What Do You Expect?

Government to some extent to me, serves as a social insurance mechanism. Life is risky to all of us. So as a society, through the democratic institution of taxation, we decide to impose taxes on all of us, and through those taxes provide a certain level of security for all citizens.

It is the nature of a democratic government that we don’t end up using all services all the time. We may utilize public schools, or we may not. We may be faced with a catastrophic disability, we may not. But we spread the costs and risks so someone who faces some major hardship doesn’t have to grovel for assistance from charity, particularly when that charity often-times comes with strings attached.

We as a society through tax and spending policies decide which services we will provide and what our tax policies will be. There is nothing sinister about this. The vast majority of civilized countries have these processes in place.

What we have in Utah, however, is the warped legacy of Ezra Taft Benson, who misread what I would consider to be a rational and healthy mix of private and public sector forces working to generate profits and income while also providing the tax revenues to provide a basic safety net. The creeping socialism of Eztra Taft Benson would lead you to believe that these government services were the first step in a process where the government comes to own the means of production, and ultimately to socialism and communism (ironic given Mormonism’s close affinity to many marxian concepts)

In this regard, I think Ezra Taft Benson had a fatally flawed perception. Americans historically are far too independent to want the government controlling the means of production. Responsible regulation of the private sector, yes, outright ownership, no.

To me, this mindset comes from the Book of Mormon view of the world, where there is a constant battle between good and evil. And since capitalism is good, any government action is by definition evil. You get the same thing with gun control. Guns rights advocates think that any regulation regarding firearms is a first step towards outright banning of guns. There is no middle ground. Again the religious traditions of the Zoroastrians creeping into our own religious tradtions with their manichaean world view are taken to an extreme.

That is why it is so difficult to be a religious moderate. Because scripture doesn’t support moderates, scripture tends to be manichaean. Because ultimately, the great galvanizing force that provides power to religions, is the creation of demons to be afraid of. Those demons, are always those who don’t adhere to “our religion.” And so they who oppose us, must be evil, and therefore there is not middle ground, or role for moderation.

Dependence is certainly a concern. People getting stuck in the safety net is certainly a risk that happens from time to time. There are also those who find ways of abusing the system, such as Mormon fundamentalists and the notorious “welfare moms” who may have five kids from four different dead-beat dads.

I think you have to be creative and structure aid programs so that they are not permanent unless we are talking about some serious delibitating condition.

But the fact that it is difficult, doesn’t mean it doesn’t work. There are many people who through no fault of their own, found themselves facing calamity who were still able to somehow stay afloat with the help of the government. Most of them raised their families and their children are now taxpaying adults not on government assistance.

But I have a problem with letting people starve, out of devotion to a theory regarding government. Ezra Taft Benson may have been influenced by the time he lived in, but I always found it instructive from some of his writings just how much of a socialist he viewed moderates such as the President who appointed him Secretary of Agriculture. I often have wondered whether Ike appointed ETB to that position as a bone to the radical conservative wing of the party. Because the John Birch Society that Ezra Taft Benson viewed so favorably, was no friend of the Eisenhower Administration.

The issue that collectivists can never get around, and can never explain in anything close to a coherent manner, is “What gives anyone the right to steal my property and give it to somebody else, regardless of how badly that person is in need?”

I don’t have the right to reach into your wallet, take your money, then give it to the person that I believe needs it more than you. Because one individual does not have that right, a group of individuals cannot have that right. Stealing is stealing is stealing, regardless of what type of legal sanction it is granted by the thieves themselves.

Sometimes I’ll run across some hippie that will give me the “rights of the community” or “rights of society” or some similarly pathetic argument. There are only individual rights. A group of people does not magically obtain rights because they are a group.

Even in the case of legitimate need, nobody–and government least of all–has the right to STEAL my property and give it to someone else. If people want to contribute voluntarily to a government welfare program, and they are stupid/ignorant enough to think that the government welfare program will be effective (something that never has, does not now, and never will happen), then they are free to contribute THEIR OWN PROPERTY, not mine.

Life doesn’t have safety nets. Any attempt to create an artificial one will always end up in the horrific state that our current government dole is in.

APCI, perhaps you don’t see it’s affinity to marxian concepts, because you don’t know how the United Order was practiced in the 19th century and never read Karl Marx. Unbridled greed was one of those things which concerned the bretheren of the 19th century. Removing the quest for earthly possessions would allow the members to focus more on spiritual matters. BTW, my own G-G-Grandfather was required to turn over of his store in Franklin, Idaho to the church. http://srp.parkinsonfamily.org/srp-photos/co-op-800.jpg. Mormons who don’t see an affinity between the communal living 19th Century Mormons and Marxian inspired communists are in serious denial. Your calling me an “anti-Mormon” doesn’t make that true.

BTW, you do have a choice over whether to pay taxes or not. Of course, don’t expect the benefits of citizenship in this great country if you aren’t willing to pay for the benefits which come with citizenship. If you disagree with the taxes you pay or the services you get or don’t want, change the law. America, love it and pay your fair share, or leave it. I’m sure there is some libertarian utopia out there on some desert island you will find more comfortable with. But this country has always had a mixed economy, with an active government from the time of George Washington and Alexander Hamilton on.

It may not be as simple as it sounds, but that doesn’t mean that we sit and do nothing if we feel our government is leading the country in the wrong direction.

One person might not be able to change a law on his own, but we can get involved, and influence laws.

(and by getting involved, I mean doing something besides sitting behind your computer telling the “liberals” how wrong/stupid they are)

David- I didn’t call it theft- that was Infidel. I agree with you.

Thanks for clarifying, I couldn’t imagine why you thought that was my word.

🙂

I agree Jeremy, that all of us, and most especially elected officials need to be very careful about how they spend tax dollars. I don’t view it as theft, but I do hope that “my” tax dollars are being spent wisely for the betterment of society.

There is far too much waste, and that does bother me.

Obi Wan Ravioli:
>because you don’t know how the United Order was practiced in the 19th century and never read Karl Marx

Hahahahaha! I’ll forgive you for that because you don’t know my background. Let’s just say that I am very well versed in both, and I see no meaningful connection between the two specifically because I DO understand the principles of both very thoroughly.

>Your calling me an “anti-Mormon” doesn’t make that true.

Interesting that you would automatically assume that I was calling you an anti-Mormon. I merely indicated that your promotion of a meme that had been refuted repeatedly was exactly the same type of tactic employed by those goofiest of goofballs, anti-Mormons.

It actually wasn’t until AFTER I had posted that comment that, out of bland curiosity, I visited your blog and found out that you actually were, if nothing else, a de facto anti-Mormon. I wasn’t surprised, of course, since only a collectivist anti-Mormon could so misunderstand the wisdom and stature of Ezra Taft Benson, and assert something as bizarre as a connection between the Law of Order and Marxism, but I did chuckle at the coincidence.

Jeremy’s right. Bastiat’s coining of the expression “legal plunder” is spot on. (Incidentally, anyone who does not have a thorough understanding of Bastiat really has no place in a discussion of rights, economics, etc.)

But we still haven’t gotten any real attempt at a coherent justification of taking, under threat of violence and without my consent, property that I have created or obtained through a free exchange, and giving it to another who has neither created it nor engaged in a free exchange with me to obtain it.

After decades of waiting for such an explanation, I have no hope of ever getting one…in particular because none exists.

Even my children know that taking something that is not yours without the freely given permission of the owner is stealing. Why is it that so-called “liberals” have such a hard time understanding it? Maybe it’s because you wouldn’t feel like you had a right to steal from me anymore, and that you would have to earn your upkeep yourself. How shockingly grownup that would be!