Justin Smith explains the original vision of the Founding
Fathers’ Inalienable-Natural Rights and Liberty as opposed to the manipulative propaganda
of man-made Rights currently being rammed down each American’s throat.
JRH 5/13/17
***************
At the Expense of Others
By Justin O. Smith
Sent 5/13/2017 10:56 AM
"Any alleged 'right' of
one man which necessitates the violation of the rights of another is not and
cannot be a right." - Ayn Rand
Americans and our society, by and large progressives of both
parties and independents, have become a wilting, withering mass of weak, needy
cry-babies, who have departed far and away from the strength of back, intellect
and character of America's Founders, who created a system that none other has ever
equaled. Rather than follow along the path that made America a strong,
economically thriving and prosperous nation, many Americans, especially
Millennials, pursue petty and paltry pleasures, as would a sloth and a glutton,
and claim their slightest whim to be a
"right".
Some things like food, shelter, clothing, water and
healthcare are critical to our life, however, they are not "rights".
Even if they were made rights, this would set in motion a confiscatory
requirement to satisfy that right at the expense of others, much as America
currently chafes against our current welfare system.
Just as many of us witnessed Tennessee's House Democrats
release a collection of fifty bills called "The People's Bill of Rights"
in February 2017, more and more, America hears a clamor from their progressive
countrymen of all rank and file, for wants and desires to be provided through
government funds, the taxpayers' dollars. Now, not only do many across the
nation demand healthcare as a right, they also demand a $15 per hour minimum
wage and free university educations among other items.
In March, Chris Enloe [The Blaze] reported Senator
Kamala Harris's (D-CA) tweet, which stated: "Healthcare is a right, not a privilege."
My good friend, retired U.S. Army Colonel Kurt Schlicter,
editor for Townhall, tweeted back: "Guns are in the Bill of Rights, but
they aren't one (according to Democrats). The right to have one pay for your
healthcare is not (in the Bill of Rights), but it's a right?"
In a study published by the Heritage Foundation, Robert Rector and Rachel Sheffield detail
in the ranks of America's contemporary poor, that eighty percent have air-conditioning,
fifty percent own a personal computer and can access the internet and
two-thirds have cable TV. A household receiving $50,000 in welfare benefits is
still considered poor, if its pre-welfare income falls below the poverty line,
even though they are living, in many respects, better than the middle class of
1964.
According to Rector and Sheffield, our government has spent
$22 trillion of U.S. taxpayer dollars fighting poverty, since 1964 and
President Johnson's Great Society. The study also documented and charted $1
trillion spent annually on 90 means-tested welfare programs.
Over one hundred years of Marxist propaganda, the kind found
in President Woodrow Wilson's treatise entitled 'Constitutional Government in
the United States' and President Franklin Roosevelt's 1944 'Second Bill
of Rights', seems to have done its mischief well. Arguing for
corrupting the Constitution, Wilson saw it as a vessel to further the
progressives' agenda, while FDR viewed it as a means to assure equality,
"economic security" and the pursuit of happiness. Wilson spoke of our rights as "privilege",
and FDR framed them as "political rights".
Our rights are God-given and natural [of interest from
Conservapedia: “Unalienable rights”], and they exist
simultaneously among all people. The rights of free speech, freedom of
religion, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures -- to
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness -- are inalienable rights; and,
they are not privileges to be granted or rescinded, in the manner some past
presidents, Obama included, would transform them. And in the pursuit of
"true individual freedom" through "economic security",
Roosevelt and Obama offered the antithesis of the right to one's own private
property.
A true right does not impose any obligation on another.
One's rights to free speech, religious liberty, self-defense and assembly.
among others, impose no obligations on anyone else, except to allow each other
to use these rights without interference.
Ayn Rand wrote in 1961 ('Man's Rights') [PDF Version]:
"If some men are entitled
by right to the product of the work of others, it means that those others are
deprived of rights and condemned to slave labor."
Even if most Americans are willing to accept the theft of
their labor, their wealth, to fund real healthcare, we already know that
government is not a trustworthy guardian of such an enormous responsibility. What did America receive under Obamacare,
other than $2 trillion more debt, the loss of doctors, a rise in premiums, a
massive tax and a welfare law that contained 20 new taxes and a huge expansion
of Medicaid? And so far, the Republican plan isn't much better [American Health Care Act].
In the meantime, Americans rename privilege and benefits
"their right", while ignoring their own misguided lifestyle and poor
choices. Too many Americans spend more than they save, and too many prefer the
government security blanket over the pride of one's own independence.
Some Americans bemoan the public corruption our country is
suffering and the associated moral and constitutional crises. However, the
country on the whole has failed to promote the values that would have prevented
it. Corrupt leaders continue to advocate and implement measures that negatively
impact businesses and families, that also limit individual liberty and true
free-market capitalism, expanding government in the process.
Other Americans have become fanatics for their various
causes. They are in the streets ironically, demanding their own demise, as they
protest against their own self-determination and for ever more autocracy and
authoritarianism. When they vote, they vote to enslave not only their fellow
countrymen but themselves, however unwittingly. They accept the
collectivization of rights, and soon they will accept the collectivization of
property.
Friedrich Hayek, author of 'The Road to Serfdom' [Mises Institute
Description. PDF version], puts this
struggle in proper perspective:
"Economics has from its
origins been concerned with how an extended order of human interaction comes
into existence through a process of variation, winnowing and sifting far
surpassing our capacity to design ... motivated by [our] needs and desires
within the community." [Quote from “Fatal Conceit: The
Errors of Socialism” – PDF version. The quote can
be easily located at Wikiquote; Fatal Conceit; Ch. 1: Between Instinct and Reason]
Sadly, this trend towards fascism, this malaise, has
permeated the ranks of our country's future leaders, our children, and it has
left them with false expectations. Outside family, churches and communities,
the marketplace is the vanguard for moral truths in a free market society, and
positively influencing the community through clear decent and moral principles,
Judeo-Christian principles, improves businesses and betters people's lives. In
asking the next generation to return to a true capitalist value-based society,
America's conservatives ask for something that has not existed in their
lifetime, but it is necessary to avoid self-induced destruction, and to ask is
righteous.
Freedom and moral truths and the strength of men's will in a
free society, unfettered by superfluous regulations, enabled America to
succeed. They are the facilitators that fuel innovation, support free-thinkers
and encourage people worldwide to become who they choose to be, not who the
state demands they must be. When government guarantees equality and
"economic security", it suppresses creativity, ingenuity and reward
systems that enable people and nations to grow and prosper. Have Americans
learned nothing from history?
By Justin O. Smith
________________
Edited by John R. Houk
Linked text outside of
brackets are by Justin Smith.
Bracketed links and text are
by the Editor.
© Justin O. Smith
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