Principle #7 – The Proper Role of Government is to Protect Equal Rights, Not Provide Equal Things.
Proverb 22:13 “The sluggard says, ‘There is a lion outside!’ or, ‘I will be murdered in the streets!’”
Our Founding Fathers were aware of the sentiment in Europe of taking from the ‘haves’ to give to the ‘have nots’ so that all might be equal, but our Founding Fathers would not have any of that idea or reasoning.
Benjamin Franklin after living for some years in England and being one of the ‘have nots’ and seeing the welfare program in operation made this comment: “I have long been of your opinion that your legal provision for the poor (in England) is a very great evil. Operating as it does to the encouragement of idleness. We have followed your example, and begin now to see our error, and, I hope, shall reform it.”
The Founding Fathers wrestled with the thought of what powers can be assigned to government and came up with the idea that the only powers assigned to government would be what the people assigned to themselves. For example, every person is entitled to protection of life and property and so then it would be perfectly legitimate to delegate to government the power to have a police force to make sure that all citizens’ life and property are protected.
An example is given of a kind-hearted neighbor who saw that his neighbor had two cars, but another neighbor did not have one and so decided that he would take one and give to the neighbor that had none. If this happened he would have been jailed for being a thief. But what if the kind-hearted neighbor went to the local government to have them ‘force in the name of the law,’ the two car neighbor to give one of the cars to the ‘have not.’ Is this any different from what the kind-hearted neighbor did in stealing one of the cars to give to the ‘have not?’ We see that government can sometimes commit ‘legal’ crimes.
Once government goes down this road of being authorized of leveling the possessions of the rich in order to have an equal distribution of goods, the government then has the power to deprive any of their equal rights to enjoy life, liberty and property. It is indeed a slippery downward path. The poor might think that this is equal justice, but what happens when government takes from the poor? They soon find out that government is not working right for all people. In other words, when government can take from the rich it automatically cancels the principle of the guarantee of equal rights for all.
We can learn from history in what happened when the communists took over in Hungary. The peasants were excited with the justice when the large farms were confiscated and given to them. However, later the communists seized about three-fourths of the peasants’ land to set up communal farms. Peasants complained and found that they not only lost their land, but their liberty and if they kept on complaining – lost their lives. One thing, to me, that comes out of this is what Proverbs says: “There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.” (Proverbs 16:25) In the 20th century millions died by our governments, because of the ‘ways’ (the thinking) of man.
Only through the principle of equal rights can we prosper without any penalty for the rich, for being rich. When some became very rich the Founders’ response was: “The more the better.” So should it be today. It is inevitable when there is freedom that some will become richer than others, because of inheritance, but mostly that good fortune comes from hard work and wisdom. The idea in back of this was to maximize prosperity and minimize poverty. The Founders knew that what worked for the USA would also work for any country. The key was to get the government to protect equal rights, not provide equal things.
The Founders had a deep concern for the poor, the marginalized and the needy, but how to implement this concern into practice was something that they gave a lot of thought to and came up with the following criteria.
- Do not help the needy completely. Merely help them to help themselves.
- Give the poor the satisfaction of “earned achievement” instead of rewarding them without achievement.
- Allow the poor to climb the “appreciation ladder”— from tents to cabins, cabins to cottages, cottages to comfortable houses.
- Where emergency help is provided, do not prolong it to the point where it becomes habitual.
- Strictly enforce the scale of “fixed responsibility.” The first and foremost level of responsibility is with the individual himself; the second level is the family; then the church; next the community; finally the country and, in a disaster or emergency, the state… under no circumstances is the federal government to become involved in public welfare. The Founders felt it would corrupt the government and also the poor. No constitution authority exists for the federal government to participate in charity or welfare.
The Founders felt that by the federal government not intervening in the local affairs of the people they were protecting the ‘unalienable rights’ of the people from the abuse of an over-reaching government.