Posted by
"Mind and Morals" Michael Coyne on Friday, February 27, 2009 5:25:00 PM
It is NOT the
government's job to guarantee that you have a job, healthcare, food, money, or
housing. Rather, the government exists solely to keep you safe while you
provide all of those things for yourself. In other words: the government’s job
is to ensure an environment where anyone—from any economic background, of any
color, of either gender, adhering to any creed, and holding any set of
values—can fight for themselves without fear of hindrance or molestation.
I take the
time to say this because, according to a new Fox News / Opinion Dynamics Poll:
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68% of Americans think that it is the
government’s responsibility to make sure all Americans have food.
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66% think that it is the government’s
responsibility to make sure all Americans have health care.
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52% think that government has a duty to
provide housing to all Americans.
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51 % think that government has a duty to
provide jobs to all Americans who want one.
Those numbers scare the living daylights out of
me. And they should scare any given capitalist, as well.
Look at history; look at facts. Every time that a
government has decided to try to “provide” something to its people, it has
failed. There’s a reason that, save for China and Cuba, the world has sworn off
communism. It doesn’t work. Look at the Soviet healthcare system: you’ve all
seen it because it’s two aspirin. That’s all that the great “medicine for all,
paid for by all” could afford. News alert to President Obama: “Spreading the
wealth around” does not work.
Yes, I will concede that, in capitalism, some
people must, from time to time, fail. Capitalism involves risk and effort. But there
are two sides of the coin: if you must own your failures in full, then you also
get to own your successes in full. It is those successes that America was built
upon.
To quote President Washington, “Like fire,
government is a dangerous servant and a fearsome master.” If we start asking
government to do things for us instead of us doing things for ourselves, then
the government will ask something in return: funding.
To remind my readers: government is bankrupt. It’s
true; the government has never spent a single dollar that it already had.
Rather, that trillion-dollar spending bill that just plowed through congress
will be funded by you through new, higher, and ever more ridiculous taxes. And,
as much as it sounds like universal healthcare is a warm, compassionate thing
for government to do; it is really a cold and foolhardy concept that calls for
the government to play the role of Robin Hood, taking from everybody and
redistributing money where government deems it more appropriate.
This also means that that “top 2%” that the
President keeps saying will be getting a tax hike includes 85% of small
business owners—anyone earning over $250,000. I hate to break this to you, Mr.
President, but even if you raised their taxes from 35% to 100% (no, that’s not
a typo), the government would still not have enough money to pay for your
ludicrous spending projects.
Here’s the bottom line: government cannot give
something to one person without stealing something from somebody else.
Expecting government to provide for your family’s needs is not just illogical;
it’s lazy and irrational. It is your job to provide for yourself and your
family, nobody else’s. Government needs to step aside and get out of your way.
If Americans want to remain a free nation, then
Americans need to shake this asinine sense of entitlement that has pervaded our
collective psyche. Ours is a nation of the self-reliant. Let’s start acting
like it.