For the Children - Yeah Right

My wife and I were listening to the Glen Beck show just a few minutes ago and I had to push the pause button on the Tivo and come write this. The bottom line of this entry is that even Glen Beck does not get it!

Here is how -
Beck started his show this evening making a big deal out of how the meaning of words really matters (duh!) , and taking Obama to task for Obama's Orwellian use of words and phrases that really mean the opposite of what they would mean to most people. For example Glen Beck says that he [Beck] "wants a responsible government", but that when Obama says the same thing, Obama really means the opposite. To make his point he played a clip of Obama saying "Lets build a government that's responsible to the people."

Building a government that's responsible to the people sounds good to the likes of you and me. Why?

• Because we know what a government responsible to the people is. A government responsible to the people is one that lives within the deliberate confines of the Constitution, a document which was deliberately crafted the way it was to impose shackling limitations on government power in light of the fact that men are corrupt, and in light of the fact that if all men were angels there would be no need for government.

• Because we know that a government responsible to the people would not introduce fascism into our society and would uphold the traditions of a person's ownership of that which he created.

• Because we know that a government responsible to the people is one that understood that "No, It does NOT take a village. It takes a Mommy and a Daddy working for themselves and instructing their children in morality and the ethic of work."

But, this is not what Obama means. What he means by "a government responsible to the people" is a government that will rob me and 92% of others like me to make sure that the deadbeat that took out a loan on a house that he never should have gotten a loan for in the first place can keep that home instead of getting removed, forcibly if necessary, to other accommodations. What Obama means is that it is not my job to do anything for myself, but that of my neighbor to pay to have someone else do it for me.

Beck was going apoplectic over this as he rightly should. So far so good then - up until the point where Beck, in talking about all the party faction and the statist craziness on both sides, says "I'm not here for anybody's party, I'm here for my children."

It is at this point where I come unglued, for that kind of thinking and dumb statement making is exactly an example of the muddled thinking that gets people into trouble and it exposes the fact that even Beck in unable to connect the dots.

Not to put too fine a point on things and just to make things clear (connect the dots) - I am not here for my children ... or your children, and every time I hear someone use this maudlin sop I want to vomit.The reason is that if your idea can't stand on its own two feet and has to be cloaked with the shroud of "the children", then it is an idea that is unworthy of being put into practice.

To make an example, the reason not to rob people is because it is just plain wrong, and the reason that it is just plain wrong is that without private property and ownership that is secure, the society breaks down into chaos. (Oh my, am I speaking here of 2009?) There need be no plea to "the children" or "my children", or "your children" to make or prove the point, and the kernel of truth is that if I take care of myself, and if you take care of YOURSELF instead of asking me to do it, then I won't have to worry about my children, you won't have to worry about yours, and I will not have to look over my shoulder to make sure that you not using the power of the state to "worry" about mine.

(In Beck's defense, it can be said that at least he referred to "his" children, and not children in general. But, even at that, use of any term having the word "children" in it is dangerous becasue that very word is the raw material that will be picked up by your opponent and used against you as it is used to whip the mob up into a feeding frenzy at your pocketbook's expense.)

So then, leave "the children", especially my children, the hell out of it. First, because they are not the basis for why we have a government founded on the principles of individual responsibility and consequence, and second because once YOU start politicizing "the children", using terms like "my children, "your children", or "the children", then ANYTHING can be justified by ANYBODY, using them , the children as pawns. (Why do you think that "the children" are constantly referred to in collectivist's attempts to shakle us with State run health care?)

Need to turn the country onto a gulag by implementing another unsustainable system (health care) that will go broke in 20 years from being robbed for other "social" programs like social security was? No problem, because, after all, its being done "for the children", those poor little urchins who do not have health care [because their parents either did not want it or because they were too lazy to get a job and pay for it, or because they spent the money on a bigger house]. If you do not have health care for your children so what? That should not be my problem? Care for YOUR children is YOUR responsibility, not mine, whether directly or through what you want to use as a proxy - the government.

A closing point - I am not my brother's keeper, and neither is he mine. I am my own keeper. Any other view of the proper state of things puts both feet firmly on the slippery slope leading directly toward the collectivist state.