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Marsal to lead team of over 600 at Lehman
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Paulson defends handling of U.S. financial crisis
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Dell profit tops Street view, shares rise
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Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac suspend some foreclosures
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two biggest U.S. home loan finance companies, on Thursday said they would suspend foreclosures of occupied homes until early 2009,...
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Written by Stephen Palmer
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Saturday, 01 August 2009 00:00 |
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The Price We Pay For Civilization
On several occasions I've heard people argue in favor of burdensome taxes, government-forced wealth redistribution, and other inappropriate and unwise programs by rationalizing, "That's just the price you pay for civilization."
First of all, I'm not entirely convinced of our claim to civilization, considering statistics such as the following: four out of ten children are born out of wedlock; in the year 2001 one out of every 32 adults in America was either in jail or prison or on parole or probation; our national debt stands at almost $9.5 trillion and rises $1.66 billion per day; teen suicide is the third leading cause of death for individuals between the ages of fifteen and twenty-four; in 2006 $13.33 billion was spent by Americans on pornography; there are 68 million daily online search requests for pornography, representing a total of 25% of all search engine requests; and on and on.
I don't highlight the negative to be gloomy; I do so to point out that it's time to rethink our views on what civilization is and how it is attained. The classic definition of insanity, of course, is doing the same things repeatedly while expecting different results. Obviously, raising taxes in the name of civilization and "helping" people isn't working. The more people we "help" through the illegitimate force of government the more our civilization declines.
Here's what I say about this insane notion that the price to pay for civilization is high taxes and being forced to pay for programs and policies that we object to: The price to pay for civilization is to be civilized.
Being forced to pay for ineffective, wasteful, and bureaucratic wealth redistribution programs does nothing but push our nation away from sustainable civilization. It increases poverty levels by deepening dependency. It creates class conflict by inducing resentment among those forced to give and an attitude of entitlement among those receiving. At the expense of our freedom, it increases the size and scope of the government by giving it both the permission and the responsibility to pay for welfare programs.
Does this mean that we don't help the poor and disadvantaged? Absolutely not -- it's not a matter of helping or not helping, it's a matter of how we help them.
In a truly civilized nation, helping people is done through the principle of voluntarism, which is that the health of a society is equal to what individuals will do without the force or assistance of the government. In a truly civilized nation, there is little pride amongst the wealthy and dependency amongst the poor.
In a civilized nation, citizens don't lose their morality then use the government to force others to pay for the consequences by handing out condoms in high schools and paying for research to cure sexually-transmitted diseases. In a civilized nation, citizens are moral and virtuous -- in other words, they are civilized. In a civilized nation, citizens enjoy the rights and benefits of civilization, while also accepting the duties and obligations that it entails.
In a civilized nation, the government doesn't create poverty through dependency, then raise taxes to fund all of the prisons that must be built to house criminals that were created through its own misuse of power. In a civilized nation, the government does nothing but protect unalienable rights, which leads to a culture of personal responsibility as its citizens realize that they can't vote themselves benefits from the national treasury.
What is civilization? It is sustainable society built upon private and public virtue.
How is civilization attained? Primarily through private and public virtue, and secondarily managed by auxiliary precautions (good forms of government). As James Madison said, "We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government, upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God."
The price we pay for civilization is not being forced to pay high taxes to fund irresponsibility, bureaucracy, and degeneracy -- the true price we pay for true civilization is for enough citizens to simply be civilized. Citizens who are not forced to be good, not forced to serve -- but who voluntarily choose to be good and who choose to serve their fellow men.
Those who claim that high taxes and government programs are the price of civilization are in actuality saying that they are the price to pay for not being civilized. The only reason that they exist is because our citizens are losing their sense of personal responsibility and virtue -- the main supports of true civilization. As Edmund Burke said, "Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere, and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without."
Don't let anyone get away with the spurious claim that the price to pay for civilization is anything that leads to the lack of it. Pay the price of civilization by being civilized in your private and public life, and be an example for others to follow. |
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