Just Do It … Yourself
Too many of us have come to expect government to “do” for us — in fact — to do INSTEAD of us. Forget asking, “What can we do for our country (or our neighbors and fellow citizens)?” Many persons do not even bother to ask, “What can (and should) we do for ourselves (and for our families)?”
Across the board, there is a tendency to abdicate personal responsibility and to eschew self-sufficiency in favor of a culture of victimhood and a mindset of entitlement. The issue is not whether one is compensated commensurate with his contributions or whether in success one is rewarded relative to his risks, but whether one can demonstrate himself a sufficient “victim” so as to be “entitled” to take from others — i.e. to have government impose an insatiable “debt” upon some disfavored group or class for the benefit of an electoral majority or controlling voting bloc.
I do not buy into the argument that it is best for society (by and through government) to placate the masses. In continuous efforts to buy one’s peace, that relative peace is fleeting and the price for an ultimately unsatisfying peace is exorbitant. (To date, the price paid is in excess of $30 Trillion, and we are seemingly none the better for it.)
Temporary contentment gives rise to perpetual dissatisfaction. Charity gives way to extortion. The more that government does “for” the people, the less that people will do for themselves and the more that will be commanded of the state. In a Nanny State, the people are necessarily wards of the state. One can never be both ward and master.
It is only through overcoming personal challenges and collective struggles that we evolve. From the standpoint of economic evolution, the process is called “creative destruction.” Existing resources (e.g. institutional knowledge and collective wisdom) are repurposed and better utilized with the outcome being incremental increases in efficiency and effectiveness. In the absence of such evolution we, as individuals and a species, become stagnant and entrenched. Either we expend effort to grow and evolve or with increasing obsolescence we waste away into oblivion.
In ignorance, we relive difficult and unpleasant histories. New generations naively believe themselves to be uniquely enlightened and the source of original thought. However, they fail to recognize that all too often they are merely rebranding, recycling, and regurgitating failed philosophies from the past.
Those difficult histories and failed philosophies lead to calls for “revolution;” however, revolution requires that something entirely new and perhaps unproven be built from scratch upon the crumbling rubble and smoldering ashes of the past. In short order, would-be revolutionaries routinely come to resemble or exceed in villainy the petty tyrants, whom they were so eager to replace.
The hoped-for and much ballyhooed Utopia cannot exist in our imperfect reality. There will be no Phoenix rising from the ashes. Instead, the rubble will serve as a monument to what once was, and the smoldering ashes will provide a testament to all that was lost.
Governing should be hard. It should be uncomfortable, because when you peel away the pleasing platitudes and incessant moralizing, politics is a conscious and deliberate effort to impose one’s self-serving will upon another individual or group. It represents the power to force another to do one’s bidding or the privilege to take from others by force (of law) that which the taker believes himself entitled.
Where the people are weak and subservient, they exist in serfdom, and the world comes to belong to the most aggressive and malicious among us. As power trends toward absolute, so does the certainty of corruption, and with corruption come abuse, oppression, and tyranny.
Where the takers constitute an electoral majority, they act with a perverse moral certitude, which they mistakenly believe can be derived solely from their number. However, there is nothing about the makeup of a numerical majority, which implies a greater than average intelligence, wisdom, or sense of justice. There is no guarantee that the proposed actions of such a majority are in the (long-term) best interests of that majority (or the collective as a whole), and the goals and objectives are almost certainly adverse to a disfavored minority.
Persons and peoples SHOULD be willing to fight for what is theirs. They SHOULD fight for independence and freedom. Government should NOT be empowered to pick winners and losers among the populace. Parties SHOULD come together for their MUTUAL benefit and to advance their COMMON interests.
Successful cooperative effort requires mutualities of commitment, contribution, and benefit. Where those mutualities exist, persons will voluntarily come together to advance their common interests. The heavy hand of the state is likely superfluous or even counterproductive. However, in the absence of those mutualities no amount of government interference or coercion is likely to make compelled actions, relationships, and transactions productive.
So long as government is empowered to compel participation in disadvantageous relationships and to engage in forced takings in the absence of bilateral transactions, the results are involuntary servitude and institutional theft. In the absence of individual liberty and personal freedom, there is no way to make government more noble or moral.
