Selfish Bastards

Maybe I am selfish. I give at church, and on occasion to the Boy Scouts and to others who appeal, and who I can plainly see are in need. But governments use of my hard earned tax money for providing what would otherwise be provided by private charities offends me like nothing else. Ben Hand gives vent to the many who feel the same way in his piece today in the American Thinker entitled Just Leave Me Alone. As Walter Williams has so often pointed out, taxing people to provide what would otherwise be charity is frankly legalized theft of your and my property. He points out the difference between a parent asking her children to share, and when bureaucratic scolds play on the same emotions for their own aggrandizement:

Now let's shift focus to the thought that if we don't share, then we are evil. Well, this is true in some instances, but the problem arises when some unknown party forces us to share with someone that is also unknown to us. The concept was fine when it was Mom making us share with our younger brother something that she had bought both of us with her money. But for someone with the force of military, jail or other extreme threat takes from us and gives to another, then we have glorified theft under the guise of sharing. And because we were taught as little kids to share, we are ashamed to speak out differently in fear of the dreaded "selfish" word being foisted upon us.

You see what is happening here, right? The people advancing these proposals take a legitimate childhood emotions, and subtly change the subject so that at the end, you feel you have been had somehow. It's not that you have worked hard to achieve what you have, but that you are one of the lucky in life's lottery. You should share with others who haven't been so lucky. You don't want to? You selfish bastard.

Well guess what? You have been had.

When someone decides to reach into his own pocket and give money to another, that is charity and is noble. When someone reaches into another's pocket, takes that money and gives it to somebody else, that is theft and it is ignoble. When someone reaches into another's pocket, takes that money and gives it to somebody else, then crows about it, that is despicable. It doesn't matter whether the giving is to the poor, or as foreign aid, or grants, or anything else they may call it, it is always despicable.

Our founders gave us a Constitutional Republic with limited powers. We have allowed it to grow out of all bounds because in many instances our own emotions and our better angels were used against us. It's time to take back our Republic and accept the name calling that inevitably will follow. Selfish? Maybe I am, but no. Racist? Maybe I am, but no. Xenophobe? Maybe I am, but no. Practice it; it becomes easier over time. However, you may not be invited to as many parties.