American Evil Exceptionalism

Last week, I attempted to tackle the subject of evil as a chapter in my book. Yeah, I go after the big stuff. This is why it is taking so long to write it. I had no intentions of writing a blog about the passage of the health care bill. I made it plain last summer and fall where I stood. You know the saying about the dead horse.

After dinner and the crossword puzzle on Sunday night, I began to jot a few random thoughts on the subject of evil. Suddenly, I began writing about health care. I wasn't going to post any of this, but a friend asked what I disliked most about health care reform. Unfortunately, my answer wasn't very succinct.

An Evil Solution
The role of government is to protect its citizens’ God given rights. For some, the concept is hardly indisputable, particularly given the fertile ground plowed for government’s expansion through the recent passage of the Health Care Bill. It saddens me that people are now beginning to wonder what health care reform will mean to them. Kind of like the horse and that proverbial barn door. I’m not a scholar nor an intellectual, but I do know when something doesn’t smell right. This may be one thing not considered: the expansion of government expands evil throughout the world.

A wise man knows evil exists. Evil is a normal part of life. Evil makes us understand the full vibrancy and richness of life. Not the crazy and insane shit, like torture and genocide, that’s not normal although certainly evil. I’m talking the whole realm of human experiences including the fact that life is not fair: you can’t have everything you want, losers don’t get trophies and women generally live longer than men. It’s no bed of roses. Yet a growing number of people feel the need to rectify injustices through government intervention, regulation and defining rights. To rid the world of injustices citizens increasingly turn to their government, unaware and uninformed of the consequences.

Some may take exception to the usage of the word evil to describe injustices. Too strong? You may also believe green is a value. Green is not a value. It's a color.

American Experiment
Our founding fathers wisely recognized the source of man’s rights. They are God-given. It was a huge deviation from the previous courses throughout history. Never before had a nation been founded on the premise that the individual was created equal by God, and the individual was responsible for his own destiny in a nation that protected his life, his liberty and his pursuit of happiness. Never before was a nation founded on the guiding principles that government was formed by the people, controlled by the people, for the purpose of assuring that his God-given rights were not diminished. Never before had a nation been established uniting the values of E Pluribus Unum, Liberty and In God We Trust. Keep government small with a clearly defined role to protect liberty, not provide equality (God already did), and the individual flourishes.

Thus was born a nation that spawned individual aspirations and dreams. To experience one's own success and failure. Yes, even failure. It was a risk, but for that risk, man was free, unburdened by the whims of a few elite who could take away anything whenever they decided.

Government's Creep
To sway its citizens and seize an opportunity the government had to paint a picture of great atrocities. Instead of recognizing the US medical care system as a leader in developing technology, and a system where it was illegal to deny medical care to its citizens, the government trotted out every hardship case they could find to demonstrate the evils of the system. The case was made that insurance companies were villains without considering the free choice people had in a market less regulated by government. People suffered economic hardship accessing medical care, but few recognized that when hit by a car, shot or fallen in a ditch medical attention is given and THEN someone asks, “how are you going to pay for this?” Premiums were too high, but who addressed doctors who in fear of malpractice suits order unnecessary, but ass-covering procedures? Profits were too high, but who acknowledged the slim profit margins that actually do exist? And horror of horror, young adults kicked off their parents’ plans. Perhaps it is time to grow up, get a job and buy their own insurance. Oh, yeah, people are dying in the street. I know this for a fact, I saw two people die in January.

While I realize that there was a need to reform the medical system, reform was promoted by the government’s twisted versions of reality in order to convince the people that health care should be a right. Or, it maybe it is the right to have health insurance. I’m not sure. You see, when the government gives the citizen a right, it isn’t as clearly defined as God-given rights. God-given rights: Five words-Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. Government-given right: 2700 pages of health care voodoo.

If health care is a right, why not food? Isn’t that important? How about housing, jobs, transportation, education (actually the government has been messing with this) and reproduction? Will we need a 5000 page bill to clarify that any consumption over 1500 calories/day will be taxed unless you can prove that your state job requires a higher intake? You know them fat people are burdening the medical system. (Oh, is that a far reaching scare tactic?)

However, expecting the government to solve social and economic shortcomings is not the problem, nor is it that once government defines citizens’ rights the government can take away those rights, at any time, for any reason. The real problem is how this erodes the character of the individual and ultimately society. The true problem is what this does to man.

Imagine No Responsibility. It's Easy If You Try.
“If anyone does not provide for his relatives, especially his immediate household, he has denied faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” Yep, right out of the Bible, 1 Timothy 5:8. With God-given rights comes God expected responsibilities. But when we deny our responsibilities, why fret about our God-given rights?

Many believe that if evil does exist its roots are in social shortcomings caused by poverty, economic disparity, lack of proper nutrition, inadequate housing, poor education and lack of health care. Since the days of President Hoover this view has been growing. If only these disparities could be eliminated by providing equal access for all. Combined this belief with a man who takes less responsibility for himself and we have the coming of a societal train wreck. Man turns to government to take care of everything. It is an arrogant, self-centered idealism, more evil than the evils it pretends to address. For man wrongfully assumes that evil can be controlled and fixed through laws, rules, and regulations.

Give a dog a stick and he will never fetch it. Man by his nature is similarly lazy. Give him something for nothing and he becomes a self-center individual waiting for the next hand out, even demanding the next hand out, while all along appreciating it less and less. If he doesn’t have to scratch for his own living, he won’t. Create a dependent relationship on his government and it is a slippery slope to his own demise and a far cry from eliminating evil.

A self-centered person doesn’t care about anyone but himself. That includes making generous donations to charitable organization, (statistics show conservatives donate a far greater percentage of their income than liberals), or enlisting in the armed services to defend the freedom in his own country or around the world. A self-centered person stays home, selfishly waiting for the next distribution. It is delusional to think otherwise.

The Consequences
In the quest to cure societal ills through government intervention two things happen. We arrogantly believe that the problem and the solution are in our control, turning away from the faith-based nation created by our founding fathers. From God, we turn to government to grant new rights and we neglect our responsibilities, not only to ourselves, but to others. At the same time, we lower the bar of excellence: excellence in the individual who will strive in a society free of government handouts; excellence in industry created by the most talented individuals who recognize opportunities, and excellence in society, for welfare states don’t fight evil, they create it (Mao, Stalin, Che, Hitler). I won’t outline the differences of socialism, communism or progressiveness, as this is not the point.

When rights are determined and defined by government, the citizen doesn’t get more rights without incurring a deep cost. The most obvious cost is the loss of liberty as an ever-increasing portion of the individual's sweat-equity goes to the state to fund the ever-increasing entitlements for others. But I’m more concerned with diminished spiritual freedom. Not the I-go-to-church kind of freedom, although historically that is lost too (China, Russia, Cuba, Germany), but the freedom to be valued in a society that recognizes this as a gift to itself. When a German solider comes home from Iraq, he is jeered. When an American solider returns home, he receives a standing ovation. Why is that? For the time being, it is because service is recognized as a contribution, freely sacrificed.

The premises on which America was built built strong character which is not inherent in a fallen man separated from God. To have an accountability to a power, higher than government, instills a purpose to serve others. It creates a needed individual. But for those who are dependent on government, they horde dearly the crumbs received from their master who must ration limited resources produced in a society built on fears. Hardly inspiring, hardly a society that will take up the causes of the oppressed, the down trodden, the tired. Yes, the bar of human excellence becomes dramatically lower.

The trade-off between God-given rights and government-granted rights is huge for all nations. For America to be a nation like all others is to lower the standard of excellence and generates citizens with little concern beyond the disparities between him and his neighbor. It will doom all nations. We just took one giant leap toward government sponsored laziness. That's evil.