It’s that fundamental belief — I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sister’s keeper — that makes this country work. — Barack Obama, 2004 Democratic National Convention
…the future of America rests on how well we recognize that we are in this together . . . that we are writing a shared story . . . that we are all each other’s keepers. — Michelle Obama, August 20, 2008
The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy remindsus that this phrase “brother’s keeper” comes fom the Bible:
…from the Bible’s story of Cain and Abel. After Cain had murdered his brother Abel, God asked him where his brother was. Cain answered, “I know not; am I my brother’s keeper?” Cain’s words have come to symbolize people’s unwillingness to accept responsibility for the welfare of their fellows—their “brothers” in the extended sense of the term.
But is this true? What facts give rise to the make it true that each of us is responsible for other people’s well-being? (Ayn Rand has something to say about why this is not true.)
If you personally decide (as many do) to take on such a responsibility in one way or another, and choose to act accordingly, that’s one thing.
But when politicians say so, we can be sure that they will want to use legislation to enforce upon you their notion of “responsibility.” That is, through taxes and government-run programs (e.g., Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP) that, if you peacefully refrain from funding, you face prison.
But this violates each of our rights to dispose of our time and wealth as we see fit. As for the ethical component of such politician-enforced “responsibility” – it’s gone. There’s no virtue in being forced to do the “right thing,” on the part of the enforcer or of the person being forced.
As Frédéric Bastiat wrote in 1850:
Mr. de Lamartine once wrote to me thusly: “Your doctrine is only the half of my program. You have stopped at liberty; I go on to fraternity.” I answered him: “The second half of your program will destroy the first.”
In fact, it is impossible for me to separate the word fraternity from the word voluntary. I cannot possibly understand how fraternity can be legally enforced without liberty being legally destroyed, and thus justice being legally trampled underfoot.
Legal plunder has two roots: One of them, as I have said before, is in human greed; the other is in false philanthropy.
(Thanks to “The Bear” for the Bastiat reference.)
