The Right to be Stupid and Poor
Our rights are slipping away. We all remember the "right to a fair and speedy trial", sometimes it may not be as quick as we may like. We have "The right to bear arms", unfortunately today it seems that it means we are not limited to displaying and mounting bear heads or bear skin rugs. The most important right enumerated to us in the U.S. Constitution and subsequently denied by modern governments is the one this great country was founded upon:
"The Right to be Stupid and Poor"
Our founding fathers didn’t pen that specifically, but that is exactly what they meant when they described the inalienable right to life, liberty and property. Had I been there to help write it, the right to stupidity would have been made more clear.
How often have we seen a child 16, 17 forced to attend classes in schools usually reserved for fourteen year old ninth graders. After six or seven years or so, he graduates high school because we are determined that he will not fail. He can’t read though, so he can’t keep a real job in the private sector. Eventually he gets fired. We still won’t allow him to fail so we give him food stamps, welfare payments, fuel assistance and free college education. He skips classes but graduates anyway because we do not want to be accused of discriminating against the "Motivationally Challenged".
We do not allow him to fail. We coddle him from cradle to grave treating him as though he were worth something to the hard working citizens who are paying his freight. When he has children, we pay for them too. Mom or Dad teaches them how to game the system and the cycle begins anew.
We haven’t helped him, we have failed him. We’ve taken his rights away. He does not have the right to drop out of school, of society, to fail. We drag him back in to the government subsidized society.
Had we recognized his rights in the first place, he may have eventually chosen education, work and wealth instead of stupidity, indolence and poverty. If not, so what - he’s poor and deserves it, leave him alone. There are charitable organizations that will care for the truly needy. The right to be uneducated and poor must be preserved.
Right to Education and Wealth
Closely related to the right to be stupid and poor is the right to education and wealth. Some think this right means that we should just take money from those who have it and give it to those who don’t. When we do not allow people to be poor, we take away the privilege of wealth for many by the forced redistribution of their resources. This practice of legalized extortion is called an equitable tax system.
Where is the incentive to work, to succeed if when we choose not to work we are given the fruits of other’s labor? Who’s idea was this? Why have we allowed it to permeate our lives?
To those in government, who tell us what to do, how to think, what to eat, how to take a ... - never mind that one, how much we must pay for inferior services most of us don’t even use -
Get out of our way.
Recognize our inalienable right to be stupid, to fail, so that the rest of us may regain our right to succeed.
Next: The Golden Rule