Great article!
I have only one problem with it. This line:
“...its citizens realize they can manipulate government for their own selfish desires.”
Stop bashing selfishness, folks. How can you have self-reliance and self-government without being first concerned with your “self”.
Those that would paint selfishness as immoral are those who seek to own you.
To be “selfless”, without a self, is to be dead, my FRiends.
If I am responsible for my family, my kids and my wife, then I must take care of myself and look after my interests to remain robust, happy and competent. Selflessness allows for none of this.
I give to others for what it does for me.
A concept that takes an understanding of human nature and a little thought to accept.
Our very nature, our ONLY nature is a selfish one.
It is when we are ignorant of morality that we can be led astray. Don’t attack the nature attack the misinformation, or lack thereof, regarding morality.
And there is much selfish reward in doing for others and in maintaining integrity.
Our nature is a selfish one, and historically in the USA, that selfishness has been tempered by religious conviction. Now that most people in the nation are embracing secularism and moral relativism, there is nothing to reign in our natural selfish tendencies.
Children our born completely selfish but are taught by parents to share. Judeo-Christian religious teaching and practice teaches us that indulging in selfishness is wrong. Now that most people aren’t religious, we don’t have much to put the brakes on selfishness.
In many things I agree with you, however let’s use a family as an example. One that isn’t particularly close or wealthy, but has an Aunt Hattie that is well-to-do.
Aunt Hattie has always been generous with her family, giving them nice Christmas presents, she has made a trust for them but hasn’t told them how it will be divided. She has one rule, when requesting money from the trust, they must demonstrate that there will be a return on the money and they must know that it will come directly from their share of inheritance.
Several of the family members never ask old Aunt Hattie for any of the money, opting to make due and not wanting to use money that Aunt Hattie might herself need someday.
A few family members ask for enough to start their own businesses or for emergencies, returning the money in monthly installments.
But then there are a few, that feel they are different from the other family members. They have various problems, one dropped out of school and can’t get a good paying job now, another got pregnant while in high school and has a child and no job, and another has problems with drugs. Only one who has a spouse that needs a kidney and has had to take quite a bit of time off from work and has large bills even with insurance, is in a sitution not of her own making.
Now the neer do well family members get together and start complaining about all the money old Auntie has and how they should be allowed to have a bigger chunk because they are poor and need it more. Their rich relatives don’t need it why is Aunt Hattie giving them equal shares. It isn’t fair.
Now if Aunt Hattie wasn’t wise in the ways of the world she might have fallen for most anything the poor relations had to tell her. If she had been a Democrat she would already have split it up and given a part to the poor relations up front. How soon would the trust fund be blown?
The founding fathers realized that if there weren’t checks and balances the cheats and the con artists and drug addicts wouldn’t take long before they figured out ways to get the money. Trouble is we have 400 Aunt Hatties that hate the relatives that don’t need their help and want to take part of their money and give it to the drug addicts or to people that aren’t even members of the family but have given her sob stories.
They took care of that - they said Aunt Hattie had to have two other people sign off before anyone gets money.
“Stop bashing selfishness, folks. How can you have self-reliance and self-government without being first concerned with your “self”.”
I agree with you 200%. As far as I’m concerned Mother Theresa was selfish, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I’m sure she got a tremendous amount of satisfaction helping others, or perhaps she believed that was her ticket to heaven - that’s what motivated her.
Everything we do we do for a selfish reason - that’s who we are. But we are not just selfish, we are also empathetic or compassionate, and when we help someone we do so because it makes US feel good in some way.