Posted by
mgraves on Friday, July 03, 2009 5:40:52 PM
The left is fond of invoking the dictum--"Those who would surrender liberty to achieve a temporary security deserve neither"--especially in terms of the USA PATRIOT Act's alleged destruction of our liberty. What, however, of those who would surrender their liberty for a temporary financial security?
The social safety net of the United States is paid for by limiting one's right to do what one pleases with the fruits of one's labors. Traditionally, the safety net was paid for by charity--tithes, zakat, and the like. The idea of government as a charity is not a new idea--and it has become considerably more real this year as the Administration cut the amount of charitable deductions that can deducted from one's tax liability, thereby discouraging charitable giving and encouraging "Big Brother" (the federal government) to step into the breach.
This is a surrender of a right in order to achieve an end, that though noble, to some extent, is not an end competently served by the government. Charity, to be effective, must treat people as individuals: to minister to the needs of each. Government, on the other hand, can only treat people as members of a group. A large bureaucracy is not capable of meeting individual needs. A government of laws must treat each person equally under the law; ergo, generalized treatment, not the individualized treatment necessary for effective charity. Such ineffective charity serves no purpose but the purely selfish purpose of making the giver feel good about himself. (The preceding does not address the obvious Constitutional problems with a "charitable" government).
It is even worse when those who feel good about themselves are spending others' money for that purpose (Congress).
The Nanny state is a soft despotism. It limits the individual's rights in order to serve the purpose of making each person a lifelong child, incapable of deciding to do right or wrong--as though the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil could be unbitten. Velvet gloved despotism may be soft--and even comfortable--yet it is still despotism.
The consequences of such despotism are a people unwilling and unable to defend themselves against an intellectually stronger people. As C.S. Lewis puts it in "The Pilgrim's Regress": "When the cruels meet the clevers, there will not be the ghost of a fight". This does not even take into account the legal ramifications: if we are all children, we ought not be punished harshly because we are not wholly responsible. We ought to be treated (a theory of corrections which was demonstrated false during the 1960s and 1970s ). What is left is a nation unable to defend itself from either internal, or external enemies.