One hundred years ago, no millionaire could download his favourite song off the internet, nuke his spaghetti in the micro wave, or drive a car while protected by an air bag. Today, even individuals barely pushing middle class can do all of those things with routine regularity. However, with material plenty has come intellectual famine.
Slowly, we are rejecting the values which have made our country the wonderful place that it is. In the middle of this abandoning of principle is our degradation of individual responsibility.
Let's face it. With freedom comes risk. With risk comes responsibility. Sadly, people are not willing to take responsibility for their freedom. They would rather have the illusion of safety at the sacrifice of their freedom.
I was reminded of this the other day while listening to the radio. Recently there have been a number of deaths due to carbon monoxide poisoning. As a result of this, people are calling on the government to introduce legislation to prevent deaths from CO poisoning. One way of doing this would be to make it mandatory to have carbon monoxide detectors in all houses. Now, on the surface this may sound like a good idea. We tend to think. This saves lives therefore this is good. Now what really got my attention was something that an individual from the Kingston Fire Department said while being interviewed. He basically said that anything we can do to save lives should be done.
Wait a second here. Did I hear that correctly? ANYTHING we can do to save lives? Here's my question: how far are we going to take this? I'm going to invoke the slippery slope argument. So if mandating "healthy" diets for Canadians by law could save lives, should we do it? If wearing helmets in cars could save lives, should it become a law? If banning cigarettes and alcohol could prevent deaths, should those substances become illegal? Do you see where I am going with this?
The logical progression of this mentality is us losing more of our freedom and becoming more and more managed or "cultivated", like the tulips in front of parliament, by an extremely powerful government.
I believe that the more we hand off our responsibilities and obligations to the government, the more we forget how to live responsibly as free people. If you take a step back and think about how much the government has taken over our everyday lives, it is astonishing. When we are born we usually come to the world in a government funded hospital. As we grow up, most of us our educated in state-run schools. When we are down and out we collect money from the government. If we are doing well, we hand over vast portions of our wealth to the system. Our country is becoming more and more mired in a myriad of legislation restricting us in a multitude of ways. From the guns we buy to the milk we drink. Rather than look to institutions like the family or the church, we direct our pleas to the state. Sadly, it's not about to get better.
Perhaps it is possible to pinpoint where our society changed, but I cannot say. All I can say is that we have slipped into this mentality as one falls into a deep slumber. Now that we are on board with this "government is the answer" mentality, what can people say against any new law that claims to be in the best interest of the most people? With what logical consistency can anyone dare to oppose any new piece of legislation? If it sounds good do it. Each new act of bestowing this "safety" upon the public is supported by the laws that preceded it. The argument goes something like this: "We made wearing seat belts a law and everyone is ok with that now" or "we did that with junk food so why can't we do it here." In a disturbing manner, more laws help to perpetuate newer laws.
God made government and gave them power for a purpose. That purpose was not to act as overly protective parents over his creation, man. God gave us responsibility and he gave us obligations. We have obligations to look out for others, to help the poor, to do good works. Perhaps part of the reason of why we've reached this point in our history is because we were shirking our duties. I'm as guilty as anyone for not doing what I should be doing.
It is my hope that we would see where we are headed and turn things around before we end up so controlled that we dare not breath. (I'm purposefully exaggerating there.) Try to picture a world where what you eat, where you live, and who you associate with is tightly controlled by a central government. My challenge is this: the next time we think of looking to the government to solve a problem by taking away more of our money or freedoms, let's think twice about it and see what we can do ourselves to solve the problem.
Ben Franklin is a name a lot of people have heard of. As a founding father of the United States, I think he must have known a lot about government and liberty. Here's what he said on the issue of freedom and safety:
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty or safety..."
Here here!
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