Volunteering to Rescue Government-Addicted America
The morally dubious character of our tax code? The violence it does to virtues of diligence, thriftiness, delayed gratification, equality? It’s potential effect on our children, grandchildren, the future of the nation we allegedly love? Bah!! For all this guy’s fulminating, although he’s someone who self-confessedly wants us to return to our founding principles, what mattered bottom-line is that he’d somehow managed to manipulate the existing, malodorously socialistic tax structure to his benefit — so, never-mind.
As long as so called “Constitutional Conservatives” are content to indulge emotionally cathartic carping and kvetching about the current system, while insisting those facets of it that discretely benefit them remain untouched? Well, we can forget about any real change, any on-the-ground problem-solving, unfolding any time soon. Or ever.
The burden of providing personal health care for every American, for example, ought to fall, first and primarily, on the individual himself. Yes, that terribly dreary, “personal responsibility” thingey. Tough, but invaluable.
Failing that, a person’s immediate, then extended, family should be drawn in. Next the needy fellow’s church (I know, how quaint!), or friends/neighbors. Then, charitable organizations. Note: on some level these are all “voluntary” associations, calling up others to willingly share, give — dare I utter it? – sacrifice. Arguably not the most popular proposition nowadays, but the alternative is the bullying and ineffectual mess gurgling around us now which, by the way, is dispiriting and bankrupting the nation.
Only after these options have been comprehensively exhausted, should the broader community’s public services be tapped. And check out what’s wayyyy down the list (if at all): the involvement of remote, sclerotic, bureaucracy-addled State and Federal agencies.
Further applying this mindset to the exigencies of childcare, education, elder-care; to our creaky welfare regime demeaning and enslaving entire generations – that would be a hopeful beginning.
Decades ago we began abandoning the principle of folks’ taking care of themselves and, when that fell short, electing of their own volition to give help to/receive help from others — minus government’s meddlesome insistence. The State regarded as god – omniscient, omnipotent, omni-present, omni-involved — became the norm.
The long-term fall-out? Perfectly capable joggers presuming someone else will bankroll and produce their running courses.
Good for physical fitness. Philosophically pathetic. Certainly destructive for Americans — and America.
Image: Showing hands; uploaded by Smallman12q; author: Oregon Department of Transportation; Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license
Topics: Volunteering, Volunteerism, Taxes, Self-reliance, Limited Government, Health Care
