Posted on 03/19/2014 8:53:13 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
When I was a kid -- which wasn't that long ago, given that I just turned 30 in January -- I recall hearing a popular phrase on the playground: "Mind your own business." MYOB reared its head whenever somebody threatened to rat out a fellow student for anything from harmless roughhousing to juvenile delinquency. The phrase is sometimes attributed to the First Epistle to the Thessalonians, a rough translation of which states: " ... make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody."
Unfortunately, the phrase "mind your own business" has lost all meaning. After all, you don't get to mind your own business in America today. If you're a religious business owner, the government can force you to serve a same-sex wedding and cover your employees' abortion-inclusive health care plan. If you're a landowner, the government can simply seize your property and hand it over to another private party in order to increase tax revenue. If you're an entrepreneur, the thicket of government intervention weighing you down, from minimum wage to tax regulation, stifles innovation and stymies creativity.
Today, Americans are only told to mind our own business when we're not, in fact, engaging in business. Concerned about the societal fallout from sexual promiscuity? Mind your own business. Worried about the rise of single motherhood? Mind your own business. Upset about an epidemic of young people seemingly willing to trade the responsibilities of adulthood for an infantilized freedom? Mind your own business.
Societal problems are now personal; personal problems are now societal.
That shift in the American mindset reflects a deeper shift in the nature of our relationship with government and each other. This week, Michelle Obama released a video explaining to us that we needed to sign up for Obamacare now -- for the sake of our mothers. "We nag you because we love you," the First Lady said.
But, of course, she doesn't love us. She doesn't even know us. Nonetheless, too many Americans have been convinced that individuals exercising personal choice are a societal problem; government, our Great Mother, can care for us personally. If we believe, as Hillary Clinton does, that it takes a village, then those who insist on personal privacy and freedom are obstacles to happiness and accomplishment. Only the collective is good. Any manifestation of individuality that poses a threat to that collective is by necessity evil.
We no longer live in a nation in which we can mind our own business. My business is your business, and vice versa -- unless, that is, we are engaged in activity that tears down family, church and community. If I'm a business owner rejecting service to a same-sex wedding, I have no right to invoke "mind your own business." Conversely, if I'm a member of a same-sex couple, I can invoke "mind your own business" all day long -- even if I'm making my business your business by engaging your services.
The obliteration of the distinction between the personal and the collective marks the end of American rights. But if you're worried about it, you should probably mind your own business.
Bookmark
Minding others’ business is so much safer.
Well, to begin, a lot of these issues come from meddling housewives who have way too much time on their hands to try to run other people’s lives. Another issue are women in the workforce who like to domineer over their coworkers and try to tell them how to do their jobs, even if the nitpicking nag in question isn’t paid to be manager.
Michelle is a POS.
That was before everybody started posting every painstaking detail of their lives to Facebook every 90 seconds.
Hey Ben! I was raised in Houston with the same “mind your own business” drilled into my head.
All was well until in 1964 I moved to a small Texas town.
WOW! Small town people were not taught MYOB like I had been. It was a real eye opener.
(s) I am so upset about the lack of privacy. I am posting about the lack of privacy right now on Facebook.(/s)
Minding Ones’ own business BEEP!
The TMI is incredible.
Good explanation. I’ll throw sad, bitter, single, angry, liberal middle aged and older guys who have no other purpose in except to tell others what to do and have an insatiable need to know every second of your life.
I don’t mind my own business. If I see drug-dealing going on in my neighborhood, I’m going to report it and help the authorities get rid of it. If I see someone else getting beat up, I’m going to jump in and stop it. If I’m not able or capable of doing it, I’m going to call the police. If I see or hear a woman getting beat up and screaming ... I’m going to do something about it.
I let my own family and relatives know that if I see anyone dealing drugs or receiving drugs, I’m going to call the police on them.
If I see something on my Medicare bill that was not done and it was paid for, I’m calling and reporting it, even if I have no bill to me.
I interfere quite a bit.
The left makes everything a political issue,
which means that the government is involved,
which means that FORCE is involved.
If this weren’t the case, we could afford to mind our own business.
As a young girl I never fit in with all the other girls because I didn't like the talk. At that time I had many more friends who were boys. Come to think of it, I have more male friends today, too.
Believe me, once we get socialized medicine, everything you do will be everyone else’s business.
Oh but they complain mightily if we carp about their constant underhanded tactics, bellittling and crazy azz nagging.
“You wouldn’t call a man a bitch, who does that. To you he’s just a man””
No Lucy, he’s an insecure jerk and a bitch.
Deal with facts in the realm and leave your emotional judo for your husbaneering projects.
Belittling takes a conversation that really shouldn’t last more than two minutes to something personal and I believe you mean it when you constantly pull it.
Stop pretending my past matters but, bringing yours forward once or twice a year makes me a victim....and besides the last doesn’t matter .
Well, it really wouldn’t but, for your constant carping when, really, everything IS actually okay.
What is your problem anyway?
Fight I asked. I don’t have all day or months to interpret the drivel you’re going to insist I endure before you finally reveal the actual point you wanted to make in the 1st place.
I’m gonna go hang out with the guys at the bar, play a game of pick up basketball(it would take too long to explain the term. Stop asking about it) or maybe I’ll retreat to my lair and play XBox.
Gotta put my mind on auto pilot. All that information you just dumped on me is very confusing and I find relaxation, by putting my mind on auto pilot, really distills everything leaving me, once again, with the facts.
I’ll be back to listen to your mealy mouthed, mind numbing crap later.
You seek to be constantly at war while always talking peace.
It’s exhausting.....really....
Damned Okie.......
Reminds me of this:
“They have healed the brokenness of My people superficially, Saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ But there is no peace. “Were they ashamed because of the abomination they have done? They were not even ashamed at all; They did not even know how to blush. Therefore they shall fall among those who fall; At the time that I punish them, They shall be cast down,” says the LORD.
-- From Jerimiah 4
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