"Voluntary Charity vs. Compassion At The
Point of A
Gun"
from "In Defense of Rural
America"
By Ron Ewart,
President
National Association of Rural
Landowners
and nationally recognized author and
speaker on freedom and property rights issues.
©
Copyright Sunday, August 25, 2013 - All Rights
Reserved
As published on
Newswithviews, August 23, 2013
This article is also
available on our website at:
"Mr. Speaker:
We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we
please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right to so appropriate
a dollar of the public money. We cannot, without the grossest corruption, appropriate
this money as the payment of a debt. We have not the semblance of
authority to appropriate it as a charity. Mr. Speaker, I have said we have
the right to give as much money of our own as we please. I am the poorest man on
this floor. I cannot vote for this bill, but I will give one week's pay to
the object, and if every member of Congress will do the same, it will amount to
more than the bill asks." Congressman Davy
Crockett
Not one other member of the U. S. House agreed to
match Davy Crockett's offer of one week's pay as charity for the widow of a
deceased army officer, the subject of the Bill. They would rather give
away our money. Nothing has changed.
Many years ago, when I was in the Army, the "hat" was passed
for the local charity. Everyone was "encouraged" to give so that the
detachment would get a 100% award and the Captain was fairly adamant about
obtaining that goal. Now I was in the Army as a draftee and I had to be
there. I had no choice. But something comes over me when someone
tells me I "must" do something, especially when it concerns what I consider to
be a voluntary act. My "back" went up and I said no, rather
emphatically. Because I did not give to the local charity and I was the
only one that did not give, the detachment did not receive the 100% award.
Needless to say, the Captain was none too pleased with me and
called me on the carpet. I believe his words were, "we have places
to send people like you" and he alluded to Vietnam. It was 1961
and Vietnam was just heating up. I wasn’t really too keen on going
there.
He went on to say that I had better have a damn good reason for
not giving, or I was "going to pay", one way or another. As
I was standing before the Captain at attention, my mind raced for a good
"reason." I finally blurted out that, "….. on the list of groups
that were receiving the charity, I noticed three subversive groups and I
couldn’t in good conscience give my money to those groups." My
answer satisfied the Captain begrudgingly, but he always had his "eye" on
me. It’s a wonder I didn’t end up in Vietnam. Fortunately, I had a
bird colonel on my side.
All of my life I have been battered by people telling me
what to do, when I fully did not want to do whatever it was they wanted me
to do. When I worked at Boeings in Seattle, it was the same thing.
They had to get 100% in the local charity drive for each company
division. Division heads were dressed down if they didn't get that
100%. But Boeing was really good at convincing us to just have our
donation deducted from our salary. That way you won’t miss it.
Propaganda! I resisted there too, but paid a price for my resistance.
The reason for my resistance should be obvious. I still
consider myself a free spirit, equipped with unalienable rights, as a gift from
my creator. One of those rights is the right of free choice.
Voluntary charity fits neatly in the right of free choice. To "give" is
and should be "MY" choice, not the governments, not the army and certainly not
the company for which I am employed. I haven’t been employed by any
company for over well 30 years now, as I don’t follow instructions well.
In one review of my work, I was told I had an over zealous personal initiative
disorder. To this day, I’m not sure what the reviewer meant by this, but I
have an idea what he meant …... I don’t "play" well with the other
children. Being the maverick that I am, it is probably just as well that I
am otherwise self-employed.
Which brings us to the touchy subject of government enforced
charity. It seems, according to the government’s definition of
charity, I have an absolute obligation to "help" my fellow man and the
government is the final arbiter as to the depth of that obligation and who is
deserving of my enforced charity. With the force of law and the threat of
being grilled, fined, penalized and jailed by the Internal Revenue Service if I
don’t comply, it could be construed that my obligation can be any amount that
government decides is my "fair share" of that charity. This is not charity
ladies and gentlemen, this is servitude! This is enslavement! This
is being wrapped in invisible chains! This is removing liberty and the right of
free choice! If we do not resist this unconstitutional injustice with all
of our might, if we do not tell others to resist, we deserve to be slaves.
At the risk of offending a large
segment of the American people, let me be succinct: "I owe
nothing to anyone that I don't freely choose to
give."
Let me be even more succinct:
"I owe nothing to society, my country, or anyone person or
persons except honor, self-reliance, independence and individual
responsibility, as my capabilities allow."
The essence of true freedom is free
choice. Without free choice we are but slaves to whomever wish
to dominate us and unfortunately the world is full of those who would dominate
us, as individuals and as a nation. If we are not free to
choose, then we are not free. It is no more complicated than
that.
I choose to be compassionate of my
own free will because being compassionate has value to me and to my life, not
because I may go to Hell if I do not show compassion. And my
compassion is strictly limited to those who truly cannot help themselves, family
and friends. My compassion is not extended to those who have two working
arms, two working legs, a reasonably functioning brain and in good health.
Let the lessons of life's adversities bring them to self-reliance, independence
and individual responsibility. If we do otherwise, then we breed a nation
of weaklings who would rather be servants to their handlers (slaves) than stand tall and proud as free
men.
Oh yes, I know I
will hear from some religious people saying that "...
we are our brother's keeper", as they fall back
on what they were taught in Sunday school. That irrational
compassion for the functioning weak and free loaders among us and to those
who illegally invade our sovereignty as a national mindset, are what
have brought us to the brink of national bankruptcy and threaten our very
existence as a free and prosperous nation.
Ladies and gentlemen, I was not
created to serve my fellow man, nor were you. I serve the essence of my
life because I WAS created, as do all living
things. I was pre-programmed to preserve that life at whatever cost, as
survival is an absolute requirement for the preservation
of life. If there are those (individuals,
groups, or governments) that choose to take my possessions
without my permission, or take my life, I am pre-programmed to vigorously
defend my possessions and my life by whatever means as an act of
self-preservation, if I strongly believe that my possessions and my life have
value to me. If I see little value in my possessions or my
life, or I am unwilling to defend them, then I am easy prey for those
who are determined to dominate me.
I had no choice in my creation.
I had no choice in my early environment, even though I am a product of that
creation and that environment. I only owe my parents respect, if they are
worthy of respect. I only owe respect to authority if that authority is
not corrupt. I only owe respect to others if they too are worthy of
respect and they are self-reliant, independent, individually responsible and
honorable within the limits of their capabilities. However, as an act of
free choice, I have compassion for those, who through no fault of their own,
cannot be self-reliant, independent and individually responsible. I have a
special niche of compassion for those brave men and women in uniform that serve,
or have served our country, on or off the battlefield.
I owe my children the solemn duty to
prepare them for adulthood by instilling in them and teaching them pragmatic
moral values and the value of self-reliance, independence and individual
responsibility, as absolute requirements for survival and freedom. If I am
incapable of doing that, I have failed in that solemn duty and I have failed in
my duty to my country, for I will have created an extra burden on society for
which society will have to pay.
If I start a business, I owe nothing
to anyone. Those who speak of "corporate
responsibility" are those who wish to dominate us by guilt.
If however, I create a product or a service that offers value and meets
expectations and I do no harm, I will prosper and my customers will be
happy. If I do the opposite, the free market will remove me from business
and I will have failed in business. That is the essence of a free
market.
To many of our readers this must seem
harsh, self-indulgent and almost arrogant if you will. But this is
the harsh reality of all life, if life and liberty are to be preserved. My
only duty to others is to treat them as I wish to be treated. That duty is
manifested in my efforts to act with honor and do no harm to others.
Government's role is to protect all
of us within our nation's borders from harm from enemies, foreign and domestic
and to protect all of us from the harm that individuals or groups
may inflict on others, within reason. Government's other
duty is to stay within the limits of its power and protect the rights
of the individual as the absolute mandate contained in our Constitution.
That is the essence of a fair and just government. Government's role
is not to exceed the limits of its power, or buy votes or crony favors with
our money, or over-regulate and over-tax our possessions, our property and
our life, for that is the essence of an arrogant and fascist government,
bent on total domination.
The substance of what we have
delineated here was plainly laid out at the end of the speech given by
John Galt in Ayn Rand's fictitious novel entitled, "Atlas Shrugged", from
which we now quote:
"In the name of the values that keep you alive, do not let
your vision of man be distorted by the ugly, the cowardly, the mindless in those
who have never achieved. Do not lose your knowledge that man's proper
estate is an upright posture, an intransigent mind and a step that travels
unlimited roads. Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable
spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet,
the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely
frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach.
Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can
be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it's
yours.
"But to win it requires your total dedication and a total break with the world of your past, with the doctrine that man is a sacrificial animal who exists for the pleasure of others. Fight for the value of your person. Fight for the virtue of your pride. Fight for the essence of that which is man: for his sovereign rational mind. Fight with the radiant certainty and the absolute rectitude of knowing that yours is the Morality of Life and that yours is the battle for any achievement, any value, any grandeur, any goodness, any joy that has ever existed on this earth.
What John Galt said is the very essence of individual liberty, the irrevocable gift from our creator. It is the substance of what millions of men and women have died for in the defense of freedom. No matter what you may think about his words, they are not a repudiation of compassion, as compassion is an act of volition ..... an act of free choice. Compassion is not and never should be, a mandate from government because a government mandate is the antithesis of free choice. The American people are the most generous people on Earth, if government doesn't suck them dry to buy votes or favors.
It is clear. The window for free Americans to
save individual liberty is rapidly closing. The time and the place to act
are right now. There may never be another chance, our
situation being that dire. Without a clear understanding of what
individual freedom means, there can be no strong commitment to reclaim
it, much less preserve it.
Many years ago, around the time the Declaration of
Independence was written, a famous man said: "The Price of Liberty
is Eternal Vigilance". This is not only appropriate to
the defense against the enemies we can see, but it is doubly appropriate to the
defense of the enemy we can't see, that dreaded enemy of all
..... apathy! Time is running out as the door to freedom is almost
closed. And when the giant door of liberty clangs shut in your forlorn
faces and the last faint ring fades quietly into the night, may each of you
remember in anguish, the opportunity you had to keep that door open and
may your inaction burn forever in your memories, like a red hot
branding iron on your bare skin. If this day comes to pass, and it may,
you will have forsaken your duty to your children and
grandchildren and your individual duty to be honorable, self-reliant,
independent and individually responsible, the very essence of freedom and free
choice. You owe nothing to anyone except ..... self-reliance,
independence, individual responsibility and your sacred
honor.
Ron Ewart, a nationally
known author and speaker on freedom and property issues and author of his weekly
column, "In
Defense of Rural America", is the President of the National
Association of Rural Landowners, (NARLO) (http://www.narlo.org) a
non-profit corporation headquartered in Washington State and dedicated to
restoring, maintaining and defending property rights for urban and rural
landowners.
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