“You’ve Made Enough Money”

I know some people who agree with President Obama when he says, “I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money.”

Some of these people I love very much, and hope to have them in my life for all the rest of mine.

That they support the ideology a comment like this reveals is disappointing and frustrating, and saddens me.

The thing is, I don’t know if they truly believe it, with conscience thought behind it, or are just so mindlessly ‘liberal’ and ‘supportive of the President’ that they will stubbornly support anything he says.

Regardless of why they agree with a statement like that, I have some things I want to say to them.  Indulge me in this.

When you say you too think that someone can have enough money, what is the cutoff, in your opinion?  How much is enough, and who should decide?  How does the decider know how much is enough for each individual in the country?

When I hear you say that, I can’t help but think of your children, all young adults now, just beginning to make lives for themselves.  If your son, who is a gifted writer, were to write a book that became a bestseller and then a movie, would you begrudge him the money he would surely make from his efforts and time he spent creating that book?  Would you be proud of him, or would you be ashamed of the money he earned?  Would he, at some point, have made enough and would you suggest to him that he turn down any payment for future work?

Would you yourself want to be the decider for everyone else?  How would you know which families had severe illnesses waiting in their future?  How would you know which individuals had always dreamed of setting up scholarships for students, in honor of the scholarship they themselves benefited from?  How do you know the hopes and dreams of each person, and how do you decide how much is enough for them?

The simple truth is, that neither you nor anyone else can ever possibly know the needs, wants, plans, or intentions of another person.  Therefore it is impossible that you or anyone else, even a President, can fairly take from some who have enough and give to others who don’t have enough.  It is impossible.

The other simple truth is:  it isn’t about the money.  It’s about the loss of liberty.  When a person isn’t allowed to keep the fruits of his own labor, his own efforts, and his own time, that person isn’t free.  He is a slave.  He works, creates, and produces for others, against his will, without recourse.  Is there joy in working hard and having someone take from you what you earned and give it to some other person or organization or cause without you having any input on whom you’d like to receive it?

Or is the joy found in working hard, and sharing with others of your own choosing the fruits of your labor?

It’s not about the money.  But believing that it is appropriate to, at a certain point declare that someone else has ‘made enough money‘ is deciding that at some point they’ve “had enough liberty,” that it isn’t up to them to keep what they earn and then choose what to do with it.

The principle of private property is fundamental to freedom, and to a free society.  Without that assumption, none of us, you and your children included, can freely choose what work to do and how hard to do it in order to gain private property for our own needs, enjoyment, and the joy of sharing with others.

Taking from one person that which he honestly earned, to give to another person who didn’t earn as much, is not just wrong, it’s evil.  It’s evil because it destroys a person’s spirit.  Actually, it destroys the spirits of two people:  the robbed one, and the receiver who knows at some level that they receive, not for any effort of their own, but because their efforts aren’t enough.

Does this mean I’m so greedy and selfish that I just want to rake in all the money I can, and keep it all for myself?  Does it mean that I don’t have compassion or empathy for people in desperate circumstances?  Does it mean I don’t want to share with anyone?

No.

Conservatives are the most generous people in America.  We want to choose our own causes, our own charities, our own ‘anonymous’ gifting.  We don’t want government to take and give to recipients of their choosing.  We believe in individual liberty for each and every person.

Thomas Jefferson said in a few words what I have tried to say in over seven hundred.

“To take from one, because it is thought that his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, ‘the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry, and the fruits acquired by it.’”– Thomas Jefferson

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Tagged as: Barack Obama, capitalism, freedom, Liberalism, liberty, marxism, redistribution of wealth, Socialism, Thomas Jefferson