By the Colonel
The same people who are deeply involved with teachers unions, the ACLU, protecting wild animals (especially those cute furry polar bears), global warming and saving our National Parks from those tourist people…are working hard to expand local food banks that feed so many needy people. At first glance, this seems a very worthy cause and who could be so mean as to oppose expanding local food banks? However, as we have learned over and over again through experience, intentions are not actual outcomes.
The analogy that popped into my head as I watched the TV interviewer talking to one of the volunteer leaders of the Washington DC food bank was wild animals at our state parks and the signs everywhere warning us, “Please don’t feed the animals.” But we love to feed the little chipmunks, they are so cute and what harm could a couple of peanuts do anyway? Now the park rangers have taken time to explain that they are not just trying to be mean to the animals or the visiting tourist, they are just trying to protect the animals. The Ranger explained that if the tourist feed the animals, the animals would forget how to feed themselves and become totally dependent on the park tourist. Then in the off-season when there are very few tourists, the animals will starve to death because the food source they have been conditioned to live on is not available. Why then is the Washington DC food bank expanding to make more and more of the poorest Washington DC population totally dependent on the food bank? Would it make more sense to leave nature’s human internal motivation in tact and instead help the poorest Washington DC residents learn to feed themselves? Remember a famous Confucian saying, “give a man a fish and he is fed for one day, teach a man to fish and he is fed forever.”
The problem with most liberals is they do not accept human nature as it is, they see humans as they want them to be. But as Einstein said, facts are stubborn things. What motivates people is individual self-interest and while that might sound selfish I do not believe it is, I think it is an honest assessment of human history. Every collective or communal experiment throughout history except for a few monasteries has failed (and even monasteries have a hierarchical rank order). A comparison of our Revolutionary War based on individual liberty and the French Revolution based on the community (fraternity) shows the French Revolution was a bloodbath that led to total anarchy and ruin. Communism has failed in every nation that tried it; even Russia and China are currently trying to allow capitalistic economy while trying to maintain an autocratic dictatorship.
The bottom line seems so simple I wonder at the resistance mounted against it…individual responsibility and opportunity lead to growth and prosperity while “statism,” the “government” or “community” (organizers) lead to phantom rulers in the shadows making decisions for everyone…since they know best what everyone should do and have. These elitist so-called liberal rulers give we citizens “peanuts,” we get use to and become totally dependent on their peanuts and then we lose our independence…we can no longer take care of ourselves and must depend on our self-appointed elitist rulers for everything. Since they can give us peanuts or take the peanuts away, we will have become slaves.
I, for one, want to remain hungry for as short a time as possible until I can feed myself and my family…when times are tough I will work more diligently, do anything I need to do…become creative, innovative and solve our problems. Don’t we want people to be motivated to create and innovate? Patrick Henry’s words were inspiring during the early days of the American Revolution and are still today, “give me liberty or give me death.” I would add that we should “take” liberty because no one can give us liberty…liberty is a decision we make in our hearts. So instead of expanding the food bank, let’s expand the individual responsibility and opportunity that always reduce the need for food banks…instead of just handing the poorest of Washington DC more peanuts and dependence.
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