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Dec. 7, 2004 There is a segment of our population that, for whatever reason, believes fervently that "the government" should be supreme in all things-- including, if necessary, the guarantee that every American (including THEM, of course) will be "taken care of" BY the government. It doesn't matter to these people that, historically, governments are pretty poor--not to mention inefficient--at "taking care of" their citizens. In the Soviet Union, they established a command economy--one in which some government bureaucrat decided how much bread, meat, beets would be required in the coming year, or how many washing machines, cars or bricks would be necessary and production responded according to those estimates. Unfortunately for the Soviet citizens, such "estimates" were usually completely wrong and those government mandates resulted in people waiting in line for 3 hours just for the opportunity to buy a semi-stale loaf of bread or a piece of pork--if the demand didn't outstrip the supply. In Canada, the government established a State- run medical care system instead of allowing the marketplace to determine what care would be necessary. The result was 6-month waits for elective surgeries, crowded waiting rooms, inefficient distribution of medical care and Canadians responded by going across the border into the U.S. for much of their care--even routine exams on the part of those lucky enough to be living in one of the cities near the border. Admittedly, government controls have kept the cost of medicines low for the individual consumer to the point where some Americans are buying their medicines across the border, but the price for a lot of medicines is being subsidized by the government which pays manufactures out of tax revenues for the differences. The point is, the nanny State doesn't work very well and those who long for the "security" of knowing that some faceless bureacracy will make sure that they are fed, clothed, housed, schooled, medicated and eventually buried are doomed to disappointment. Oddly, much of the rhetoric about the establishment of the nanny State comes from people who have neither a need nor a desire to be "taken care of"--the Hollywood, media and academic elites, for example. For some reason, these wealthy, somewhat idle rich tend to promote "caring" for the less fortunate (though seldom with their own resources), perhaps out of a vague sense of guilt that they are "doing well" and so many others are not. Also, especially in the case of the Hollywood elitists, they make a show of "caring" for the less fortunate because of perfectly legitimate emotional responses to the stories of the sick or the poor to which they're occasionally exposed. Hollywood is, after all, almost entirely based on its stars being able to convincingly simulate emotions of one sort or another, so emotion plays a big part in their everyday experience. Emotions are all well and good, and necessary, of course, but they are NOT (or shouldn't be) the basis for making rational decisions. Those who are able to set aside emotion and make decisions based on logic and fact alone are seen by these people as "uncaring" or "unfeeling" and therefore people deserving of contempt. The left measures its own compassion by how many people it has "helped"--how many are receiving public assistance, for example. Those of us on the right measure compassion based on how many we have helped extricate themselves from dependency on public assistance--which is, a far better definition of "compassion" in my opinion. Public assistance--"welfare" if you prefer--is a pretty demeaning experience, yet there are tens of thousands of people for whom it's virtually a way of life--sometimes for generations. I grew up in a household wherein, no matter HOW poor we were, the LAST thing my parents would have done would be go to "the government" for help. My father, a WW II veteran, wouldn't accept any of his veterans' benefits from the government because he'd spent the entire war flying in a PBY up and down the East Coast on sub-hunter patrols and had never had a shot fired at him in anger. In his opinion, veterans' benefits should be reserved to actual COMBAT veterans--not those who remained safely at home. I was never able to convince him that his duty out of Jacksonville was JUST as essential to the war effort as the guy shooting on the front lines in the Pacific or in France, but he couldn't see it that way and died last year without ever taking advantage of the assistance to which he was legally entitled. To my family, going to the government for "help" would have been anathema. At least partly, that attitude of being "entitled" to government help stems from the misplaced idea that somehow, because they are citizens of a wealthy nation, they are entitled to be wealthy themselves. There's a case of murder in NYC some years back in which a young black man tried to justify the murder of a theft victim because, "The guy wouldn't give me the money and I NEEDED it more than he did." Unfortunately, that's the sort of attitude that's all too common--especially in the inner cities. Kids aren't being taught that the Declaration of Independence says that we are endowed with the right to PURSUE happiness--not that we are entitled to BE happy. The pursuit of happiness is up to the individual, but cannot be pursued at someone else's expense. In other words, no man or woman is entitled to a share of the American dream--they are enjoined and encouraged to try to get it for themselves...by legal means, of course. The income tax system in America, the way it's currently constituted, meets the exact definition of robbery--"The taking of another's property by force or the threat of force and converting it to one's own use or to the use of another, not the owner." Until we get our kids properly educated in what America was originally intended to be, we'll be faced with the same, perversion of the pursuit of the American dream--that merely being citizens entitles us to a share OF that dream-- instead of being entitled to pursue that dream by our own efforts, intellect, talents, abilities and ambitions. ------------ About the author: David A. Jared is a news junkie, semi-retired and an avid golfer who's been writing his first book, "4000 years of chopsticks" for the last 20 years. Email: Pappadave@sbcglobal.net ------------- All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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