It is pretty clear to most of us that the United States is suffering from a sever case of government bloat. This condition initially began innocently enough as a minor benign cerebral malfunction infecting the central morality gland. From there it mutated into a severely contagious demand for entitlement mandates which rapidly reached critically unhealthy levels. These untreated mandates caused internal national hemorrhaging, resulting in acute lethargy. A heightened malaise is expected, and ultimately, if no antidote is found, severe depression will permanently set in.  

It may seem ludicrous to go back a hundred years or so to unravel what happened to infect this country. To heal the sick, we have to identify not only the symptoms, but the cause of those symptoms which led to the disease. Our nation is very ill at the moment, possibly terminal. Most of us know the symptoms, big government, welfare, corruption, lack of morality - but we need to understand the cause as well so we can not only cure the patient, but keep it healthy for generations.

THE DEMARCATION POINT

William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson occupied the oval office the same day. Other than that, they had little in common. They viewed their stewardship of the United States Constitution in diametrically opposing manners. One respected the basis on which we were founded; the other wanted the United States to go in a new direction. Wilson wanted fundamental change in the way we operate government. Taft did not; he felt that we were founded properly.

The Taft philosophy:

"Next to the right of liberty, the right of property is the most important individual right guaranteed by the Constitution and the one which, united with that of personal liberty, has contributed more to the growth of civilization than any other institution established by the human race."
- William Howard Taft

"Socialism proposes no adequate substitute for the motive of enlightened selfishness that day-to-day is at the basis of all human labor and effort"
- President William Howard Taft.

The first quote needs no explanation. Property rights are protected by the constitution and they are the reason for our astounding success in our first hundred years. The assault on those rights is a big reason for our demise in the last hundred years.

The second quote is what we need to understand more completely. "Enlightened self-interest" is a phrase that refers to the concept of an individual self-interestedness and pride one has within himself and his family. He is proud to be able to support himself and his children. He does not wish to impose his needs or those of his family upon anyone else because he believes that want what he does, or should. The direct result of this is that his fellow man must not sacrifice for his own survival and so he has released a potential burden that may have otherwise been placed upon others had he not been self-interested. When others are not burdened by one's inability to provide for himself, they are free to pursue their own version of personal enlightened self-interest, whatever that may be for them, however they want to define it.

Enlightened self-interest is the motivational force which encourages us to go to work every day and strive for personal success. Without a selfish motive, we would have no motivation to work. It means we will want to work hard at school and our education or at our jobs because we believe it will result in a greater reward at some later point for ourselves and our families. The better we work, he more things we can acquire, the fewer others need to provide for us. It lessens our burden on others in society. Lessening our personal burden on society is a derivative but equally important result of enlightened self-interest.

We are not Hedonists; we aren't concerned with immediate pleasure for the sake of now. We are determined to do what will make us happy in the long-term.  Enlightened self-interest is "long-term selfishness". We don't get drunk on Tuesday night with an important unfinished report due Thursday. We know that in the long run, getting that report done will advance our education or career. It will be advantageous to ourselves, and make us feel much happier than getting drunk on Tuesday would. Personally, I don't enjoy hangovers nearly as much as I used to, so that is selfish reason enough for me not to get drunk on Tuesday night.

The self-interested enlightened don't do drugs to get high. We know drugs work, and that we would temporarily feel euphoric. We also know that long-term drug abuse is economic suicide. Short-term drug use often leads to long-term abuse, so we just don't do it. We know that there has not been an abundance of happy drug addicts.

Enlightened self-interested people volunteer time at food pantries and homeless shelters for no pay. Wait a minute you say, a contradiction. What's in charitable work for the volunteer? Plenty. We don't do this because we are saints, or because we are altruistic.  We enjoy helping others down on their luck - temporarily - because it makes us feel good about ourselves. We do it for us. Even when we are down, (sometimes especially then) it shows us that no matter what problems we may have, others have problems too. We are not alone. There is always someone with an even more critical situation - so we feel better in comparison. We know it helps them too, maybe the recipient of our largess will require less help in the future and so that makes our donation of time even more valuable to us in the long term.

If we didn't enjoy the feeling it provided, we wouldn't volunteer to help. Does this honest admission make us bad people? On the contrary - it makes us good people because we want this feeling and we are able to get it from this positive activity, and furthermore, we admit it. If you really think about it, there is no such thing as a purely altruistic motive. That's OK, we are human. We give up our own time and sometimes our money for ourselves because we choose to do so. Better to acquire this feeling from helping out a charity then say - oh for example, - serial killing.

Enlightened self-interest is a quality of the highest moral character. We admit we want to provide for ourselves, we don't want to be forced to have to sacrifice ourselves and our families for another, and most importantly, we don't expect anyone to sacrifice for us. If everyone felt as we do, if we all felt a primary obligation and an enlightened self-interest to ourselves and our families, and respected others right to do the same, we all would be far more successful and happy.

Chapter 35
The Well-intentioned Opposing View

"There is no higher religion than human service. To work for the common good is the greatest creed."
- President Woodrow Wilson

We just finished describing the feeling enlightened self-interested people receive from volunteer work. The "Volunteer" part if it is the critical aspect. Many in positions of power want to force others to "Volunteer" to be charitable either with time or money, and then reap the rewards themselves for their redistribution of wealth policies. When that is allowed to happen, it is nothing more than slavery. Worse yet, the slave drivers eagerly take all the credit for the "good deeds" they force others to provide.

Like Wilson, Karl Marx (Communist Manifesto, 1848) believed in working for the common good. Wilson, Marx, and a whole host of other common thinkers believed that everyone should do what they are able to do for society. Those in power would determine what was needed from each member and make the decisions as to how to distribute to those in need. This is the basis of Communism. It is slavery. "From each with ability, to those in need". - Karl Marx, Communist Manifsto, 1848.

When in America Wilson was praised for believing "To work for the common good is the greatest creed", well, you can see where he wanted to take this country. Is there any wonder the Income Tax Law Amendment and the Federal Reserve Act were both passed in his first year in office? - or why certain very wealthy and powerful men may have wanted him in there to control distribution?

Communism / Collectivism / Socialism

If it is so bad, why do so many people believe communism, collectivism and socialism is altruistic? Why do some workers want to me members of trade unions? We have to admit that the socialistic attitude works well within families. Most families are operated like a mini-socialist dictatorship. The father - or parent(s) are the heads of state, they own everything in the house. The kids are the subjects. The kids are loved, and cared for, while at the same time taught lessons about life and responsibility. They pull their share of the load and everyone benefits in the end. When one family member is sick, or perhaps permanently so, the others dutifully come to his aid and comfort with some additional contributions of family work to make up the shortfall.

It is honorable for a family to all work collectively. Those capable will get the firewood, some help in the kitchen, maybe some go to work outside the home, and everyone gets to eat and stay in the warm house. The ruling parents genuinely love their "subjects". In a family setting, they will nearly always do what they believe is right for the family, even if it means self sacrifice.

No matter how much we want a nation or a union to be like a family, it can't be. In a traditional family, the dictating father really does have the best interest of the family at heart because he genuinely loves them. He will actually will do what is best for the family based on his moral code. Family moral, and ethical codes and principles differ. When a child grows, he is free to begin and raise and love his own family with his own set rules and regulations derived form his childhood.

Unions protect even the poorest worker, so it does not benefit the a member to excel in his duties. He goes along and receives incremental increases in his pay (a share of the collective) virtually regardless of the quality of his work. This tends to lead to lower production since higher production is not in the self-interest of the worker. We have all seen the scene in a movie when a gung ho worker tries to do his best, and then one of the established union members takes him aside and advises him to relax, take it easy, he is making the others look bad. Production suffers, naturally.

Like unions, government can't expect productivity under these rules. By implementing redistribution of wealth strategies, they ultimately break up the "family". Unlike millions of traditional but diverse families, in government there can be only one single moral code and it must apply to all. It may be a large and complex "family" code, but citizens can't just implement their own parts, ignore others and everyone must abide by it.

The dictator-leader of the government family is not a doting father over children he genuinely loves, he is the ruler of people he doesn't even know. He usually has his own family, for whom he does sincerely care. The more power and influence the leader can obtain the better for his own personal family, which like the ordinary father working at a butcher shop is his primary and instinctive human responsibility and his personal self-interest. His self-interest motivates him to remain in power, not to provide what is best for his "family", but to provide the appearance of what is best to the many who will re-elect him. 

Government should be in place to ensure no one interferes with the family's decisions between themselves. We can't allow other families who may not have the same moral code as we do to sit idly by and just steal our crops after we've harvested them because their moral code allows that. We can't let them pilfer our stored winter firewood. Government is there to protect the family, not to expand or exploit it for the benefit of other families.

Leaders always want power; that is the way it has always been. They want more than they have. Like the old expression: "Give a leader an inch, and he thinks he's a ruler".

Unlike families, in government run collective societies, people will always do the least they can to get what they want - because it is in their self-interest to do so. If one works hard and the result of his labor is to have much of it seized for others use, it becomes in his personal self-interest to produce less rather than to be as productive as he can for the family.

This is not so in a family setting. Families love each other, sure sometimes they hate each other, but even then there is love. They want success and will work for it together. In government, we don't even know to whom our tax dollars are sent. We don't like or dislike them, because we don't know them, but we lean more towards dislike because they are taking what we've earned. We certainly don't love them. That is just the way it is. We can't love people we don't know. Not really. We can claim to, pretend to, even really try to, but we really can't actually do it.

To deny this reality is irrational. The liberal notion that everyone will work as hard as he can to reach his potential, willingly donate large portions of his production for the common good of all, and then accept as his share what a dictator determines is fair is a completely unreasonable notion for human beings to accept. It is a groundless unachievable utopia. It is an unreality which can not ever be accomplished with human, imperfect beings. To seek it as a nation is economic suicide. Only in a true family setting does this works, and even then some members will complain that their personal work load is unfair and too great as compared that of his brother.

As paternal head of a family, you can punish a member for choosing not to participate in the work load. You can withhold benefits, or rewards of some kind, maybe even banish them if it were too severe an infraction of rule and responsibility. You know your family well enough to understand exactly which member may be shirking his responsibility and which one may truly be unable to fulfill his responsibility and be truly in need of compassion and assistance. You make decisions because of genuine love of each member.  Sometimes you may be wrong, sometimes members will complain, but you learn and adjust quickly.

You know as a parent that you can expect more of the behavior which is rewarded. Punished behavior will generate less of that activity. Ignoring the offense of a non-productive member of the family by rewarding him about the same as the producing members, will likely result in other members quickly learning to work and contribute less. When the family code rewards slackers at the expense of the workers, even in a family, the workers soon become slackers too.

Behavior that is rewarded is likely to increase; behavior that is punished is more likely to be decreased. If family members feel their rewards are not great enough, or that others receive them for less work, they will attempt to work less. This family would likely be less prosperous for rewarding producers and non-producers equally because family production would almost certainly decline.

Idealists who promote collectivism believe that we are one big happy family. They begin with an erroneous premise, and so their conclusion is badly flawed. Collectivist societies must always sacrifice one group of people to benefit another and so inevitably they become less productive, less happy and ultimately fail. Those being sacrificed tend to offer increasingly less and less of their effort when they find the results are nearly the same.

No matter how much we want it to be so, it isn't. No matter how idyllic we believe such a system may be, it can't be. No matter how much we want to be one big happy national family, all for one and one for all mentality, the reality is that we are not one big family, and never can be.

We can be concerned about strangers, feel compassion for the poor, but we can't care about people we don't even know to the extent we are willing to sacrifice the well-being of a family we love. We are not saints, we are human beings. We can't put strangers on the same plateau as we do our families. We won't sacrifice our families for the sake of strangers. We can't make it so because some idealists wish it were. It can't even work because they impose regulations upon us to force it to be so. Like the mother grizley bear protecting her young will not allow intruders, no matter what the national park guideline states, a regulation can't make us sacrifice our own families life and happiness for that of others - not for long anyway.

Chapter 36
The Powerful Poor
 
The poor and their ability to dictate policy is a huge factor in this national decent into collectivism. A very large voting block of politically powerful rabble believe that sharing the wealth is good for country. Why? Simply because they believe it is good for themselves. Primarily they believe it because it is good for their personal family - personal self-interest. It is good for their family because they are the beneficiaries, not the victims of this policy. They become powerful through their vote. They vote to receive benefits. It makes it easier for their family to live, so they support it. Without this support, they would have a more difficult time getting food, fuel, heat, medical attention, clothing and shelter for their own families. They argue that they are just looking out for their families as we are. They support Marxism because it benefits themselves and their own children. They claim that we should all be one big happy family, share and share alike, - yet they gladly sacrifice our families for themselves, and contribute little or nothing in return.

Unlike the enlightened self-interested, this is simple, whats-in-it-for-me who-cares-about-you basic, greedy selfishness. These people have fallen into the irrational trap that government-sanctioned thievery is somehow defined differently, and so if it is the rightful law of the land, and consequently it is all right. If the government has the power to seize property, and more people vote for it than not, then, it is legal, moral, and ethical, not termed stealing - and best of all is enforceable by the power of the police at gunpoint if necessary.

They claim it is we who are the selfish ones because we don't want to pay for their needs. They accuse us of selfishness because we don't want to share. We can't accuse them of selfishness and thievery for wanting to take what we've earned, because they have already accused us. Like the fart in the elevator - the first to complain about the smell is exonerated from guilt.

Redefining "Theft"

This reasoning is intellectually dishonest and the worst kind of hypocrisy. Government recipients are allowed to vote for the very benefits provided to themselves for which they don't contribute. They justify their belief that it is all right because their family will be rewarded at the expense of another's who didn't need the reward as much. They forget the simplest of moral principles: Thou shall not steal - even if it is the law. The definition of stealing does not include the phrase - "…unless someone else has more stuff", or "unless it is done by government.", or "unless more people agree it is OK."

The powerful poor believe it is their right to demand others pay for their family, - because we are after all one big family. Like us, they too believe in the sanctity of their family, the protection and safety of it is tantamount in their minds. They just believe in a different method of achieving those goals. They judge acceptable acquiring as much benefit as they can for their family because it is their family, and they love them, - not only that, we should too. They don't seem to believe we have more of a right than they do to our property. They believe it is OK to force others to sacrifice and suffer for their benefit. Conservatives just don't believe that.

They are Marxists, we are capitalists.

Marxists in the White House

Power and influence are devastatingly corruptive forces when the objective is not true love of a legitimate family. The powerful poor support Marxism in the White House, because they don't want or need love, they just want unearned booty. Obama is not our first Marxist President, but he could be the most damaging if we don't stop it.

When rewards for work are not awarded specifically to the productive worker, but instead given to the unproductive, producers will soon produce less and less until there is not enough to provide for everyone. The economy and nation will ultimately collapse because of an unrealistic ideal.

Another quote from Wilson:
"Property as compared with humanity, must take second place, not first place."
- Woodrow Wilson

How's that for a concise property rights opinion piece - second place in this regard is better defined as "last place" or "no place" - a little different opinion that that of his predecessor, the conservative Taft. How can one argue that a piece of property is of greater value than a human being? This is the start of the slippery slope of our decline into collectivism. I suppose one would have to argue to which members of humanity are we referring? Those who own the property in question or those who do not?

To a collectivist, to a Marxist, to Wilson, FDR, Lyndon Johnson and Barack Obama, the sector of society who do not own the property are the important part of humanity and those of most concern. To a capitalist, the human beings who worked for and to produce and own the property are more important to society because without them, there would be no opportunity for the others to be even marginally productive and certainly no prospect of benefiting from any wealth sharing.

Teddy Roosevelt, was no Wilson either:

"When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer 'Present' or 'Not guilty'."
- Theodore Roosevelt

Teddy didn't trust the Senate as far as he could through a 2,000-page health care reform bill proposal. Had he or Taft won in 1912, we may still be free today. He believed power corrupts, because it does. He didn't pretend we could get honorable, incorruptible men in the Senate. He knew that was not possible.

Is there any wonder we started our skid towards socialism under the watch of Wilson? Taft would never have allowed it to begin. Roosevelt would have probably shot a Senator in his left brain with his sidearm. Between them they received about 60% of the vote. Unfortunately, Wilson became president because he beat each of them, not because most Americans preferred his socialist approach.
 
Had either Roosevelt or Taft run against Wilson alone, Wilson never would have been president, our income tax would not have been ratified, and the Federal Reserve Act would not have been passed. Designer Politics at its best. (See earlier chapters for more details here)

Taft was the sitting president and won the republican nomination again at the convention, but lost the 1912 election to Wilson on the left and Teddy Roosevelt on his near right. Wilson won the presidency with about 42% of the vote. In Wilson's first year the Evil Twins were born, the Income tax Law and the Federal Reserve Act.

The first hundred years we prided ourselves on individualism, courage, honesty, learning from failure. This resulted in success beyond our imagination. The second hundred years, (begun by Wilson and his ilk) brought us a dependent society with collectivism replacing individualism, higher taxes, regulation and loss of freedoms one by one and sometimes in bunches and also citizen slavery to the state. The third hundred years had better swing the pendulum back towards responsibility and capitalism again, or we will not have a fourth and be just a footnote in history, regarded as the nation that almost got it right - for a while.

We need to change our thought process. It was altered before, it must change again. We must go back to a time in thought where we believed individual responsibility was important to our success. A time when the rewards and consequences of our own personal behavior and inactions were what molded our lives, made us strong, and independent.

We need a check up from the neck up.

Safety net or Alternative Lifestyle?

Few would admit to favoring collectivism over capitalism, but many believe that an important role of government is to provide a permanent safety net in the event its citizens fail to be able to support themselves. Woodrow Wilson believed this, Karl Marx did too. Taft did not. Updating the argument to more recent politicians, Ronald Reagan did not believe it. Barack "Spread the wealth" Obama certainly does believe in Marxism as does Hilary "it takes a village to raise a child" Clinton. John McCain believes it too. Barack Obama may not be the first Marxist in the White House, but maybe we can enlighten enough people to ensure he is the last.

Some of those who don't consider government the answer to all our problems and "sharing wealth" a civic obligation are considered extreme right wing whackos today. If you've gotten this far, you are among them, as am I. Sarah Palin, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney believe in personal responsibility and capitalism. Sure there are more, but lets focus on the biggest names.

The argument of governmentally forced sharing is a moral question. The vast majority of well-meaning people today who view this as valid, do so primarily because they haven't thought it through and have been irrationally influenced by compassion. People believe that in the event of such calamities that befall us now and then, we should be able to turn to government for help, especially if the calamity was not our own fault.

Unfortunately, the removal personal responsibility results in concluding that almost nothing in our lives is our fault. If nothing is our wrong doing, than how can the consequence be our responsibility? Why would we be expected to solve any problem that wasn't our error? Whatever happens to us then, by default, is caused by society. For without responsibility, there can be no blame. Since bad things do happen to individuals, the blame must lie somewhere else. It must rest with society, more particularly, society's failure to provide adequately.

Idealists vs. Realists

It is hard to argue with the ideal and morality of caring for those who can't make it on their own. When we do, we are seen as heartless and cruel. We can't blame the homeless drunkard for living in the street - society didn't provide him a suitable job. We can't blame the single mother for not being able to provide for her child, it isn't her fault the father isn't providing, and the children must not suffer because it certainly isn't the child's fault. We can't even blame the terrorist for bombing our buildings, we must have done something wrong to anger him, otherwise he wouldn't have done that. We never blame the perpetrator(s), we seem to always want to blame the victim(s).

Those of us who stand on the rational principal of individual responsibility are regarded as evil and callous. We would allow children to starve, elders to die, homeless to freeze, and if one ever got lost and wandered into our yard, we would eat little lost cocker spaniel puppies for breakfast. When we argue that it is not a valid function of government to interfere in personal emergencies, no matter how dire the circumstance, we are just plain selfish and uncaring. We are the people who deserve no voice in the process because we have no heart.

Have we considered the possibility that many who demand government assistance in their lives do so because they won't have to personally assume the responsibility and provide it themselves? Do they want this support because it relieves them of the duty of providing for their own children? Isn't it more likely that they want this governmental aid so that they won't have to be accountable for themselves? Isn't that the epitome of the worst form of selfishness, a selfishness that requires the forced sacrifice of others to oneself?
 
Proper Role of Government

We argue that providing a safety net for individuals it is not a proper role of government. It is the obligation of the head of the family to prepare for personal emergencies, not that of the head of state. Other families and charities may choose to help out if they wish. It is not the role, nor is it the moral obligation of government to financially punish one citizen in favor of another by mere virtue of the other's need, perceived or legitimate, regardless of how dire the situation. It is just not their proper function.

Most disagree with this hard line approach of providing nothing to individuals. They think in certain situations it can't be avoided. It is also true that most disagree with the excessive policies and welfare programs in effect today that result in a dependent society from cradle to grave for a large portion of our citizenry is a big problem for all of us. So what do we do? Is there a middle ground on which to compromise?

Hard liners like us could accept the use of a safety net provided by government, if it were really just a safety net and not an alternative lifestyle choice. There are some real cases in which no assistance from family or charities is available. We could argue that God will provide in those cases, and if He doesn't it was His decision not to help for whatever reason.

We have to admit though that God is no guarantee. We don't expect anyone to believe in Him, and we don't want to force our belief on anyone. It is not a requirement to follow the logic. So if we must have a government required safety net, it has to be temporary.

If a safety net were seriously limited to only the most urgent brief need, those of us on the hard line could actually accept it. We wouldn't like it maybe, but we could accept a temporary net, by that we mean brief, transitory, short-term, an end scheduled, safety net, after which it is over. After all, we can't like everything our government does to us. We still believe that it is not the proper and valid role for a government to support one citizen at the expense of another. If it must be done, we could reluctantly agree that in certain situations, and for a temporary period those of us who are in short-term critical personal straights could fall into the net.

Problems arise when people notice the nice comfortable net sitting there. Many look for a reason to jump into the soft cushy net because it seems easier than the alternative of getting up for work every day and paying one's own bills. Why work if we don't have to? Once in the safety of the net, they tend to look for a reason to prolong the stay as long as they can. If we could figure out a way to limit that, we would be fine - but we have proven we have difficulty setting those kinds of limits. We just can't say "no". That is why hard liners just say no.

When too many people fall into any net, it will wear out. We will need a new, bigger, stronger net. When the safety net government provides becomes a way of life for many, we all lose. We have more and more people who want to get into it rather than out of it. Why not? The net is safe, it is secure; there is no heavy lifting in the net. There is not a lot of luxury in that net, but not a lot of work either, and the flip side is those netters have plenty of time to do what they want, as long as it doesn't cost a lot of money. Time is valuable, right?

If a safety net were to be eliminated, we could live with it. It can't be removed all at once, it is too heavy now. It must be a process. Those falling into it must have a way out of it too, or be kicked out. We still wouldn't agree that it is a valid role of government, but we could accept it and live with it within very strict limits. It is certainly superior to offering an alternative lifestyle of permanent dependency and expense burdening all of the productive among us. It won't be easy to change this, but we do offer a few ideas - keep reading the next chapter and see if you agree.

Christopher M. Barra
Escambia County, FL