Who Owns You?

Stop – Think – Read:

Do you own you? Or, does someone else own you? Just as importantly, who owns the ‘fruits of YOUR labor’?

If you are working, exactly who is entitled to the ‘sweat of your brow’ – the actual output of YOUR efforts?  Is you? Is it your family? Is it your neighbors? Is it people you don’t know? Is it the Government?

If, for some reason you feel unworthy to your own ‘harvest’ – why is that? Are your ‘fruits’ ill-gotten? Did you steal them or deprive them of someone else?  If so, then indeed those ‘fruits’ are undeserved. On the other hand, if your ‘fruits’ are “hard won by hard work” – I am here to tell you: “it is okay to keep what you earn“.

If you have produced no ‘harvest’ yet feel entitled to your neighbors ‘fruits’ or you wish the government to force your neighbors to share their ‘fruits’ with you, then you have bought the big lie: “that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else” (Frederic Bastiat). While deceptively seducing, this scheme always fails. Why? Human nature! Eventually, those ‘pulling the cart’ get tired, want to rest and get in the cart. And, when everyone is ‘in the cart’ there is no one left to pull it?

Okay, lets ‘nip this in the bud’ right now! Some have suggest that Jesus was the ultimate ‘redistribute-tor of wealth’; but, the Bible instructs us to care for the needy, and poor through the family or through the church and lastly as an act of personal charity.  Nowhere in either the New or Old Testament does it say that government should be used to transfer your ‘fruits’ (money) from one group of citizens to another. Completely unmentioned by those espousing socialism is Paul’s Second Letter to the Thessalonians which clearly states “Anyone unwilling to work should not eat”. (2 Thess 3:10).

Philanthropy force by government, socialism, or any other ‘ism’ foisted by the tyranny of the majority is NOT charity, compassion or benevolence. It is theft!  While there are many places on this earth where one can go and live under government plunder, it is ironic that most that live in those oppressive regimes are all trying to come here! Yes, to the United States of America where for the briefest time in all of history – an anomaly really – men and women were allowed to live in liberty by the ‘fruits of their own labor’.