General Welfare

Last night, an historic bill was passed in the House of Representatives in the name of "protecting the General Welfare." I think that anyone who reads this blog is probably somewhat acquainted with my views on that subject, but I thought I'd put in my two cents anyway, partially because I'm really upset with the "blue dog" Dems and the government in general and partially because I just did a post on promoting the general welfare that I would now like to amend.

For the record, I don't believe that it's the government's responsibility to make everybody happy. However, the government should at least try to keep most of its citizenry happy. It's quite apparent if you look here that most people don't want this particular species of healthcare reform. (Obviously, the vote on the page is mine.) Therefore, by passing this bill, the House of Representatives was actually destroying the general welfare. The general welfare is what the people want, not what the government says the people should want.

Also, general welfare is not entitlement. We as a people are not entitled to a posh life. The government was not put in place to make everybody successful. The government's job is to protect the constitutional rights of the people, which are enumerated in the Bill of Rights. This is a far cry from the feeling of entitlement that is so prevalent today. (See Equality, Parts I, II, and III.) Don't be deceived, people; the government knows about this feeling and is using it to twist the American people into complicity with a scheme that can only ruin the nation. We've seen what "healthcare reform" does in Canada and the UK and other countries, and we don't need that horrid muddle here.

Just because everybody who's anybody in the world has a socialized healthcare system doesn't mean that America has to as well. We are America, the Land of the Free... not the Land of the Entitled. We do not follow. We lead. So following all the other civilized nations, lemming-like, in their descent into mayhem is not acceptable no matter how the government spins it.

There's still hope; this snafu of a bill isn't law yet. It has to get through the Senate first and then across the President's desk. And even if (when) this bill does get rammed through, it won't be the end of the world. God has something lined out for us. It will be hard. It will probably involve chastening, so to speak. But in the end, it will be worked out for good, at least for those of us who are Christians (Rom. 8:28-29). So let that be our hope. Someday, somehow, everything will get better... even if we have to wait until the other side of eternity to see it.

Libertarianism, Hedonism, and a few other Isms

I haven't done a substantial post recently (sorry), so I was going through some "articles" I'd written a bit ago. I came up with this. Hopefully I'll get up the nerve to do a post on the healthcare bill soon, but until then, this will have to do.

And for those of you who were wondering, yes, I do write out nearly all my "real" posts well before I actually post them. =P

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I read Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged a few months ago, and I was discussing it and the libertarian movement with my mom recently. Basically, we came to the conclusion that hedonism is equal to Objectivism (Rand’s espoused philosophy), which in turn is approximately equal to libertarianism. Thus, by the substitution property of equality, hedonism is approximately equal to libertarianism.

Yes, I just said what you thought I said.

Why? Well, let’s begin with a few definitions. Libertarianism, in its essence, is basically state-condoned anarchy, which necessarily allows the people to do whatever they want. Hedonism is the pursuit of personal pleasure at all cost. Objectivism is, according to Rand, “[The] concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.”

Now with those definitions, it should be pretty clear that hedonism and libertarianism are both pretty nearly equal to Objectivism, and thus pretty nearly equal to each other.

If you’re a Bible-believing Christian, or at least a Constitution-loving American, this is a problem. If people are allowed to do whatever they want, and doing whatever they want involves hurting someone else, isn’t that sort of a violation of the constitutional rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? On the flip side, if the government restricts the people’s ability to hurt other people, even if it makes them happy, isn’t that also violating their rights?

This is where “promoting the General Welfare” comes into play. By necessity, to promote the welfare of the people as a whole, the government must violate the rights of a few people. This seems uncomfortable at first glance; however, when people decide to use their rights as license rather than as liberty, they must forfeit their rights. Rights are not right when used to harm other people.

So should everyone give up their rights in the name of General Welfare? No. That would be swinging the pendulum too far in the direction of totalitarianism. If the people give up all their rights, welfare isn’t general anymore. The government would be the only thing left to protect the people, and we’ve all seen what happens when that’s the case. Thus, rights are necessary.

What am I advocating, then? Conservatism? Liberalism? Constitutionalism?

None of the above. I’ll do another post sometime on the subject of political parties. This isn't the post for such a discussion. So I’ll leave you with a quote from Oliver Wendell Holmes: “The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins.”