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My cousins told her how difficult it was to find a job or start their own businesses without paying bribes. Activists told us about being jailed for expressing their opposition to government policies. Even within my own family, Michelle saw how suffocating the demands of family ties and tribal loyalties could be, with distant cousins constantly asking for favors, uncles and aunts showing up unannounced. On the flight back to Chicago, Michelle admitted she was looking forward to getting home. "I never realized just how American I was," she said. She hadn't realized just how free she was-or how much she cherished that freedom.
我同輩的親戚告訴她，如果不行賄，找份工作或者自己做生意將十分困難。活動家告訴我們，由于表達對政府政策的反對，他們被關(guān)進大牢。甚至在我們的家族內(nèi)部，米歇爾也看到家族紐帶和部族忠誠的需求是多么令人窒息，同輩親戚不時地請求幫助，父輩親戚們不期而至。回芝加哥的飛機上，米歇爾承認她盼著回家。“我從未意識到我有多美國化”她說。她從未意識到她有多么自由一或者她是多么珍愛那份自由。
At its most elemental level, we understand our liberty in negative sense. As a general rule we believe in the right to be left alone, and are suspicious of those-whether Big Brother or nosy neighbors-who want to meddle in our business. But we understand our liberty in a more positive sense as well, in the idea of opportunity and the subsidiary values that help realize opportunity all those homespun virtues that Benjamin Franklin first popularized in Poor Richard's Almanack and that have continued to inspire our allegiance through successive generations. The values of self-reliance and self-improvement and risk-taking. The values of drive, discipline, temperance, and hard work. The values of thrift and personal responsibility.
我們從反面理解了我們最起碼的自由權(quán)。我們通常相信這項權(quán)利不受干擾，懷疑那些干預(yù)我們事情的人，不管是老大哥還是吵鬧的鄰居。但是我們也從正面理解我們的自由權(quán)，體現(xiàn)在機會的理念和有助于實現(xiàn)機會的附屬價值觀中——所有那些本杰明·富蘭克林在《窮理查年鑒》中第一次普及，一輩一輩持續(xù)激勵我們忠誠的樸素美德，自力更生、自我修養(yǎng)和承擔(dān)風(fēng)險的價值觀，奮發(fā)圖強、嚴(yán)于律己、自我克制和努力工作的價值觀，節(jié)儉和承擔(dān)責(zé)任的價值觀。
These values are rooted in a basic optimism about life and a faith in free will-a confidence that through pluck and sweat and smarts, each of us can rise above the circumstances of our birth. But these values also express a broader confidence that so long as individual men and women are free to pursue their own interests, society as a whole will prosper. Our system of self-government and our free-market economy depend on the majority of individual Americans adhering to these values. The legitimacy of our government and our economy depend on the degree to which these values are rewarded, which is why the values of equal opportunity and nondiscrimination complement rather than impinge on our liberty.
些價值觀植根于一種對生活的基本樂觀態(tài)度和對自由意志的信念一一種這樣的信心：通過勇氣、汗水和智慧，我們每個人都可以不受命運的限制。但是這些價值觀同樣表達了一種更寬廣的信心：只要每個男人和女人自由地追求自己的利益，整個社會就會欣欣向榮。我們的民主政治制度和自由市場經(jīng)濟的繁榮取決于國內(nèi)占大多數(shù)的擁護這些價值觀的美國人。我們政府和經(jīng)濟的合法性取決于這些價值觀的實踐程度，這就能夠解釋為什么機會均等和非歧視的價值觀能夠得到互補，而不是侵犯我們的自由權(quán)利。
If we Americans are individualistic at heart, if we instinctively chafe against a past of tribal allegiances, traditions, customs, and castes, it would be mistake to assume that this is all we are.
如果我們美國人本質(zhì)上是自由主義的，如果我們天生不滿部族忠誠、傳統(tǒng)、習(xí)俗和種姓制度的歷史，那么認為這就是我們的全部將是個錯誤。
