Tag Archives: equality

Natural Rights, Our Social Compact, and “Rights”

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The principles statement of our social compact acknowledges that all humans are endowed with certain inalienable, natural rights, and the entirety of our social compact seeks to apply those natural rights in a concrete way to the members of our compact, us American citizens.  Our Declaration of Independence says of this:

…that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed[.]

Our principles statement acknowledges further that, when an instituted government fails in its purpose, it is both our right and our duty to replace it with one that will do better, but that’s a subject of a different discussion.

On the matter of Happiness, John Adams was clear that this was—and is—more than simple personal pleasure and pecuniary wealth; although these are certainly part.  But Happiness includes far more, and far more important components, also:

All men are born free and independent, and have certain natural, essential, and unalienable rights, among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties; that of acquiring, possessing, and protecting property; in fine, that of seeking and obtaining their safety and happiness.

However, today (indeed, for the last 80 years, with rapidly increasing national cost, and failure) some want government to guarantee such things as jobs, retirements, and so on; they assert these to be “rights,” a continuation of Franklin Roosevelt’s Second Bill of Rights, which included such things as employment, housing, and social security.

In fact, such manufactured “rights” cannot be achieved by award from government, whether directly by fiat or indirectly by managing our economy; our government in the end is nothing more than our employee and so possessed of no more power than that.  Moreover, the thing which our government gives to one of us (vis., a retirement pension check, or an artificially cheap house), it must first take from another of us (not least in the form of tax money); it must take from one of its employers.

These “economic rights,” these “social rights,” of Roosevelt’s and today’s Progressive’s invention, though, are nothing more, and nothing less, than the inevitable output of our individual efforts when those efforts are carried out within the framework of our inalienable rights.  In the end, the obligation, freedoms, and power of American citizenship—our Happiness—under our social compact results not through the mechanism of Government as Giver of Rights, but through minimal government interference with our own efforts as we act politically and economically for our individual needs and wants.

Many, though, who were actually taught such governmental guarantees in our public schools and institutions of “higher” education, are discovering that these invented “rights,” in fact, are not automatically available, and so they think they are being denied in some way.  Their disappointment is all the more bitter because they’ve been promised that government—not they, themselves—is the proper guarantor of their prosperity and security and liberty.

In order for government to guarantee security, though, it must have complete control over individual behaviors and decisions, and so there can be no liberty.  And without liberty, there can be no prosperity, since no man then will be free to pursue his own need or his own Happiness; no man will be free to show the best that there is in him.  And without liberty, or without prosperity—much less without both—there can be no security.

This contradiction of government as the font of prosperity, liberty, and security, and that earlier described  confusion of the prior with the result, are both individually and together the source of the failure of invented guarantees.

Religious Freedom, Government, and Moral Equivalence

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The Daily Caller reports on a series of meetings between our government and representatives from several Islamic governments that have pressed us for years to terminate our ability to speak freely about Islam’s history and obligations.  We might think it’s entirely appropriate that we should engage those governments on the matter of religious and speech freedoms, the United States Constitution, and what must occur within our borders regarding our acknowledged inalienable rights.

Among other things under serious discussion, though, is those nations’ support for a UN resolution—which our government seems not to be opposing—titled “Combating Intolerance, Negative Stereotyping and Stigmatization of, and Discrimination, Incitement to Violence and Violence Against, Persons Based on Religion or Belief.”  While claiming to urge tolerance of all believers, though, it also urges all governments to counter “Islamophobia,” and declare opposition to “derogatory stereotyping, negative profiling and stigmatization of persons based on their religion or belief” (nor does it urge governments to counter “Christianophobia,” or “Judeophobia,” or Buddhisophobia,” or “atheistophobia,” or…).  Notice that: this isn’t a call for government-funded outreach programs (however ill-conceived government funding of such programs might be in the first place) with which private citizens might voluntarily engage, or not; this is simply a disguised effort to have government authorities dictate what is permitted speech.  The resolution, for instance, calls on government to define “derogatory” and “negative profiling” and “stigmatizing.”  Individual Americans (or Englishmen, or Frenchmen, or etc.) are not to be trusted to arrive at their own definitions and usages.

Hannah Rosenthal, head of the State Department’s Office To Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism(!?), reassures us, though.  This resolution carries no threat to our freedom of speech because, “[The government] would protect free speech.”  But then she says that hateful and Islamophobic speech needs to be called out, and when invited to define “hateful,” she insisted with a straight face that if critics of Islam’s ideology

are just taking out the hateful parts [of the Quran] or claiming [they’re] all superior to them…that can be very damaging.

On the other side of the religion coin is this,  concerning atheism.  Fox News‘ online facility carries this story about atheist messages having displaced most of the Christmas Nativity scenes that local churches had placed in a Santa Monica, CA, park for the last 60 years.  Some background: there are 21 spaces for such messages allotted in the park, and until this year, the churches had faced little competition for them, so they usually were able to put Nativity scenes into 14 of them (they never tried for more…).  This year, due to a much larger demand for the limited number of spaces, the city decided to allot them via lottery, with no single individual eligible to “win” more than 9.  Eighteen of the spaces were “won” by two atheists.  Leaving aside the legitimacy of such a lottery (that outcome is statistically possible), what else is going on here?

Damon Vix, reputedly behind this effort, says

For 60 years, it’s almost exclusively been the point of view of Christians putting up nativity scenes for a whole city block….

This year, by design, it will be even more “exclusively the point of view of atheists” that will be represented.

Hmm….

We cannot accept moral equivalency.  There is no such thing.  Some morals, some cultures, are superior to others.  Was it acceptable, for instance, that the Aztecs engaged in human sacrifice, just because that was a religious imperative for them?  Was it acceptable for NAZIs to butcher Jews, just because that was the internal affair of a sovereign nation?  Is it acceptable to mutilate women with female circumcision because a religious tenet demands it?  Is it acceptable to murder women for going against a man’s demands just because a religious tenet demands it?  Is it acceptable to send agents into another sovereign nation to murder a person who speaks against Mohammed or posts an image of him?

Religious freedom has nothing at all to do with individual criticism of religion generally or of another’s religion in particular.  It has nothing at all to do with the free competition of ideas or the free competition among differing religions, differing moral systems.  It has everything to do with proscribing a government role in the competition.

In the end, who is it that’s afraid of such competition?  Only those harboring a nagging fear that their own tenets won’t measure up, and so they demand special protections from that competition.  Let, for instance, an atheist’s message sit next to a religious message in the public square; let both of them especially into the public square.  The differences will be clear.  As will be the winners of such a competition.

It’s such a simple law.  It can’t be that hard to enforce.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof[.]

Income (In)equality and Freedom

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It is the view of some that the primary task of our government is to engage in wealth redistribution so as to tend to equalize income—to equalize the results of individual effort, regardless of the level or quality of that effort.  There are problems with this asserted purpose, though, historical, practical, and moral.

During the extended discussion of our nation’s blueprint, James Madison wrote in The Federalist No. 10, for instance [emphasis mine],

The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government.

But these differences must, inevitably, result in different degrees of wealth, and of different degrees of income on the path to the accumulation of that wealth.  This diversity, though, is not a failing, but one of the strengths of our nation, one of the things that makes us exceptional, as we’ll see shortly.

Madison added, perhaps in anticipation of today’s debates, this:

The apportionment of taxes on the various descriptions of property is an act which seems to require the most exact impartiality; yet there is, perhaps, no legislative act in which greater opportunity and temptation are given to a predominant party to trample on the rules of justice.

This is especially a propos in light of the present effort to use taxes explicitly to achieve that wealth redistribution, rather than let men effect their own redistribution through a free market, wherein they freely exchange their wealth among each other as they exchange their goods and services—and money—at freely agreed prices.  The inevitable outcome of these exchanges is that all participants are richer after them than they were before, since all participants, after the exchanges, have gained something of value to them that they had not had before.

This takes me to the practical aspects of the failure of government-driven wealth redistribution.  Our nation’s principles statement acknowledges that all men are created equal.  The only way a government can redistribute wealth is to take from the wealthier and give to the less wealthy—i.e., to tax some more heavily than others, and then to give the proceeds of those taxes to the those less taxed—or today, to those not taxed at all.  But consider what happens when this is done.  Those from whom the fruits of their labor are taken—of necessity, arbitrarily—will have less incentive to continue their labors, and to the extent they do continue, it will not be with their original zeal.  What would be the point?  Their compensation for their labor will only be arbitrarily reduced.  Similarly, those who receive the fruits of others’ labor without having labored to the same extent or quality (those differing faculties) will have a reduced incentive to continue trying with their original zeal: they’re going to receive from government those others’ wealth, in any event.

Yet if each is left to his original equality of opportunity, to use to the fullest his own skill, work ethic, innate ability—his own faculties—he will be free to achieve his fullest potential—and yes, that will be differing levels of income and of wealth.  But that freedom to satisfy one’s own full potential, without government interference, is a part of that exceptionality of the United States.

It’s easy to see how this has played out over the last few decades of ever more active government-driven wealth redistribution.  Taxes on the middle class have been steadily reduced, the yet lower income classes have had their taxes reduced to near nothingness (and often receive tax credits—the wealth that others have earned).  This has been balanced by ever-increasing taxes on the upper classes—the so-called rich, the “millionaires and billionaires.”  Over the years until the 2010 mid-term elections, for instance, the top 10% of income earners have seen their share of the nation’s total income tax rise from 66% to 70%, while the bottom 50% of income earners have seen their share of the nation’s total income tax fall from 4% to 3%.  Yet the recipients of this wealth redistribution are even worse off—as Progressives insist with their plaints about today’s “increasing” income and wealth disparities.  Wealth redistribution, income leveling, doesn’t work by their own offered evidence.

This brings me to my third point, the morality of income redistribution.

Again from our principles statement, we understand that among our natural, inalienable rights is each man’s right to pursue his own happiness.

Here, John Adams is instructive.

All men are born free and independent, and have certain natural, essential, and unalienable rights, among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties; that of acquiring, possessing, and protecting property; in fine, that of seeking and obtaining their safety and happiness.

Taking from some and giving to others denies to each their moral obligation.  One of the obligations resulting from all men being equal and all men having (an equal) right to pursue their own happiness is the obligation of each man to not be, routinely, a burden on other men either directly, or by imposing on each man’s obligation to help his fellows in their hour of need.  That hour cannot be allowed to last indefinitely.

Government-forced taking and giving denies the one the opportunity to satisfy his moral duty to see to his own happiness, and it denies the other the moral outcome of having seen to his happiness. Further, by routinely imposing on the obligation of the better off, the one imposing (or the government imposing in the one’s name) is, in effect, asserting a dominion over the one who is better off: he owes me because I exist, and he’s richer.  (And never mind that diversity of faculties that are spread across us all.)

In the end, equality of wealth, or of the income that contributed over time to the wealth, is not guarantor of individual freedom.  Indeed, this is quite the opposite: it is the destruction of freedom, since government, in ensuring greater “equality” must also ensure lesser freedoms through the necessary mandates and takings inherent in the redistribution.

Who is Serious about Solutions?

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Let’s look at the offers.  The Democratic Party Senate hasn’t offered a budget in nearly three years.  The last budget proposal proposed by President Obama, last winter, was laughed out of the Senate 97-0.  Not even the do-nothing Democrats took it seriously.

On the other hand, the newly elected Republican House of Representatives, flush with modern Conservatives, passed a budget largely developed by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R, WI) in their first month in office.  It’s lain dormant in that Democrat’s Senate, where the Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid (D, NV), has steadfastly refused even to let it come to the floor for debate, much less be voted up or down—or a counter proposal made.

What have the President and his fellow ProgressivesDemocrats offered in response?  Straw men attempting to deflect the discussion away from the issues: “We should not be in a race to the bottom where we take pride in having the cheapest labor and the most polluted air and the least protected consumers,” President Obama said from the campaign trail at a recent San Francisco fund raiser.  Of course, modern Conservatives, and Republicans, agree with him.  Who, indeed, has proposed such a thing?  This is simply an attempt to change the subject, driven by the fact that the Obama team has nothing to offer beyond their mantra of more spendinginvestment and more taxes.

Another straw man is this chestnut: “Despite what some Republicans have argued, I believe that we have to ask the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations to pay their fair share by giving up tax breaks and special deductions.”  He doesn’t consider that the top 10% paying 70% of the nation’s income taxes to be their fair share.  He also carefully elides the fact that his proposals go far beyond eliminating deductions and loopholes—they include outright rate increases.  He does consider the bottom 50% paying 3% to be paying their fair share.

On the other hand, President Obama did offer, last month, a $447 billion Jobs Bill, and he insisted “Pass this bill now.”  Never minding that the proposal had little that would generate jobs, but it did have considerable spending and the requisite tax increase, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R, KY) agreed that it should be debated and voted on, and he attempted to honor Obama’s “request.”  The White House, though, promptly objected, claiming that an actual vote was just a “political stunt,” followed by Reid refusing to allow the vote.  Only later did Reid bring the bill to the floor, and it was promptly voted down, with Democrats agreeing with the Republicans that the bill was a bad idea.

The Democrats also insist, especially in the aftermath of their “Jobs” Bill failure, that the Republicans are the Party of No, and they have no ideas—only obstruction.  But this ignores the fact that the (Republican) House of Representatives has already passed at least seven jobs and jobs-related bills, of which exactly zero have been taken up by Reid’s Democratic Party Senate.  This also ignores the fact mentioned above that that same Senate hasn’t even troubled itself to propose any kind of budget, much less one that might do some jobs creation good.

And there’s the simply inane.  We have Reid, in a speech on the Senate floor saying with an absolutely straight face, “it’s very clear that private sector jobs are doing just fine. It’s the public sector jobs where we’ve lost huge numbers.”  Reid said this after the August jobs report had come in with zero private sector jobs created for that month, and with a national unemployment rate over 9% and 14 million Americans without any employment, much less in the private sector.  Additionally, from the start the Obama administration has been more interested in fixing blame (it’s all Bush’s fault, even now, three years later) than they have been in fixing the problem.

And there are the plain ad hominem attacks, which aside from their dishonesty, simply demonstrate the lack of solutions, the absence even of ideas.  For instance, members of the Congressional Black Caucus have called black conservatives like Herman Cain and Allen West (R, FL) oreos, they have accused the Tea Party of being racist, and one member consistently referred to the Tea Partiers as tea baggers. And there’s the plain race-baiting of the Progressives: Rep Elijah Cummings (D, MD) said in a recent Press Pass interview, “I think when [Tea Party members] can vote for a Herman Cain and hear him say the things that he says they feel like, ‘Well, you know, I can, I support this guy and… so it shows that I’m not racist and I’m supportive.'”

In sum, one of these groups emphasizes class warfare divisiveness and evasion of the problems facing us, and the other group offers unification and solutions.  For one group, it’s the rich vs. the rest of us.  Only the definition of “rich” floats at convenience: it’s those who make more than $250 thousand one day, it’s the fat cat millionaires and billionaires another.  For another group, it’s a matter of all of us being in this together, with solutions that affect all of us and that benefit us all.  One example of this is in Ryan’s speech on “Saving The American Idea” at The Heritage Foundation: “Rather than raising taxes and making it more difficult for Americans to become wealthy, let’s lower the amount of government spending the wealthy now receive[,]” and “…true sources of inequity in this country – corporate welfare that enriches the powerful, and empty promises that betray the powerless.”  And this is that budget bill and those jobs bills that have been passed out of the House of Representatives and that the Senate refuses to consider.

Is the Group Guilty of the Misbehavior of the Few?

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Or, Where is the Logic?

In 2008, JPMorgan Chase was forced by the Federal government to accept bailout funds from TARP, even though the bank had no need of these funds.  The government’s reasoning for this was that they didn’t want to embarrass the banks that actually “needed” TARP bailout by having those banks be the only ones being funded by the government.  In the end, some 700 banks received TARP funds, which sounds like a lot, until that number is compared to the total number of banks in the US: nearly 9500 having assets of at least $100 million.  Yet, despite only 7% of the banks receiving bailout funds (and not all of them needing the funds), the entire banking industry is tarred by the failures of the few.  Flowing from this is the view that all banks contributed to the Panic of 2008 by overextending themselves with foolish investments, even though only a few of them actually were so engaged.

Throughout the Tea Party’s history over the last three years, there have been instances, as there are in all large and amorphous groupings, of individuals holding signs of a racist nature.  Whenever these signs, or other behaviors, are spotted by Tea Partiers at the gatherings, these individuals are isolated and removed from the gathering by those Tea Partiers.  Despite this, though, the entire collection of Tea Partiers is branded as racist.

In the current Occupy Wall Street protests, primarily in New York, there have been instances, again as there are in all large and amorphous groupings, of individuals holding offensive signs, this time of an anti-Semitic nature.  Following the logic applied to the Tea Partiers, should the OWS crowd be branded as bigoted?  To date, the NLMSM, which has applied this logic to the Tea Party movement, has not applied it to the OWS.

There are rare, but well-publicized, incidents of police brutality—Rodney King is one such.  Others, placed on YouTube, purport to show the same, but on full investigation, the “brutality” usually turns out to be non-existent.  Yet entire police forces are branded as corrupt on the basis of these rare incidents.

There are some Americans who objected to Barack Obama being elected President because of his race.  As a result of this, all Americans who disagree with Obama are racist, say too many on the Left.

And there are examples of a related “logic:” all who objected to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act while it was being developed were accused by Democrat Congressional leadership of being against all health care reform, even though many alternatives were proposed, both in the Congress and around the country.  Along the same lines, President Obama accuses all who object to his recently defeated Jobs Bill (defeated in the Democrat-controlled Senate, after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid initially refused to allow it to come to a vote at all, even though Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell explicitly requested a vote in response to Obama’s demand for that vote) of wanting all teachers, police, firefighters, et al., to lose their jobs.

Where is the logic in these accusations?  Why is there such imbalance in applying this “logic?”  One answer might be in the outcome of applying such “thinking” consistently: it would contradict the predetermined outcome of those who make the logical leaps in some cases, but not others.

In the end, who benefits from this imbalance?

Update: Corrected a typo in the third paragraph: NLMSL should have been NLMSM, which it now is.