The Damage of Mandated Compassion

 

It is widely excepted that government mandated programs to bring equality to a particular race, gender, or type of disability more often than not, despite the good intentions, cause a great deal of disparity.  Legislation that tries to empower or cater to a certain group of people, by the nature of the law, mandates an underlying tone that those specific people are inferior in a way that they need special laws or programs to help them.  Mandated compassion actually increase contempt for those it is trying to help and makes everyone else less likely to show kindness voluntarily.

When the government forces citizens to pay for housing subsidies, healthcare, and welfare, it builds contempt for those who use it and forms a stereotype of lazy, system exploiting people on those who live off these types of programs.  There are thousands of programs that provide food, shelter, and housing to low income people throughout the United States, that do so through volunteers and donations.  What is more important is that they do a better job and are more efficient with the money that they use, because they don’t have a blank check and they are passionate about helping.  The government is simply to big and it has shown that it really doesn’t care about the quality or effectiveness of its programs, equally they think that they do have a blank check and programs often cost much more than expected while still producing inferior results.

This is everything that government dabbles in where there is a private sector comparison.  This is evident in schools, healthcare, foreign aid, and many more.  A report was released in Georgia on the cost of sending a child to school for one year in a public school. The average cost of each student in the public educational system is nearly $10,889annually.  The cost of public education in 2007 was $10,770.  (  http://www.edreform.com/Fast_Facts/K12_Facts/  )  This number only includes the cost of the tuition, teacher pensions, social security, text books, administrative costs, school district labor relations, judicial costs and non-educational agencies performing K-12 services.  I does not factor in low income credits such as  cheap or free lunches.  Estimates for the actually cost per student to attend annually between $10,000 and $12,000.  The average private school tuition is $6,600, so roughly half. 

Half, let the settle with you for a moment.  We could over a period of years transfer the responsibility of educating our children from the government to the states and from the states to private schools.  In private schools, parents can take a more active role in their child’s education  and the in environment in which they receive it.  Want prayer in schools, want creationism taught to your kids, want a strong arts focus, or maybe you want a school that teaches no agenda and only encourages critical thinking and allows children to learn for themselves how to feel and what to believe about their world.  With locally based private schools parents have the power to find whatever it is they are looking for in a educational system.  The federal government has for years been trying to appease the masses by dancing around religion in schools, displinary systems, and fostering programs like no child left behind and head start.  What they refuse to admit is that the simplest solution is to allow the parents to find the school that best fits their needs.  Needs special education assistance, there are schools for that.  Need remedial training or perhaps advanced class for highly intelligent kids, guess what schools for that too.  All at roughly half the cost.

The bottom line is the governments job is to ensure the freedoms of Americans are protected.  ( http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/bill_of_rights_transcript.html ) Not to educate our children, support our poor, feed our hungry, or to ensure all our peanut M&M’s have the “contains peanuts” warning label on them.  Private industry and citizen’s of this country give millions if not billions of dollars in charities each years, millions of man hours in volunteer work, and are passionate about it when they do.  The quality of work is high and they follow through on teaching a man to fish, not just feeding him for a day.  Since the government has been so focused on doing things that are “moral” they forget why they are there.  It is not their job to employ people, it is their job to ensure there are no slaves.  It is not there job to educate people, it is there job to ensure that children are not denied education because of race, origin or religion. They have no right to demand money at gunpoint for allowing you to own property.  They have no right to rip money from you pocket and give it to people who don’t deserve it, haven’t worked for it, and don’t appreciate it.  The government is not Robin Hood, they are the Sherriff for Nottingham. 

Bottom line is people who do not work hard and get a good education should not have the same quality of life as those that bust their ass to get to the top especially if that equal life is paid for by those that did work hard.  No free rides here, everyone is born equal and where you go from there is entirely up to you. 

-  Be strong and tenacious

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”  Nelson Mandela