Wrong headed liberal / collectivist ideology is frighteningly pervasive, often in forms in which it is unlikely the people involved are even aware of their infection.
As I was watching the latest professional golf tournament, I counted at least a dozen instances in which the announcers used a phrase with subtle, skewed implications. In reference to several PGA professionals' impressive charity work, the announcers referred to the activity as "giving back." As a paraphrase, they would say, "It really is impressive, Jim, how David Toms has taken the time and made the effort to give back." Or, "you can really see that these guys think that 'giving back' is really important."
It is not sufficiently tempting to simply write this off as benign happenstance of word choice. There are too many more obvious, and more longstanding phrases to describe the charity which these pros are performing. They are *giving.* They are NOT giving *back*.
Giving "back" implies that the property they are giving to the various groups was somehow once 'taken' from those groups in some sense. This is the evil idea propagated (sometimes knowingly, sometimes not) by liberals / collectivists for over a century.
Giving "back" implies that the property they are giving to the various groups was somehow once 'taken' from those groups in some sense. This is the evil idea propagated (sometimes knowingly, sometimes not) by liberals / collectivists for over a century.
When those who have property or wealth have come by it by looting or parasitizing his fellow man as in feudalism, tribalism, socialism, fascism, or communism, then, yes, for such a wealthy man to give to another in need could be considered 'giving back.' But in a free politico-economic capitalistic system, wealth is CREATED by individuals who think and exert themselves to provide a product or service which is DEMANDED by the freely choosing people who make up the market as a whole. The method by which a man in this system becomes wealthy is the moral 'day' compared to the moral 'night' of the listed collectivist systems. It makes all the difference in the world. A wealthy man within capitalism has created the good, the wealth. The market did not create it. The purchasers did not create it. The PRODUCER created. The others recognized the objective worth of his creation and freely traded value for value. **NOTHING** is 'owed' to those who sought and traded for the valuable good or service that the wealthy man created. NOTHING.
So to say that he is "giving back" is tantamount to saying that, like the despots, like the tyrannical mob of socialism, or like the feudal lord, the honest producer has in some sense 'bled' the public of that which was or could or should have been "theirs," and that now we can benevolently nod approval that the wealthy man is somehow doing his just penance and returning some of the good life that he 'took' from them by 'giving back.' This is evil. Though subtle, it is as great a wrong as can be committed. It is the calling the good, evil, and the evil, good. It perpetuates the uncritical ingraining of an evil idea into the vernacular. It furthers the continued unthinking acceptance of the idea that all wealth is generated by a manner of theft, and that therefore rightful claim to wealth is only with those who earned or created NOTHING.
It is good to expose the absurdity of this evil ideology.
Comments