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How did fiercely independent Americans become submissive subjects of ever-encroaching looters? Like any deal with the devil, our compact with the looters has its seductions — and ultimate price to pay:
1. The looter state lures us morally by masking its acts of compulsion as charity. Claiming its programs help the needy, it ignores the fact that real charity is voluntary and doesn’t confiscate wealth. It vilifies producers as “selfish” if they don’t comply. When brazen looter Joe Biden claims it’s patriotic to fork over your dough to the state for redistribution, what happens to our moral right to control our own money?
2. The looter state lures us financially by promising us “entitlements” — a house we can’t afford, an art center we can’t fund privately, a surgery with no bill. But these freebies are unearned, unsustainable, and come with strings attached. When we become freeloaders using government funds, it’s always on government terms. What happens to our dignity — and responsibility — to pay our own way and our right to set our own terms?
3. The looter state lures us to give up independence for false promises of security. The poor, the sick, the elderly are told a beneficent government will care for them. But Social Security, for example, is bankrupt and a Gallup poll shows that the majority of people now realize they’ve been had. While the looters build a house of cards that collapses when they run out of other people’s money, what happens to our ability to take care of ourselves?
4. The looter state corrupts our character. Consider: the teacher who wants state-monopoly protection against competition and prevents parents from choosing alternative schools; the public employee unions that fund politicians who reward them with compensation far exceeding private-market rates; the poor who demand public assistance rather than ask politely for private charity. What happens to that cornerstone of liberty, our respect for the rights of others?
5. The looter state destroys our grasp of reality. In science, hot political topics like global warming get funding while real scientific problems languish; in education, young minds are fettered with concern not to offend, rather than flying free among the facts; in business, making a politically correct car supersedes making one that sells; in farming, growing what brings a government subsidy supersedes growing what customers prefer. When every aspect of life is politicized, what happens to our ability to see facts and truth?
6. The looter state turns us to violence. We begin to resent and envy those who have what we don’t. As prominent moocher Al Sharpton says: “The dream is to make everything equal in everybody’s house.” If anyone tries to curtail the massive wealth redistribution required for such “equality,” we turn to thuggery and mob action, as in Greece and Britain. What happens to our honor?
The lines are drawn in the sand. Where do you stand? Will you mooch with the looters and give up everything — your work, your money, your liberty, your mind, your character, and your soul — for a few fleeting stolen goods and illegitimate advantages? Or will you join the producers, in a world of free minds, free markets, wealth, prosperity, protected private property, and liberty? See “Atlas Shrugged: Part I,” then read the book — and decide.
— Marsha Familaro Enright is president of the Reason, Individualism, Freedom Institute, the Foundation for the College of the United States. Gen LaGreca is author of Noble Vision, an award-winning novel about the struggle for liberty in healthcare today.
I need to go see this tomorrow. How appropriate that it comes out on April 15th.
I wonder where I fall these days, I use to have a career, but now am a SAHM which I STRONGLY feel is very important and valuable.
Bookmark & Bump