A North Carolina author muses on the government's role in protecting honey bees from harmful agricultural practices.
Free Market Or Call For Government Regulation
Pino from Tarheel Red
My simplified personal view is that when you do something that only hurts you, then it's none of the government's business. If you do something that hurts your neighbor or others, then the government may have a small role to play in resolving the conflict. Furthermore, the government has no business helping people who won't help themselves or even helping good people who are down on their luck. Those situations are beyond the government's powers as limited by the U.S. Constitution. The government's role is to protect the rights and liberties of U.S. citizens. It is not the government's place to provide for us. That is the job of the citizenry. We provide for ourselves. The local government (police) make sure we don't hurt each other. The federal government (military) make sure foreign bodies don't hurt us. It's really very simple, if you read the original Constitution and then follow it.
"Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.”
- Ben Franklin
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
- John Adams
“Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.” - James Madison
"Suppose I saw an elderly woman painfully huddled on a heating grate in the dead of winter. She’s hungry and in need of shelter and medical attention. To help the woman, I walk up to you using intimidation and threats and demand that you give me $200. Having taken your money, I then purchase food, shelter and medical assistance for the woman. Would I be guilty of a crime? A moral person would answer in the affirmative. I’ve committed theft by taking the property of one person to give to another.
"Most Americans would agree that it would be theft regardless of what I did with the money. Now comes the hard part. Would it still be theft if I were able to get three people to agree that I should take your money? What if I got 100 people to agree – 100,000 or 200 million people? What if instead of personally taking your money to assist the woman, I got together with other Americans and asked Congress to use Internal Revenue Service agents to take your money? In other words, does an act that’s clearly immoral and illegal when done privately become moral when it is done legally and collectively? Put another way, does legality establish morality? Before you answer, keep in mind that slavery was legal; apartheid was legal; the Nazi’s Nuremberg Laws were legal; and the Stalinist and Maoist purges were legal. Legality alone cannot be the guide for moral people. The moral question is whether it’s right to take what belongs to one person to give to another to whom it does not belong."
Welfare state: Immoral and irredeemable
Walter E. Williams notes: 'The Constitution has not been amended to include charity'
Free Market Or Call For Government Regulation
Pino from Tarheel Red
My simplified personal view is that when you do something that only hurts you, then it's none of the government's business. If you do something that hurts your neighbor or others, then the government may have a small role to play in resolving the conflict. Furthermore, the government has no business helping people who won't help themselves or even helping good people who are down on their luck. Those situations are beyond the government's powers as limited by the U.S. Constitution. The government's role is to protect the rights and liberties of U.S. citizens. It is not the government's place to provide for us. That is the job of the citizenry. We provide for ourselves. The local government (police) make sure we don't hurt each other. The federal government (military) make sure foreign bodies don't hurt us. It's really very simple, if you read the original Constitution and then follow it.
"Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.”
- Ben Franklin
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
- John Adams
“Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.” - James Madison
"Suppose I saw an elderly woman painfully huddled on a heating grate in the dead of winter. She’s hungry and in need of shelter and medical attention. To help the woman, I walk up to you using intimidation and threats and demand that you give me $200. Having taken your money, I then purchase food, shelter and medical assistance for the woman. Would I be guilty of a crime? A moral person would answer in the affirmative. I’ve committed theft by taking the property of one person to give to another.
"Most Americans would agree that it would be theft regardless of what I did with the money. Now comes the hard part. Would it still be theft if I were able to get three people to agree that I should take your money? What if I got 100 people to agree – 100,000 or 200 million people? What if instead of personally taking your money to assist the woman, I got together with other Americans and asked Congress to use Internal Revenue Service agents to take your money? In other words, does an act that’s clearly immoral and illegal when done privately become moral when it is done legally and collectively? Put another way, does legality establish morality? Before you answer, keep in mind that slavery was legal; apartheid was legal; the Nazi’s Nuremberg Laws were legal; and the Stalinist and Maoist purges were legal. Legality alone cannot be the guide for moral people. The moral question is whether it’s right to take what belongs to one person to give to another to whom it does not belong."
Welfare state: Immoral and irredeemable
Walter E. Williams notes: 'The Constitution has not been amended to include charity'
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