If you wish to see an enjoyable evening with friends become quite animated, then overly hostile, and end in exacting bitterness, ask those in attendance to choose between the following.
As an individual citizen, is it more American to believe that you have a personal responsibility to be personally accountable for your actions, and those of your family? Or is it more American to believe that you should wait for the giant collective to take care of you?
This did not use to be a controversial concept. Until liberals decided that power is more highly coveted than freedom. Once they did, they started systematically enslaving people to the collective. Take the President for example.
President Barack Obama's tendency to drink too much, and his inability to stop smoking was revealed publicly this week. His refusal to stop smoking, and his need, according to the White House physician's official diagnosis, to moderate his alcohol consumption are huge red flags, health-wise. In fact aggressive or "non-moderate" alcohol intake, and cigarette smoking specifically (pipes and cigars are not nearly as dangerous) contribute to many poor health factors that do not show up immediately. Yet everything from heart disease to various cancers can be accelerated due to these behaviors.
But in President Obama's world, personal responsibility barely means anything. He seldom exhibits it, and the nation that voted for him reviles it.
"Oh too far, Kevin," you may be saying.
But it's not.
On my nationwide morning show on March 2, 2010, I asked this very question, and the responses floored me. Geographically speaking, it made no difference. From the east, west, north, and south, protestations and attempted justifications declared repeatedly that the collective has more responsibility for the individual's happiness than the individual.
And friends if this IS the belief of the nation, we've lost America.
The reason our founders were so attentive to individual rights, and focused so hard to embed them into the bedrock of our legal outlines was because they understood that to be at the mercy of the collective, was in fact to be at the mercy of a powerful few.
President Obama may not wish to curb his habits as it relates to his health. But generally speaking, such risky behavior should put him outside the boundaries of expecting to have other people pay for his cancer surgery, his diseased liver, or the eventual recovery from a stroke or heart attack should the unthinkable occur.
He, however, (who ironically will be guaranteed all of that and more through the tax-payer employment benefit we bestow on him for his service to us in office) will argue again and again that it should be the requirement of the neighbor who eats fresh vegetables to pay for the costly therapy of the guy who lunches daily on Big Macs.
Thus this is the irony wrapped in the enigma.
Liberals claim the collective owes the individual, while elected liberals who hold office make such arguments to attain greater power as the masses become enslaved to entitlement, falsely thinking they're getting what is owed them.
In reality, God states that man (genus not sex) shall provide for and protect his family. In reality, God has instructed that lazy men should not receive the fruits of other men's labor. In reality, God makes it clear that if a man does not work, he should not eat. (Meaning that intentional slothfulness is not to be rewarded if society is to function properly.)
The irony of all this is also not lost on me.
Individuals who wake up in the morning, rub their eyes, and know in their hearts that they will only rise or fall by the results of their own efforts, also categorically tend to also be the people who are the most generous with those who do fall on hard times. Giving billions each year to ease the pain of hunger and suffering in other lands, while at the same time taking dinner to a next door neighbor who just lost his job.
Those who sit waiting for the collective to care for them do so at the expense of the survival of free society.
But if you're President Obama, or any one of his millions of supporters, what do you have to lose in another few drinks before bed, or sneaking a smoke before the girls get home from school?
Hey, if something bad does happen... He doesn't have to pay for it!