Is Government My Brother's Keeper?

     In the Good Book an “expert in the law” asked a pivotal question of Jesus, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus turned the question around on him and said, “How do you read the law on this question?”

     The response was, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

     “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”

     But the expert wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

     At this point Jesus tells a story about the Good Samaritan who helped an injured, beaten and robbed man who had been abandoned and left lying in the road bleeding.  The victim had been passed by a preacher and another leader in the Law.

     The question was then asked of the “expert,” Which of these three do you think was the neighbor to the victim?

     The expert replied, “The one who had mercy on the on the victim.”

     Jesus said, “Go and do likewise.”

     I see nothing here about calling together a committee of the legislature to pass a law to take money from some citizens to help the down trodden.  I see neighbors taking care of neighbors.  I see that I am my brother’s keeper not a bureaucracy of government. 

     In the last century the ‘do gooders’ got a firm foothold on this country.  They started passing laws to make government responsible for the welfare of our neighbor.  When you take from some by force and give it to others this is called socialism or legalized theft. 

     Our country thrived for the first half without all of this forced charity.  In fact neighbors did not let neighbors die when disaster befell them.  Neighbors did what neighbors still do in our county.  They rolled up their sleeves and pitched in to give a helping hand in time of need.

     I have been able to be a small part of an occasion or two where a farmer had disaster befall them and the neighbors jumped in and saved a harvest or helped plant a crop.  It is what we Americans are raised to do.  I have seen many volunteer efforts on behalf of needy folks.  I think of the Red Cross and Salvation Army and numerous other organizations.

     The first war I remember was the beginning of the War on Poverty.  This was going to end the needy population and be a wonderful thing.  As a child it sounded good to me.  However poverty has increased and not decreased along with the growth of a huge bureaucracy to support it.  Is it in the best interest of the “poverty bureaucracy” to decrease the amount of poverty?  If poverty suddenly went away where would all those people work?

     Then the War on Drugs commenced.   That sounded reasonable to a young teenager.  After all the deaths and horrible things I heard about from heroin, and LSD, and uppers and downers, and bennies, etc.  The Drug War now includes huge law enforcement with all kinds of wonderful investigative tools.  And some really neat but very expensive toys like MP5 machine guns and AR15s and neat radios and some really cool body armor.  We now we have a “wonderful” growth industry in the form of prisons to lock up people who sniff glue and smoke wacky weed.  The War on Drugs lets law enforcement watch how much cash people put into or take out of the bank.   This war started when I was teen and I am now nearly 6 decades; this war is a losing battle.  Why are we running around saving people from themselves?  People have used narcotics for hundreds of years.  Most don’t get hooked, some do.  The same is true for alcohol abuse.   It is their choice.

     Should I even bother to talk about the newest war, the War on Terror?  Now that I have lived this long and witnessed the disastrous effect on Liberty from the War on Poverty, the War on Drugs, and now the War on Terror that justifies the groping of five year olds and old ladies in airports, and the locking up of American Citizens without charges or the right to a lawyer or the right to habeas corpus, I am not under any illusion that this war will do anything except rob the People of more Liberty.   I am, on the other hand, confident that it will add to the Power of the Police State.

     What we have to keep in mind is the true function of government.  The true function of government is not welfare for individuals, not direction and oversight of what material a person chooses to ingest, not snooping in the People’s bank accounts; the true function of government is the preservation of natural rights by providing a frame work for justice and to provide for the common defense against enemies foreign and domestic.  The People will take care of the rest.  The People will take care of the indigent and the helpless and down trodden.  The People will take care of the economy.

     Why would we trust government when it cannot even balance its own check book?  It prints paper money that has no value except the “word” of government that it is good for all debts public and private.  If private business operated the way government does the business would be charged with fraud.  So we need to return to our Constitutional foundations and roots.  We need to act with charity and caring concern toward our neighbor.  With regard to our government we need to be fierce in our resistance to those politicians who would continue to rob the People by ignoring our Constitution.

     If you would like to correspond with me on this contact me at:  editorial@pike912.org or leave a message at 217-285-2134, or follow my blog at: pike912.blogspot.com.