Women friends of mine are afraid to walk out of their houses after dark in very nice areas of Atlanta, New York, Charleston, Memphis, Marin County and several other places. The # 1 civil right in a civilized society is for women to not only feel safe, but to be safe anywhere while out in public. Anywhere. This is the very reason why governments are formed. To keep order, protect life, limb and property. Most men are hard wired to protect women. It is in our DNA. It might be our most important function in life. Unless you are a “Tim” (Tim Walz, Tim Kaine, Tiny Tim), you not only understand this, you obligate yourself to this precept. Then Why? Why do we allow society’s most precious asset, women, to be marginalized in crime infested neighborhoods? I’ll tell you why. We made a bargain with the devil. We’ve been told that it’s the government’s role to do what we used to do ourselves. We’ve abdicated our individual responsibility in favor of “collective” responsibility. And what do we have to show for it? A nation where half the male population are timorous “Tims,” and rampant crime is everywhere.
I live where history bubbles out of the ground. I can show you a dozen places where the Royal Navy landed troops on the Virginia mainland and were repulsed by the local militia. Every man deemed to be a good citizen, able body and of a certain age was part of the militia. These men elected their own officers, and no royal administrator or government flunky told them what to do. They were volunteers who after the job was done went back to their plows. My lawyer father, a WWII combat vet, looked much like Mr. Douglas on Green Acres. Yes, driving a tractor in a coat and tie. But, I’ll never forget when I was with him as a boy watching him make a citizen’s arrest and collaring two perps.
We’ve traded our responsibility for security. Of all earthly institutions, government is the most likely to become corrupt and outrageously inefficient. We put a man on the moon 55 plus years ago. Artificial intelligence can write books and make movies with just a few keystrokes, but yet, we can’t make our neighborhoods safe for our wives and daughters when they venture beyond a locked door. Like a turkey basting in an oven, we’ve been conditioned over a long period of time to think that keeping our women safe is the government’s responsibility and not ours. Big city mayors have politicized police forces where they can’t do their jobs. The tremoring Tims tell us to be afraid, to just let the criminals take want they want and for the law abiding not to resist. “Let them ransack the Walgreens and take what they want, after all, it is only property.” I can guarantee you that if there was no police force in your town, a citizen soldier militia of non-Tims would form to fill the vacuum and before long it would be safe for your daughters to go out in public.
When we abdicate our responsibility to the government, a vacuum is created and the government gets stronger and more corrupt, but when we reduce government a vacuum is created towards individual liberty, efficacious order and productivity. By the way, “liberty” is not synonymous with “freedom.” Liberty’s actions are imbued with individual responsibility.
Responsibility for security. How easy it is to fall for the trap, thinking that the government is here to protect us! Recent history proves the exact opposite. Virgil’s admonition to beware of Greeks bearing gifts is perfectly apropos to the “gifts” of big government. For illustration purposes, let’s just look at health, education and retirement.
Free vaccines! How many put their trust in the government to cope with Covid? Everything it told you was spectacularly wrong. Millions have died and been injured. Had the government not done one thing “to help” us, we’d all be much better off.
Free education! How’s the public school system working for you? Have you seen the thousands of “man in the street” social media posts where high school graduates are asked questions like “How many years are in a decade? Name a country in Europe? What country did the United States fight in the Revolutionary War?” $250,000 of K-12 government supplied “education,” and not one of these kids can answer the simplest of questions.
The gift of Social Security is likely the biggest financial rip off in history. Uncle Sam forcefully takes your money for 45 years and then “graciously gives” you a pitiful stipend. By investing the same money the government takes out of each person’s paycheck, almost everyone can do 10 times better than what the federal government “gives” you back.
By any objective analysis, these are colossal failures, but the paradigm of trusting the government to give us safety and security is so ingrained that most are oblivious to the societal degradation these policies cause. Once the premise is established that something is the government’s responsibility, when that something fails, it is presumed that the government must supply an alternative. The real solution is to take the responsibility away from the collective and return it to the individual.
I once was in a bible study with a fellow who was the dean of an Ivy League college. He was always perplexed at how to solve societal issues, and his commentary always started with “how are ‘we’ going to solve…..” We don’t need “we.” We need more “I.” How am I going to be healthy. How am I going to educate my kids. How am I going to save for retirement. People are smart enough to do things themselves, and they will if we just quit relieving them of their innate responsibilities. Eliminate NIH and DEA, public funding for schools and social security and folks would be heathier, better educated and richer.
Of all of these gigantic failures, the one that should piss you off the most is the fact that your mother, your wife and your daughters aren’t safe when out in public. This is outrageous.
Ronald Reagan won 49 states by articulating the philosophical virtues of smaller government and the redeeming values of individual responsibility. Boy, do we need that message today!
