{"id":8298,"date":"2013-12-08T05:37:59","date_gmt":"2013-12-08T05:37:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2013\/12\/08\/when-the-government-does-everything-for-you-what-will-you-do-with-yourself\/"},"modified":"2013-12-08T05:37:59","modified_gmt":"2013-12-08T05:37:59","slug":"when-the-government-does-everything-for-you-what-will-you-do-with-yourself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2013\/12\/08\/when-the-government-does-everything-for-you-what-will-you-do-with-yourself\/","title":{"rendered":"When the Government Does Everything for You, What Will You Do with<\/i> Yourself?"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is simply a fact about human nature that few are able to make good use of free time, 'leisure' time.  Provide them with it and they 'go to seed' in no time, following the path of least resistance ever downward.  The classical concept of leisure. not to be confused with 'leisure,'  as the former is explained by Josef Pieper in his Leisure: The Basis of Culture<\/a>  is not understood and few have the self-discipline nowadays to live a life that is leisurely in the classical sense.  What we can expect thanks to Obama and his ever-increasing infantilization of the populace via his promotion of welfare dependency and 'free' health care is more social pathology, more tattoos, more drug use, more mindless texting and sexting and high-tech time-wasting.  As the government grows bigger, the citizen grows smaller, weaker, and less self-reliant so that he needs ever more government to feed, clothe, shelter, and wipe his butt for him, the mediating institutions of civil society (see article below) having been weakened if not destroyed by big government and its liberal-fascist initiatives.<\/span><\/p>\n

A good example of the latter is the Obama Administration's attack on Catholic Charities<\/a>:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

It is now a requirement of Obamacare that every Catholic institution larger than a single church\u200b \u2014 and even including some single churches\u200b \u2014 \u200bmust pay for contraceptives, sterilization, and morning-after abortifacients for its employees. Each of these is directly contrary to the Catholic faith. But the Obama administration does not care. They have said, in effect, Do what we tell you \u2014 or else.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

If that isn't liberal fascism, what would be?  Now I can't expect a morally obtuse liberal to appreciate what is wrong wth the killing of  innocent human beings who just happen to be prenatal, but you would think that liberals<\/em>, of all people, would understand what is wrong with forcing people to support what they, in their serious and deeply considered judgment, consider to be a grave moral evil.<\/span><\/p>\n

I now hand off to Mark Steyn<\/a>:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\u201cWork\u201d and \u201cpurpose\u201d are intimately connected: Researchers at the University of Michigan, for example, found that welfare payments make one unhappier than a modest income honestly earned and used to provide for one\u2019s family. \u201cIt drains too much of the life from life,\u201d said Charles Murray in a speech in 2009. \u201cAnd that statement applies as much to the lives of janitors \u2013 even more to the lives of janitors \u2013 as it does to the lives of CEOs.\u201d Self-reliance \u2013 \u201cwork\u201d \u2013 is intimately connected to human dignity \u2013 \u201cpurpose.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

So what does every initiative of the Obama era have in common? Obamacare, Obamaphones, Social Security disability expansion, 50 million people on food stamps. The assumption is that mass, multigenerational dependency is now a permanent feature of life. A coastal elite will devise ever-smarter and slicker trinkets, and pretty much everyone else will be either a member of the dependency class or the vast bureaucracy that ministers to them. And, if you\u2019re wondering why every Big Government program assumes you\u2019re a feeble child, that\u2019s because a citizenry without \u201cwork and purpose\u201d is ultimately incompatible with liberty. The elites think a smart society will be wealthy enough to relieve the masses from the need to work. In reality, it would be neofeudal, but with fatter, sicker peasants. It wouldn\u2019t just be \u201ceconomic inequality,\u201d but a far more profound kind, and seething with resentments.<\/span><\/p>\n

One wouldn\u2019t expect the governing class to be as farsighted as visionaries like Bezos. But it\u2019s hard to be visionary if you\u2019re pointing in the wrong direction. Which is why the signature achievement of Obama\u2019s \u201chope and change\u201d combines 1940s British public health theories with 1970s Soviet supermarket delivery systems. But don\u2019t worry: Maybe one day soon, your needle-exchange clinic will be able to deliver by drone. Look out below.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nRelated articles<\/span><\/legend>\n
\n
\"\"<\/a>Subsidiarity and the Left's Assault on Civil Society<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>Minorities Can't Be Expected to Have Photo ID, but Can be Expected to Navigate ObamaCare Sites?<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>Obama: I'm Not Incompetent, Government Is<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/fieldset>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is simply a fact about human nature that few are able to make good use of free time, 'leisure' time.  Provide them with it and they 'go to seed' in no time, following the path of least resistance ever downward.  The classical concept of leisure. not to be confused with 'leisure,'  as the former … Continue reading “When the Government Does Everything for You, What Will You Do with<\/i> Yourself?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[318],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-leisure-and-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8298\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}