Bastiat declares ”Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.”

People without knowledge of the truth about the principles which served as the U.S. foundation of government, have fallen victim to the most popular fallacy of our times. They believe—--they have been taught to believe—---that government (the law) must not only be fair and just, but must be philanthropic--—that it must provide welfare, education, and morality throughout the nation and produce fraternity. Acting with their vote on these thoughts, they elect men and women who put socialism into action, changing our once great Republic into another socialistic state (nation). Charity is not charity when it is compelled. Fraternity to be fraternity, must be voluntary. It cannot be forced.

People without knowledge of truth may feel that feeding the starving children of the world is America’s job and must be paid for by American taxpayers. It is only right, they say, that a rich nation should take care of the poor people of the world, as well as of the poor people at home. With such little understanding of mankind’s place in the universe, these American do-gooders are completely confused about the role of charity and the role of government. They simply do not understand that government has no money of its own. It takes from Mr. John Q, Public the money that he wants to spend on his own children’s decaying teeth and the “Law” gives it away to some government across the ocean--another example of legal plunder. Charity to be charity must come from the heart. That which is thought to be our government’s charitable contribution to feed the starving children of the world, too often winds up on the back of a prosperous foreign government official, or as decoration around the lovely neck of his wife or one of his concubines.

Although over and over we have heard that ignorance is no excuse, in the case of ignorance by taxpayers, it very well may be a highly plausible excuse. They were all former students in government controlled schools (and yes, schools have been controlled by the central government in devious fashions since the 1860’s and are even monstrously and openly controlled now by the central government). Because of this control, Americans were never taught that the creators of our nation believed that man’s rights came from God and not from government and that their belief made possible the birth of a nation unique in the world’s history and gave Americans individual freedom unparalleled in all of time since man emerged from his first cave.

The taxpayers cannot be blamed for their lack of understanding of the evils of socialism or their inability to identify and to resist its seductive charms, because the authors of the publications they read, the teachers in the schools they attended, the people with whom they have association have either not known or, deliberately, chosen not to reveal the difference between the type of government found in a Republic and the type centered in Socialism or in DEMOCRACY, which is, in its own fashion, just as bad--—and, actually, merely another name for Socialism. (Sadly, I say--—our own U.S. presidents persist in terming our form of government a “democracy.” Our World War II, in fact, was touted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as the war to “make the world safe for DEMOCRACY.”

Today’s Americans may not even realize that Socialism is that form of government we have long known as COMMUNISM. In fact, the “From each according to his ability” slop is a big, really big, Communist motto (Joseph Stalin- Constitution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics [1936]. Article 12)—---A Communist motto still prattled by American liberals. Average Americans, however, fail to recognize the meaning behind the words---considering them non-menacing and illustrative of compassion, rather than the horrors of Communism/socialism. Some Americans subjected to “higher education” were the unlucky ones who took a slanted “Communism Course” in colleges where their brains were inundated with the propaganda that Communism is, vastly, different from Socialism—--that Communists have higher ideals and Communism offers more bountiful blessings for its citizens---that, in fact, Communism is good while Marxism is its evil twin.

“Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.” --Thomas Jefferson, from Notes on the State of Virginia [1781-1785]. Query VI.