The Entitlement Generation
Sandra “Pay For My Birth Control” Fluke explains why “her generation” supports entitlements:
[B]ecause our vision for the future doesn’t leave our fellow citizens behind. . . . This isn’t about not knowing how to take care of ourselves—it’s about knowing we should take care of each other.
It’s a funny argument if you think about it. If “we” can “take care of ourselves,” then why do we need to “take care of each other”?
What Fluke’s collectivist language is trying to disguise is that some people can and do take care of themselves—and she believes they have an obligation to sacrifice for those who can’t or won’t.
What about those who don’t agree that “we should take care of each other”? What about the young entrepreneur who is building his business and struggling to support his own family, and doesn’t think he should be taxed to pay for other people’s birth control or college degrees? Well, what he thinks is irrelevant. Fluke isn’t asking “her generation” to “take care of each other.” She wants the government to force us to do what she thinks is moral.
Ah, but don’t worry, Fluke says . . . it’s for your own good:
[W]e’re not entirely altruistic either. By fighting to protect our nation’s social safety net, we ensure that all members of society have a chance to contribute, producing a diversity of ideas that benefits society as a whole. We’ve seen that affordable access to contraception allows women to contribute their talents to our companies, and the same is true of the host of economic supports under attack.
Get it? We’re going to make you sacrifice your wealth so we can hand out goodies to other people, but actually you’ll be better off. Why not, then, leave individuals free to pay for others’ contraception voluntarily? Why do you have to force them to do what’s allegedly good for them? Fluke might say it’s because we’re too short sighted to know what’s good for us. I would say it’s because enabling individuals to achieve their self-interest is not really Fluke’s goal.
This, by the way, is a common tactic of collectivists. They don’t just argue that collectivist policies are good for society, but also that they are good for individuals. Indeed, the practicality of collectivist policies seems almost self-evident to collectivists since, in their view, the individual is fundamentally dependent on the group. The worst disaster that could befall someone, they believe, would be to end up “on your own.”
I disagree. As Yaron and I have argued elsewhere, being left “on your own,” i.e., free, is the individual’s basic political need:
The Founding Fathers [declared] that the collective has no claim on you; that the government exists only to protect your right to live your own life, earn your own wealth, and seek your own happiness. Other people’s wants and needs are not your responsibility.
The corollary was that you and you alone were responsible for securing your own wants and needs. You were responsible for developing the knowledge, skills, and traits of character you needed to earn a living. You were responsible for saving to meet life’s unexpected twists and turns. You were responsible for educating your children. You could ask for help from other people—but you could not demand it as a right. You were on your own.
Did people shrink from the twin values of freedom and responsibility? On the contrary, the vast majority of Americans during the 18th and 19th centuries eagerly embraced life’s challenges and flourished under the new system. People didn’t flee from America, they fled to America. They came here poor, but ambitious—ready to carve out a life for themselves in a country that offered them the only thing they asked for: an open road.
The purpose of Fluke’s op-ed was to argue that her generation shouldn’t be called “the entitlement generation.” They aren’t demanding that other people take care of them—they want to take care of others. But that’s precisely what an “entitlement generation” would have to endorse—a society in which everyone is bound to everyone else, in an endless daisy chain of obligation that rewards those who think the world owes them a living, and bleeds those who make living possible. If you stand with the entitlement state, you stand for an entitlement culture.
10 Comments to “The Entitlement Generation”
Awesome. I hope see the day that i can say that in America, we are a Free People, again.
How, when faced with images of cripples, dying and/or abused children, poor and helpless people etc., can one hope to convince others that it is right not to care for them, that we have the right to refuse them help in the name of our own self-interest.
I happened to catch some of the Democratic National Convention one evening and speaker after speaker came up to the podium to tug at the heart strings of America. There was the lady who lost both legs while serving in the military, the family who’s young daughter had a terminal illness, a mother who had four or five sons serving in the Army etc. etc. It was a very strong display of how the weak and helpless are being lifted up by the entitlement state. It seems almost as if this sort of argument is faith based, in a way. Try convincing someone, as they sit teary-eyed watching the double amputee walk bravely across the stage, that we should have the right not to help them. In essence, how do we condense Atlas Shrugged into a sound bite. How do we take the real-life representation of these ideas and put them on a stage for the world to see?
The way you combat that is by asking someone if they’d like to cut off somebody else’s legs to feed the person who’s already lost their legs.
To combat false visualizations, present right ones to demonstrate your principle.
hmm, I don’t think me asking that question would have the desired effect (affect? I forget.. I think “effect”. too lazy to google it.). They would say “don’t be stupid, no one is saying you should cut people’s legs off.
This is why I say that they are almost like faith based arguments. Trying to convince someone with logic that it is not right to take a little bit of money from everyone to help out an unfortunate (“by no fault of their own”.. that’s always thrown in) soul is a tall order. It is almost impossible when the unfortunate soul is there in the flesh thanking the world for providing them with opportunity to succeed and have a better life etc. etc.
The word you want there is “effect.” Part of my life’s work, knowing stuff like that.
I like John’s idea of a quick comeback but you’re right, the probably retort will be “don’t be silly.” So you need the long form of explanation. The heart-tug appeal of actual people injured thru no fault of their own or in the course of defending the nation tends to galvanize those who voluntarily rush in to contribute to a fund to help out. Such persons are properly the only ones on whom to rely in these cases. Employing coercion to force others to help these particular or any unfortunates is at least the moral equivalent of breaking someone else’s legs to help a person with broken legs. Why? Because coercion says, “your judgment, your mind, are irrelevant.” There are plenty of worthy recipients, causes and projects to go around, including oneself and one’s own life & projects. Never trust anyone willing to employ coercion even in the name of what you might otherwise consider to be a worthwhile project or cause. Better to find someone who rejects coercion, and who is supporting such a project if you can. A person willing to advocate coercion is someone you cannot trust to be honest, rational or productive.
Pretending that Fluke is genuine that her goal is to help others, why incorporate the enormous expense of the obese, inept government middle man? Of course, the answer is that The Pretenders don’t want to do the actual work or to pay the expenses; they want others to be burdened.
Ending entitlements may be good, but it’s not going to happen until some horrible disaster overtakes us. Democrats are wedded to the poor who receive food stamps, welfare checks, and Medicaid. Republicans are wedded to the middle who receive unemployment checks, Social Security, and Medicare. Neither party can survive without their respective constituencies. Neither constituency will support anyone who threatens their entitlements. Both parties have long been committed to the concept of bringing home the bacon as the justification for holding office. The system is too ingrained to be changed except by some external force. I expect that naked capitalism will be well established in the Far East long before we see it in America.
Can someone clearly distinguish for me why her claim is wrong that she isn’t making everyone else pay for her birth control, but that she’s just making it available under private insurance? I understand that it’s still immoral because it violates the businessman’s rights, but is it factually wrong?
She’s making somebody else pay for it: the insurance company, and by extension the taxpayer under the single-payer system.
Paying for her own birth control is exactly what she is against.
Right now women can purchase contraceptives and insurance policies that cover contraceptives as long as they’re willing to pay the costs of these products. Supply will equal demand at a price that makes sense for both the buyer and seller. So what’s the problem?
It’s too expensive, according to Fluke. Woman shouldn’t have to pay the actual costs of contraceptives. They have a right to them because they need them, she says.
But providing insurance coverage (like any product) costs money and this cost has to be paid by someone. By forcing insurance companies to provide coverage (at no additional cost, I believe) the costs will be shifted to all policy holders. Thus, the mandate forces some people to subsidize others’ contraceptives.