Several months ago, Obama referred to what he considers the essence of America: He said, “This sense of mutual responsibility — the idea that I am my brother’s keeper; that I am my sister’s keeper — has always been a part of what makes our country special.”
Actually, this isn’t true. You can agree or disagree with Obama that being your brother’s or sister’s keeper is the right moral approach. I profoundly disagree. But regardless of where you stand on that issue, America is not the only place where people take care of each other. People take care of each other in all kinds of countries. Unfortunately, in many countries people don’t take care of themselves. This is what made America stand out. In America, especially in the beginning and to some extent still today, people take care of themselves. It’s their operating premise. “How can I survive?” Not, “Who will take care of me? Who will rescue me?” But, “How can I make myself and my loved ones safe, warm, comfortable and happy?”
America was, to my knowledge, the only society in history where each generation expected the next generation to do better. That expectation is still there today. But if the budget crisis and recession continue — as everyone from the Federal Reserve Chairman on down says they will — then it’s possible, for the first time in American history, that the next generation will not do better than the present one. In fact, on our current course — set by Obama and questioned by all too few — that’s where we’re headed.
A society in which people take care of each other is not the essence of a great society. Obama’s world is one in which there are soup kitchens, hospital beds and people are huddled together, ecstatic that they have each other to care for. It’s called, “Misery Loves Company.” This is fine for Obama, who, with his family, lives comfortably as is the lot of all rulers in a society run by the principle of government-imposed caring. “Why, he’s our great leader who cares about those who have the least. He deserves to live well.” Yet if somebody lives well off their own achievements and efforts — they’re evil and horrible. And this is morality?
Obama, like all the socialists who came before him and who will follow him, misses the point. They fail to see that production and freedom are the only things that make caring possible.
If you’re going to look at things from a social point-of-view, you have to ask yourself: “What principle of human behavior, if everyone followed it, would lead to the best results for the individual, as well as for everyone in general?” Of course there’s no one principle that everyone is going to agree to follow. But if they did, which one would lead to the best results?
There’s no question: Freedom. Freedom not to just have abortions and choose your sex partners, but freedom of economics, too.
When people are left free and self-responsible to care for themselves, they will achieve the best they can possibly achieve. Those who achieve more are free to care for anyone they want. People are free to try and mooch off of others, and people are, in turn, free to let others mooch off of them. Government, in a free society, will not be sponsoring or requiring any of this mooching or underachieving — but people are still free to engage in it.
There’s nothing in freedom, which Obama and his ilk so dislike, to prevent caring, including how one defines caring. But the moment you make caring the standard, the end-all and the be-all of existence, then you create a world where poverty and stagnation are the inevitable outcome.
Liberals like Obama are big on not making government the sponsor of morality. Yet by telling people they are their brother’s and sister’s keepers, and using government policy as a way to impose this definition of morality, they are merging morality and state in the worst possible way. The naive people who support Obama because “he supports gay marriage” (by the way, he doesn’t) or because “he supports freedom of choice” don’t appear to recognize that he’s the biggest imposer of morality (his definition of morality) that has ever occupied the Oval Office.
I don’t care if most people don’t question Obama’s attitude about morality. I know for a fact that most people don’t practice it, because it’s insane. Obama has the luxury of claiming to practice it because he has never really worked in the private sector and has spent his whole short career just being adored for the symbolism he inspires (in some). Even if he’s out of office in one term, he and his family will be well taken care of by the 54 percent who do pay income taxes, plus the book sales and other royalties that come from an adoring intellectual and media establishment. Sure, it’s easy for Obama to be the prince of brother’s and sister’s keeperism. What about the rest of us who must work for a living? And the more we succeed at working for a living, the more the government forces us to pay into programs which purportedly take care of other people. I repeat: This is what passes for morality?
Great people don’t become great by taking care of others. While it’s true that great, accomplished people are usually generous and seek to help out people who have difficulty through no fault of their own, this isn’t what makes them great. Helping is not what makes you great. You’re great because you’re capable, you’re competent and because you persist and apply yourself in life. Because of your success, you’re therefore able to help anyone you want, or nobody if that’s your preference.
Obama’s morality says that you’re only great if you help others. If this is true, then we don’t need any iPhones, computers, high-definition televisions, nice automobiles, medical technology or anything else. All we need is each other, to live in one big collective, miserable swamp. Obama is clearly doing everything he can to keep the economy from growing, and to keep people as dependent on the government for as long as possible. In a paranoid kind of way, it’s tempting to think this is his intention. I don’t think he’s that smart. What I think is that he genuinely believes in the approach to morality he seeks to impose on us all. And in the process, we’re giving up self-sufficiency and excellence for the sake of creating one big, gigantic soup kitchen.