“People are not embracing collectivism because they have accepted bad economics. They are accepting bad economics because they have embraced collectivism.” (Ayn Rand)
Collectivism is the idea that your life does not belong to yourself; that your life belongs to the tribe, or society.
America’s Constitution and Bill of Rights were based on the exact opposite assumption. Under that Bill of Rights, the individual is sovereign. Nobody may violate the sovereignty of any individual over his own life and time, unless that individual has physically threatened or imposed himself on others.
Your rights belong to you. Nobody may take them away; not a violent criminal, not a thief — nor a government. A government’s sole legitimate purpose is to uphold the right of the individual to be free from force.
Ayn Rand’s works bring us back to that fundamental truth. Perhaps no government will ever be perfect. But once a government actively and openly pursues a course of imposing force on peaceful people for the benefit of others, that government has lost all moral legitimacy.
It started with taxes to redistribute wealth on a small scale. Then it moved to redistribution of wealth on a larger scale. Then it moved from private currency to government controlled currency, meaning that the government can manipulate the value of bank accounts and property by control of the dollar. Then it moved to retirement insurance and medical care. And then it moved to shutting down society for the flu, and cutting citizens off their energy supply (overwhelmingly fossil fuels). What else can our government control to prove its current illegitimacy? How about controlling our food supply? Making food available to some but not others, based on political factors that are the priorities of the government?
We are at the end of the road. Those who refuse to see it at this point will probably never acknowledge it. Until they can no longer move, think or breathe. By then, tragically, it will be too late.
Remember: Freedom never perishes without the consent of the people who relinquish it. The means for relinquishing it is the false idea that we belong to the tribe, and not to ourselves. That’s how they get you.