One line. Barack Obama delivered one line during his acceptance speech at the DNC last night that cuts to the core of what a libertarian truly is. This exact same line is often used to paint libertarianism as a cold, heartless philosophy that would cause rampant homelessness of women and their starving babies unless, of course, the women decided to join brothels to support their drug habits. Naturally, the libertarians would be okay with this too; or so you would believe.
To which line am I referring?
I am my brother's keeper.
You see, this line would lead you to believe that Obama is a libertarian if you actually understand what it means to be a libertarian. But if you believe what you've been told a libertarian is, you would think this belief and libertarianism go as well together as ketchup and pineapple since libertarianism is normally portrayed as a dog eat dog/every man for himself/quasi-anarchastic ideology. So what's the connection between Obama's line and true libertarianism?
A libertarian cares deeply about other people. But if you've ever flown in an airplane and actually listened to the flight attendant's instructions, you know that in case of an emergency you are supposed to put on your oxygen mask first before assisting others. Assuming the mask comes down fully and oxygen is flowing, this task doesn't take long and you can quickly help others. But if it takes several minutes for you to reach up, untangle the mask, put it on, and there is just enough oxygen flowing to keep you conscious, helping others is a much more arduous task.
Our government has decided to put our oxygen in the most inconvenient location, and if you are industrious enough to actually reach it, an incredible amount of valuable time has been wasted that you could have used actually assisting others. Of course, it's done with good intentions. They simply take all of the masks from the seats of the people who don't look like they'd need oxygen, bring them in to a central location, keep about 70 percent of them in this location for their friends so they can have extras, and then when the time comes for the masks to be deployed give whatever's left out to the people least likely to help anyone else.
For those of you who aren't metaphorically inclined, I'm referring to the fact that most people would love to help, but when you spend half of your year working to pay the government there isn't much left over. Of course the idea that most people would love to help is based in libertarian ideology as well since we believe in the basic goodness of people rather than their basic cynicism to which Obama also referred during his speech.
As Thomas Paine wrote in Common Sense:
Some [people] have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them.
It appears that Candidate Obama is one of those people.
This is my message for him: I AM my brother's keeper. You or whomever you decide should be is NOT.
According to Senator Obama, the government's job is not to solve people's problems; it's to solve the problems we can't solve for ourselves.
Mind you this is a man who, if elected, will swear an Oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. And I can assure you that there is not a single line in that Contract between we the people and our Government that in any way even insinuates that that is what the role of government is. The role of government is to carry out whatever power has been granted to it by its people in a way that in no way infringes on the inanlienable rights of the people who granted the power. And where can you find exactly what these powers are? It's pretty simple actually, just read the contract.
Is it possible that the American People could decide that they want to give our Federal government the power to "solve whatever problems people can't solve for themselves"? Sure it is. It's called an Amendment. And it takes a majority of the people (or their representatives) in 75% percent of the states to say to the Federal Government, "Hey, we've done all we can do, we've sought every other solution, and we just can't figure this one out so we're giving the power to you to create any law necessary to solve this problem." A majority of voters in a general election does not give someone this power.
You know what the beauty of doing it this way is? When the people realize the problems created by addressing the issue this way are greater than the problem itself was, we can take the power away. And we've done it before. Do Prohibition, organized crime, bootlegging, the 18th and 21st Amendments ring a bell? The second beautiful thing about actually honoring the people's end of the Contract is that only major problems to which we truly can't find a solution individually or collectively as a society are addressed. To give you some perspective, the problem would have to be bigger than Katrina since government failed there in an effort to do something, once again, that we never gave them the power to do in the first place, but individuals and society found a way to come through for their Brothers and Sisters. And they did it generously despite the fact they'd already paid someone else to do it.
What a concept.
Maybe with Obama's "American Promise" a new law would be created that will force businesses to allow keepers to bring their brothers to work with them so we could be better keepers. Of course, the cost of businesses complying with this new law and the cost of the new government agency which would monitor compliance could possibly cause the business to cut the job of the keeper, and it would most certainly prohibit them from offering a job to the brother. But at least the keeper would be able to keep an eye on his brother, which isn't possible now when the keeper is working half a year to pay for the meager keeping his brother is currently receiving.
Obama's grandfather was right when he told him that Americans always find a way. And although we may sometimes find a way through our government, we typically find a way despite them.
Libertarians understand the fundamental difference between government and society that Thomas Paine wrote about in "Common Sense." Maybe I'll request some federal funds to do a study on this, but I'd be willing to bet anything I own that a self-identifying libertarian would be exponentially more likely to help someone stranded on the side of the road than a democrat who thinks it's the government's (police, etc.) job to help that person in need. I'd bet you that libertarians per person per income level leave bigger tips for people in service industries. I'd bet you that we give more to charities than our major party counterparts. And we don't do it to feel good about ourselves or for tax breaks.
We do it because the first tenet of libertarianism is personal responsibility. One of the things for which I feel we are personally responsible is helping others. I do this despite the fact that I already pay someone else to do it, and I will continue to do so even when I am forced to pay more. If you don't believe personally responsible people can rally around a cause like none other, just look at the funds the Ron Paul campaign raised last fall from small contributors who wanted the chance to get government out of our lives so we have more time and money to do more keeping. In the end, the only thing Obama deciding who gets to be the keeper and who gets to be the brother does is keep all of us in a situation more likely to be brothers rather than keepers because the American Promise kills the American Dream.
Allowing our government to usurp this kind of power without our permission instead of holding them to task and forcing them to do only the very big things we have asked them to do, leads us quickly down the path described shortly after the dawn of our nation when Thomas Jefferson wrote:
"When all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another, and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated."
And how would such an oppressive government be funded? Via Taxes, naturally, which would either be spent immediately or used to pay debts from money spent but not yet collected. With this in mind, Jefferson wrote of taxes:
"To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it."
This is in direct contrast to Barack Obama's concept of America. After listening to Obama talk about how the rich are being "given" more and more, which means they are allowed to keep more of what they earn, it became obvious that his American Promise is nothing more than FDR's American Principle:
"Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle."
That sounds incredibly similar to someone else who once wrote:
"From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs."
I bet you can guess who said that. His first name starts with a "K", his last ends with an "X", and there's an "arl Mar" in the middle.
Libertarians aren't anarchists. We understand the need for government. But unlike others, we also understand the importance of the proper role of government. The role that we the people clearly spelled out at the beginning with an option for us to change along the way if times demanded. If it's truly time for socialism, let's call a spade a spade and blow the whole thing up and have a Constitution burning party. But in the meantime let's not confuse the people who love their Country, their Countrymen, and their Brothers enough to fight in the face of overwhelming odds to preserve the very freedom that makes America what it is with someone who only cares about themselves. And can we please not call a Marxist system of taxation the "only American principle."
There was another word a few centuries ago for what today would be called a libertarian. They were just as rowdy and misunderstood. Most people didn't get why they'd be so outraged about seemingly trivial manners or the lengths to which they'd go to have their message heard. And others absolutely underestimated their resolve to see it through to its end and the magnificent society this stubbornness would ultimately produce. The British called them traitors; people in the colonies called them Patriots; we call them founding fathers--
The rest of the world simply called them Americans.
Who are you? Do you want a Promise, or would you prefer the freedom to maximize your opportunity and in so doing create the possibility of not only helping your brother, but others' brothers as well?
Your fellow American,
John Armstrong
strongarmedjohn@yahoo.com
As always, unlike the NFL, the author grants full permission to repost, rebroadcast, retransmit, or do whatever else you'd like with this article to promote the Restoration of our Republic.
