Townhall...
Ten
Ways Progressive Policies Harm
Society’s Moral Character
By Dennis Prager
7/19/2011
While
liberals are certain about the
moral superiority of liberal policies, the truth is that those policies
actually diminish a society’s moral character. Many individual liberals
are
fine people, but the policies they advocate tend to make a people
worse. Here
are 10 reasons:
1.
The bigger the government, the less
the citizens do for one another. If the state will take care of me and
my
neighbors, why should I? This is why Western Europeans, people who have
lived
in welfare states far longer than Americans have, give less to charity
and
volunteer less time to others than do Americans of the same
socioeconomic
status.
The
greatest description of American
civilization was written in the early 19th century by the Frenchman
Alexis de
Tocqueville. One of the differences distinguishing Americans from
Europeans
that he most marveled at was how much Americans -- through myriad
associations
-- took care of one another. Until President Franklin Roosevelt began
the
seemingly inexorable movement of America toward the European welfare
state --
vastly expanded later by other Democratic presidents -- Americans took
responsibility for one another and for themselves far more than they do
today.
Churches, Rotary Clubs, free-loan societies and other voluntary
associations
were ubiquitous. As the state grew, however, all these associations
declined.
In Western Europe, they have virtually all disappeared.
2.
The welfare state, though often
well intended, is nevertheless a Ponzi scheme. Conservatives have known
this
for generations. But now, any honest person must acknowledge it. The
welfare
state is predicated on collecting money from today’s workers in order
to pay
for those who paid in before them. But today’s workers don’t have
enough money
to sustain the scheme, and there are too few of them to do so. As a
result,
virtually every welfare state in Europe, and many American states, like
California, are going broke.
3.
Citizens of liberal welfare states
become increasingly narcissistic. The great preoccupations of vast
numbers of
Brits, Frenchmen, Germans and other Western Europeans are how much
vacation
time they will have and how early they can retire and be supported by
the
state.
4.
The liberal welfare state makes
people disdain work. Americans work considerably harder than Western
Europeans,
and contrary to liberal thought since Karl Marx, work builds character.
5.
Nothing more guarantees the erosion
of character than getting something for nothing. In the liberal welfare
state,
one develops an entitlement mentality -- another expression of
narcissism. And
the rhetoric of liberalism -- labeling each new entitlement a “right”
--
reinforces this sense of entitlement.
6.
The bigger the government, the more
the corruption. As the famous truism goes, “Power tends to corrupt, and
absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Of course, big businesses are also
often
corrupt. But they are eventually caught or go out of business. The
government
cannot go out of business. And unlike corrupt governments, corrupt
businesses
cannot print money and thereby devalue a nation’s currency, and they
cannot
arrest you.
7.
The welfare state corrupts family
life. Even many Democrats have acknowledged the destructive
consequences of the
welfare state on the underclass. It has rendered vast numbers of males
unnecessary to females, who have looked to the state to support them
and their
children (and the more children, the more state support) rather than to
husbands. In effect, these women took the state as their husband.
8.
The welfare state inhibits the
maturation of its young citizens into responsible adults. As regards
men
specifically, I was raised, as were all generations of American men
before me,
to aspire to work hard in order to marry and support a wife and
children. No
more. One of the reasons many single women lament the prevalence of
boy-men --
men who have not grown up -- is that the liberal state has told men
they don’t have
to support anybody. They are free to remain boys for as long as they
want.
And
here is an example regarding both
sexes. The loudest and most sustained applause I ever heard was that of
college
students responding to a speech by President Barack Obama informing
them that
they would now be covered by their parents’ health insurance policies
until age
26.
9.
As a result of the left’s
sympathetic views of pacifism and because almost no welfare state can
afford a
strong military, European countries rely on America to fight the
world’s evils
and even to defend them.
10.
The leftist weltanschauung sees
society’s and the world’s great battle as between rich and poor rather
than
between good and evil. Equality therefore trumps morality. This is what
produces the morally confused liberal elites that can venerate a Cuban
tyranny
with its egalitarian society over a free and decent America that has
greater
inequality.
None
of this matters to progressives.
Against all this destructiveness, they will respond not with arguments
to
refute these consequences of the liberal welfare state, but by citing
the terms
“social justice” and “compassion,” and by labeling their opponents
“selfish”
and worse.
If
you want to feel good, liberalism
is awesome. If you want to do good, it is largely awful.
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