Federalists in the 1940s has become a mantra for many in our own time. 

Although the original Universal Declaration of Rights for the founding of the United Nations expressed a desire for world cooperation, and, more importantly, to promote “rights” throughout the world, the World Federalists, a group independent of the UN, saw the UN as an opportunity to move away from national self-governance towards world government, with a unified one world military and one world taxation.  Over the decades, the UN has moved away from the rights-based conceptual basis of its founding documents, and moved towards the world government ideal found in the UN’s Agenda 21 and Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development.  In this latter document with 91 sections, the words “sustainable development” and “[meeting] needs” are repeated frequently whereas the word “rights” is used only once in the entire document.  The purpose of government to “meet needs” clearly resonates with the Marxist axiom, “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”  Thus Agenda 2030, despite its dense, repetitive, jargon-laden passages, can be said to resonate with the Marxist stateless, universal vision. 

To the Marxists as well as to the followers of the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau before them, the nation-state is pitifully self-interested and the height of bourgeois hypocrisy.  For them, not only the USA, but all nation-states are operating under the outmoded nation-state construct.  Under this concept that has been gradually defining and refining itself since Charlemagne’s rule in the early 9^th century, there are national identities.  Those identities are identifiable groups who desire to rule themselves separately or in concert with other identifiable groups, and the good of all in any particular nation-state (or all nation states) is best advanced by each nation-state making the most of its own cultural assets, philosophical convictions, governmental institutions, and economic strategies. 

For the Marxist/globalist ideologues, ideals of government are driven by trans-national, class-driven economics.  Nature, they say, is being destroyed by man’s efforts to exploit the environment for wealth and personal gratification.  Just as whaling could not be sustained permanently, nature as a whole cannot be sustained as though it were an infinite resource.  Thus, economic expansion in the present nation-state, private property mode is unsustainable. For example, the vast whaling industry put itself out of business by destroying the population of whales.  In like manner, our present-day expansion is ultimately self-destructive.  The destructive implications of capitalism for nature as well as for the working classes requires a massive reorganization of world resources. 

Yet we have alternative energy sources to light our lamps.  Despite the disappearance of the bison, we continue to enjoy protein-packed meat products and unprecedented numbers of people are now being fed nutritional foods on a regular basis. In the 1970s this writer definitely saw interviews of more than one petroleum “expert” who predicted by the end of the 1980s there would be a world energy crisis because of the depletion of the world’s petroleum resources. Yet, that depletion did not occur.  In fact, with fracking and new drilling technologies, new petroleum sources are on board and thriving.  Hope, faith, love, hard work, sound investment, non-ideological leaders, and proven experience (not hypothetical postulates) must drive us forward towards the future as we face the vicissitudes of life.

Yet, the naysayers persist.  They say, “What better way to meet this so-called challenge than to marshal our collective will via collective policies and collective financing than to uphold collective action by mobilizing the resources of many countries and basing that mobilization on science so-called.”  Science, they claim, is based on high probabilities and there is a high probability that the air, water, and earth are going to hell in a handbasket. According to them, only a radical reassessment of free markets, individual liberty, the money system, and the relation of the state to other states as well as to individuals offers any promise. We must sacrifice more of our liberty and wealth if we are to survive.

Recently, a unique book, The Anglo-American Conception of the Rule of Law by Nadia E. Nedzel and Nicholas Capaldi, has made a great contribution to our understanding of the meaning of the term “rule of law,” contrasting that understanding of law with “rule through law.”  Just a shift in a preposition can make a difference that is significant.  In essence, rule through law confers supposed benefits on society by enforcing certain practices and policies which are assumed to be beneficial to all.  Thus the law interprets and enforces what Jean-Jacques Rousseau called the General Will.  The people speak -- forcefully -- to all members of society to achieve a common, pre-determined goal.  The rule of law however is not mainly about implementing answers, but about implementing the liberties of the individuals in that society, their personal autonomy and right to own, produce, and negotiate regarding their property. 

In essence, this is a natural rights view that is promoted since the 17^th century.  John Locke states, “The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom… where there is no law, there is no freedom.  For liberty is to be free from restraint and violence from others… and therein not to be subject to the arbitrary will of another, but freely follow his own.” (Locke, Second Treatise, Book VI §57)

It is worth noting that Locke’s analysis of freedom is based on his close reading of Holy Scripture and the creation account of Genesis.  While one may disagree with his understanding of Scripture, nonetheless his desire to claim intimacy with the Bible suggests that any concept of freedom or law must, at a deep level, connect with Almighty God and His providential plan for humankind if it hopes to succeed. Although the use of reason and research is high on Locke’s list of priorities since he is a leading empiricist thinker (he was himself a physician), he succeeds in remembering always that humans are created in the image of God and thus not mere implementers of an ideological or even scientific methodology (which in its bastardized form can be called “scientism”).  The rule of law is thus not only wholly reasonable but in complete sync with God’s purpose in creation.  

Prime Minister Johnson, while giving a half-nod to the climate change fanatics (he expressed support by his newly-elected government for “carbon neutral policies”), he is content to lead the British people towards the independence and nation-state values which uphold British rights.    His election is more than a mere political victory. Rather, it is a victory for treasured liberty through the rule of law that we, as well as the Brits, hold more dear than life itself.

E. Jeffrey Ludwig teaches the history of philosophy, topic in ethics, and American philosophy.