Left/Right/Libertarians
Feedback from Kate Jones (8-20-07):
The
historical struggle since the beginning of mankind has been between the
two polar boundaries of the individual versus the group.
Individuals formed collaborative groups for mutual protection. The
Village is a metaphor for a small enough grouping that all know the
others; where a social bond exists among them; a hierarchy or pecking order of
authority generally based on merit or strength has evolved (even monkeys in zoos
display that); and there has formed an infrastructure with division of
labor and specialization.
The concept of exchanging services and goods,
of property rights and mutual respect for others' individual autonomy,
led to great accomplishments and growth, and eventually to great
civilizations.
A society that does not respect the individual rights of its members
eventually falls of internal decay, some consuming the others until
nothing is left. Desperation measures such as conquest by force, rape
and pillage, slavery and populations subjugated by military force, all
fail in the end, and all have been tried on various parts of the globe.
It always comes down to who controls the resources, the means of
survival; whose populations get fed and whose starve; which power elite
contrives to maintain itself and its favored groups, and which groups
are exploited to serve others.
In today's world, the so-called free citizens of the United States have
been manipulated into a position of near-slavery through taxation and
being brainwashed into docile acceptance of the premise that we need to
help all the poor nations of the world, to give away what we have to the
havenots, that somehow that is a moral obligation we need to accept.
We
have been brainwashed to accept that "groups" are more valuable than
individuals. The liberal rhetoric equates individualism with rampant
selfishness and exploitation; it seeks to undermine the last vestiges of
our Founding Fathers' philosophy. We have reached an Orwellian level of
newspeak and thought control.
The comment that "it takes a village to raise a child"
is one of those handy shorthands that can be twisted by knaves to make a
trap for fools. What does it really mean? A well-rounded person cannot
develop in isolation. It requires contact with all aspects of the real
world, one's society, many experiences with diverse individuals to learn
what one's skills, values and opportunities are, and what one wants to
be. In short, to develop a full context of living.
This need has been
suborned to make a case for public schooling, government-legislated
textbooks, politically correct speech, endorsement of social
engineering, self-destructive foreign policy, restraints on business and
industry, empowerment of labor unions, affirmative action, selective
immigration restrictions, and an Orwellian shifting of allegiances. And
the hardworking, productive citizen is bled for it all.

The Global Village today is not the childraising referent. It wants to
imply that we are all responsible for each other, that those who have
should give to those who don't, that we are interdependent and should be
so, that a house of cards built on mutual interdependencies will tend to
prevent any country from endangering its own welfare by harming the
others.
The Global Village activism claims equal stature for the demands
of the most primitive tribes to an equal share in the goods produced by
first-world citizens. The Global do-gooders arrogate to themselves the
right to dispose of some individuals' substance and redistribute it to
their chosen groups. This is not only wrong, it is evil. It will only
lead to where we all starve together, equally impoverished.
What the Global Village could mean, in a more positive and less
exploitive sense, is that the world has become more accessible to all
through improved communications, the Internet, the speed of transport,
the establishment of modern supply lines.
It is through information,
knowledge, education, training, and productive work that the hintermost
members of the human family can be brought within range of being
partners in the world economy. We can teach them to be productive, so they can
participate in the beneficial relationships among nations. We do not
serve them by merely giving them handouts so that they can freely feed and
breed, with no responsibility for their own survival. They will
inevitably outbreed the feeding capacity of their keepers.
There is no one magic formula for fixing the world, for distributing its
finite resources so all can enjoy the materialistic good life as
Americans see it. Here are a few things that need to be changed at the
root in the philosophies of activists and their implementers, who
manipulate our government's policies and actions:
- We must eliminate war as the means of obtaining raw materials and
markets.
- We must stop bleeding our people of their earnings to finance
social-engineering programs. They will all predictably fail.
- We must reassert the individual as the fundamental value. Without
reference to the individual's right to his or her own life, liberty and
property, no society can long endure. Protect one individual's rights,
and you protect them all.
Individual rights do not include "freedom from want," if what you want
must be supplied by someone else, at someone else's cost. Individual
rights do not include the right to take away any other individual's
rights. "Thou shalt not steal" and "Thou shalt not kill" and "Thou shalt
not covet" had rational foundations. See also Walter Williams, Bogus Rights.
Charity and helpfulness are part of a voluntary process of cooperation
for mutual benefit. Benevolence cements beneficial relationships. Forced
charity is a contradiction.
Charity to bottomless need is a bad investment, a form of giving in to
extortion and blackmail. Helping should be a part of letting the
recipients of such help become self-supporting. In a dynamically
balanced system, work done is more than enough for the consumption
needed. The surplus can be used for growth and leisure.
There is no such thing as a group. It is only the sum of a number of
separate individuals. There can be no such thing as a group right; there are only individual rights.
We must reassert personal honor, responsibility and integrity in
interpersonal dealings.
The case is made powerfully in this historic passage:
I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and duty of the General Government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit. The friendliness and charity of our countrymen can always be relied upon to relieve their fellow-citizens in misfortune. This has been repeatedly and quite lately demonstrated. Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the Government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character, while it prevents the indulgence among our people of that kindly sentiment and conduct which strengthens the bonds of a common brotherhood.
President Grover Cleveland,
Letter to the House of Representatives [1877]
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