Today’s social movements are less about changing social attitudes and more about imposing socialism…

Just as I have thought, history is repeating itself.  I have been reading the book “A People’s History of the United Sates” by Howard Zinn.  Zinn focuses on the importance of social movements throughout U.S. History.  In the past few weeks we have witnessed a “social justice” movement bent on undoing the United States Constitution.  These social justice warriors are pushing a campaign of federal (and state) tax manipulation and “moral” hysteria focused solely on the needs and wants of victim classes and in so doing are also blurring the important distinctions of what constitutes “equality”.  Isn’t this an injustice of personal liberties?  I believe that today’s social movements are less about changing social attitudes (as in what Zinn discovered in past historical events while we were testing the limits and inclusiveness of our Constitution) and more about imposing socialism.

In my previous blog I made an observation that I believed civil protections were currently being reframed as “special protections” in the U.S.  I think that these special protections seem to be formulated around categories of victim classes who would like the government to ease their burdens and force a group solidarity expression of morality on the whole social sphere. Government programs however rarely solve the issues faced by people who feel victimized whether the need is for universal health insurance, free college tuition, tax subsidized reproduction rights or bias protections of any nature…This is where nonprofit and faith based organizations must step in.

Special protections are worthy of everyone’s attention in a civil society…this keeps us “civilized”.  Unfortunately programs cannot be delivered equally in a liberty minded nation because there will always be differences in quality (this is how “equality” loses its steam). And when it comes to laws created for protection, theories on paper rarely reflect actual experience. Civil societies and free nations are two separate concepts: A civil society is a community linked by common interests and collective, mutually beneficial action; A free nation is a country where the government does not control what people say or do for political reasons…having civil societies within a free nation is how we maintain “civility”.

The U.S. is a free nation and within this free nation there are many civil societies.  Churches, civic groups and other non-profits like libraries and food pantries all work on behalf of a mission and are inherently concerned with the betterment of the individual.  Through member participation and philanthropy their examples of altruism are allowed to resonate into the larger society.  An individual in a free nation is able to have the freedom to associate within and among these civil societies and do good works that have a larger impact than one person can usually do on their own.

Care organizations typically have a member funded civil society that works to educate, promote and help individuals who need specific services.  Because of this membership funding, the work is done without government intervention unless federal or state laws prohibit the activities…This is important because in a free nation you cannot legislate beliefs or volunteer activity.

Many of today’s politicians are focused on creating programs by using federal (and state) tax dollars.  Isn’t it a shame that these monies need to be redirected from individuals who could be investing these funds into local programs on their own.  Wouldn’t this make a more direct and meaningful impact in their community?  Instead, social justice activists want to discourage individual and corporate ownership of profits and spread these dollars around to government run programs thereby removing the moral obligation of the individual and causing the public to believe that the “collective” is taking care of issues rather than allowing the public to directly participate in the solution…This my friend is socialism in action.

I know that when my discretionary spending is tight I need to make hard decisions about how much I can give to my church, my library, my food pantry and even to pay for a ticket to attend a local fundraiser – all of these are meaningful actions to me because they help my neighbor. Interestingly, my apathy for participating in these civic organization’s increases when I need to work more to afford to pay my taxes rather than have free time for volunteering.

The next time you see a group of sign carrying activists first ask them, “What do you want to see change?” Then ask them, “What can you and I actually do today that is within our own power to help?” And finally form a civic group and get the job done!  Now that is real compassion 🙂