Evil acts are given an aura of moral legitimacy by
noble-sounding socialistic expressions, such as spreading the wealth, income
redistribution, caring for the less fortunate, and the will of the majority.
Let's have a thought experiment to consider just how much Americans sanction
evil.
Imagine there are several elderly widows in your
neighborhood. They have neither the strength to mow their lawns, clean their
windows and perform other household tasks nor the financial means to hire
someone to help them. Here's a question that I'm almost afraid to ask: Would
you support a government mandate that forces you or one of your neighbors to
mow these elderly widows' lawns, clean their windows and perform other
household tasks? Moreover, if the person so ordered failed to obey the
government mandate, would you approve of some sort of sanction, such as fines,
property confiscation or imprisonment? I'm hoping, and I believe, that most of
my fellow Americans would condemn such a mandate. They'd agree that it would be
a form of slavery — namely, the forcible use of one person to serve the
purposes of another.
Would there be the same condemnation if, instead of forcing
you or your neighbor to actually perform weekly household tasks for the elderly
widows, the government forced you or your neighbor to give one of the widows
$50 of your weekly earnings? That way, she could hire someone to mow her lawn
or clean her windows. Would such a mandate differ from one under which you are
forced to actually perform the household task? I'd answer that there is little
difference between the two mandates except the mechanism for the servitude. In
either case, one person is being forcibly used to serve the purposes of
another.
I'm guessing that most Americans would want to help these
elderly ladies in need but they'd find anything that openly smacks of servitude
or slavery deeply offensive. They might have a clearer conscience if all the
neighbors were forced (taxed) to put money into a government pot. A government
agency would then send the widows $50 to hire someone to mow their lawns and
perform other household tasks. This collective mechanism makes the particular
victim invisible, but it doesn't change the fact that a person is being
forcibly used to serve the purposes of others. Putting the money into a
government pot simply conceals an act that would otherwise be deemed morally
depraved.
This is why socialism is evil. It employs evil means,
confiscation and intimidation, to accomplish what are often seen as noble goals
— namely, helping one's fellow man. Helping one's fellow man in need by
reaching into one's own pockets to do so is laudable and praiseworthy. Helping
one's fellow man through coercion and reaching into another's pockets is evil
and worthy of condemnation. Tragically, most teachings, from the church on
down, support government use of one person to serve the purposes of another;
the advocates cringe from calling it such and prefer to call it charity or
duty.
Some might argue that we are a democracy, in which the
majority rules. But does a majority consensus make moral acts that would
otherwise be deemed immoral? In other words, if the neighbors got a majority
vote to force one of their number — under pain of punishment — to perform
household tasks for the elderly widows, would that make it moral?
The bottom line is that we've betrayed much of the moral
vision of our Founding Fathers. In 1794, when Congress appropriated $15,000 for
relief of French refugees who had fled from insurrection in San Domingo to Baltimore and Philadelphia, James Madison rose on
the floor of the House of Representatives to object, saying, "I cannot
undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a
right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their
constituents." Tragically, today's Americans — Democrat or Republican,
liberal or conservative — would hold such a position in contempt and run a
politician like Madison out of town on a rail.
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Bloggers Note: The
USA is NOT a Democracy, but a Republic.
If we continue to act a democracy our country is doomed. Our Founders knew this, too bad we do not.
