Obama Says We are a Collectivist Nation

By Tom Rhodes, 1/19/2013

During Obama’s speech outlining his 23 executive orders to advance the governments incremental ban firearms he said, “we are all responsible for each other.” That is pure Collectivist tripe, this one phrase exposes his mindset, and that mindset doesn’t include individual liberty and freedom as core beliefs. The USA is not a collectivist nation. In the USA I am not by brother’s keeper. Our Declaration of Independence made this quite clear. We are free to pursue happiness, there is no guarantee that we will achieve it, nor obligation placed on others to provide it.

Because we are a free nation, I am free to charitably help anyone I want but there is no moral rational to force me to be charitable if I choose to be a selfish bastard. Being a selfish bastard may be morally wrong, but that doesn’t justify using force to take the property of a person who is selfish. That means if my neighbor has a string of bad luck he is not my responsibility. I am free to determine what if any part of my property I choose to donate to him to help him out. I’m free to put whatever conditions on my charity I choose, as in “I’ll pay your electric bill this month, but if you don’t at least try to find a job, and clean up your yard I’ll not help you again.”

If a woman decides to have children without a husband to help her raise and provide for those children, neither she nor her children are my responsibility.

Even though a corporation is doing what the government encouraged, if it fails, sustaining that corporation is not my responsibility. The loss like the profits should be the shareholders, not mine.

Contrary to the “progressive” crap you believe this country’s Founding Fathers did not guarantee success or happiness; they guaranteed the right to pursue it. They didn’t even guarantee the ability to pursuit it, only that the government doesn’t have the right to interfere with your pursuit of happiness. The sole responsibility of the government (our country) is to protect all individual’s rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, equally under the law.

I am responsible to my God, my country, my family, and myself, and to nobody else. My God asks me to be generous to widows orphans and those who’ve fallen on bad times, he did not ask the government to take my money and do those things if I choose not to. My country was instituted at the consent of the governed and we choose to limit it severely, I am not responsible for its actions outside of its very limited scope. I am responsible to provide for, and protect my family. I don’t expect my neighbor to give me food, shelter, educate my kids, or fix my car without me paying for his goods and services. Nobody else is responsible for me, my actions, my well being, or my happiness; if I fail in that responsibility then I not my neighbor should suffer the consequences. Yes there is risk I will fail, but I prefer dangerous liberty over the safety of collectivist tyranny.