31 January 2012

Respect for the Individual

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As people cry out about what isn't fair and what they think is fair, they frequently forget that in imposing their will, they're not concerned with everyone. In an attempt to fix things for some people they view as victims, they literally propose making other people victims in order to fix that for the first group of victims. Under no morality of which I am aware is it right to create victims in order to help others.

Individuals must be respected. However, our government looks at us, not as agents, but as objects. The reason I am not a libertarian is because civilized society depends on morality. In order for a community to exist and persist, it must agree on rules of acceptable behavior, which, if maintained, hold the community together. You cannot do whatever you wish without threatening the community. The reason I am not a Monarchist is because I believe in individual sovereignty. I have never seen anyone make permanent something they did not choose to do of their own accord. However, the Monarchist promises and premises his promises on the idea of a complete civil utopia. He will try to make on earth, which is fallen, the utopia which heaven alone can sustain. Society is a balance between absolute rights and civility. It is never that you can do whatever you like, it is that you can do whatever you like within the confines of the laws of that society. You have an obligation to uphold the society that allows you to act for yourself and to respect other people's right to choose.

Attacks on 'the rich' betray the lie of the Monarchist. He thinks that rich people ought to or must choose to be philanthropic while he ignores that some fraction of the population freeloads off the rest. Often, even the friends of the Monarchist are not 'paying their fair share' whatever the devil that means. People who cannot pay for an item but who rob a store are required to make restitution. People who walk away from their mortgages have their assets seized and if possible their wages garnished. However, these Monarchists want to interfere with people who mind their business and do pay for the society that upholds them, telling them they must pay for people who refuse to take responsibility.

It is no respect for the individual to require extra behavior of some people and extend to the rest a special pass. There are standards, rules, and laws, and they are set with respect for decency. It is not ok for the state or for a Monarchist to treat the citizens of a state as if they are objects, as if they are children, and force their hand to push some kind of asinine utopian agenda. You cannot stem the tide of immorality by forcing people around and telling them what they must do. They must choose to be choice if they are to remain individuals, be able to grow, and make that utopia permanent.

There will always be an argument for fairness and equality. Jesus told his disciples that they would always have the poor among them. Do you know why? It's so that we can always have the opportunity on an individual basis that we mean it when we claim to be Christians. If there are no poor, how else do we prove that we will care for them? It's easy to say how you know you will behave until the time comes when you must prove your worth with a leap from the lion's head.

The great thing about America and about the American way of life is options. We are free to choose. Here we decide, at least in part, our own adventure. You're measured, not by where you are born, who your father was, or even if you finished college, but rather by what you do and more to point by what you become. Here, rather than be known by your melanin content you can be known by the content of your character. That's because the Founding Fathers set up a system of government that regards the people not as objects but as agents. In a letter to PS Dupont de Nemours, Thomas Jefferson said, “We both consider the people as our children and love them with paternal affection, but you love them as infants whom you are afraid to trust without nurses and I as adults whom I freely leave to self government”. Whereas Nemours believed in a government system that propped up the previous generation as better than the latter one and looked down on the people with condescension, Jefferson understood respect for the individual, to choose, to be an agent, to choose his own adventure, and to rise to adulthood.

You are free to choose, to win or lose. You are the agent of your own choices. Nobody can make you mad or good or generous without your consent. As the same people who live by the morality of "you only live once so live it up" require of you that you abide by the morality of "you only live once so live well", remember that they choose something other than the choice they require of you. Choose to be choice, and choice things will come to you. After all, people generally associate with those in whose company they feel the most comfortable, and so if you live a choice life, even if your associations are few, they will be with the choicest of people you encounter.

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