Untitled July 21, 2008
Posted by Resident Egoist in : Culture , trackbackDo you know what I’m sick of? The incessant babbling by both McCain and Obama about the intrinsic nobility of public service. No. Not “public service” as in choosing to be a policeman, or firefighter or soldier, but rather outright serfdom – euphemized as “serving a cause beyond one’s own petty self-interest”, of course.
Sink your teeth into this excerpt from Obama’s recent speech to the 2008 graduating class of Wesleyan University:
[...]There’s no community service requirement in the real world; no one forcing you to care. You can take your diploma, walk off this stage, and chase only after the big house and the nice suits and all the other things that our money culture says you should buy. You can choose to narrow your concerns and live your life in a way that tries to keep your story separate from America’s.
But I hope you don’t. Not because you have an obligation to those who are less fortunate, though you do have that obligation. Not because you have a debt to all those who helped you get here, though you do have that debt.
It’s because you have an obligation to yourself. Because our individual salvation depends on collective salvation. Because thinking only about yourself, fulfilling your immediate wants and needs, betrays a poverty of ambition. Because it’s only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential and discover the role you’ll play in writing the next great chapter in America’s story.
Assemble all your mental strength and ignore the doublespeak for a minute. There is something very condescending and insulting being insinuated here. First, that living my life the way I choose, pursuing my own goals and happiness and wanting to improve my own lot in life not only has no moral merit, but is a moral defect that “betrays a poverty of ambition”. Second, which is really preposterous, is that the mere fact of someone being a public “servant” makes him morally superior to those who are not. [Pay a visit to the Post Office and report back on who is the real servant.]
The intended argument here is that a social worker, or thuggish bureaucrat, or favor-peddling congressman is intrinsically morally superior to the actually productive businessman. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I don’t remember the last time I was satisfied with an act of Congress. And since he doesn’t legally rob me of half my earnings and never forces me to act at the point of a gun, I find my local grocer to be of better service to me than any current member of Congress. And as long as we’re measuring moral worth according to social utility, I still consider my grocer to be more useful to “society” than the IRS or once again, the entirety of today’s Congress. No offense to grocers, of course.
What is saddening, and indeed very frightening, is that virtually everyone buys into the poisonous philosophy of Altruism. No one safe Objectivists can present a principled and flawless defense of your right to be selfish; that is, of your unalienable right to your own life, liberty and property.
I remember enjoying fireworks over the Hudson River just two weeks ago. I couldn’t help but notice another spectacle: that for almost everyone present, Independence Day was about just that – fireworks! Flags were waving and everyone was wearing red, white and blue, yet no one seemed to be mindful of the fact that the independence that was being celebrated barely exists anymore and is in serious threat of extinction this very year!
Americans certainly have a poor roster of leaders “public servants” today. It’s not often mentioned, but this sorry state of affairs is only a reflection of the the political mindset that dominates the voting population- that is, a self-righteous sense of entitlement. And this is the other side of the altruist coin: the expectation that others must toil for your benefit just as you are expected to toil for theirs.
In practice, this means lacking any semblance of self-reliance, a total rejection of responsibility and a convenient predisposition to falling hook, line and sinker for the bait of any ambitious demagogue “public servant” – who’s merely preaching to the choir. Case in point: our tragic but very predictable current mortgage crisis and the seemingly baffling, mysterious and simply inexplicable popularity of Barack Freakin’ Obama.
Comments
Sorry comments are closed for this entry