Until recently, people equated success by the quality and amount of material possessions they obtained. Now, under the guise of simplifying one’s life, pressure is mounting to discard one’s things, and cast off many modern comforts.
I know a family who succumbed to the lie that greed was the root of their material wealth, and believed they had too much because they were hoarding. Therefore, they sold their beautiful home and many of their lovely possessions in an effort to ‘simplify’. They felt guilty for their prosperity.
Guilt manipulators condemn success, and assault prosperity in a concerted effort to coerce their victims into thinking: less is more — attempting to make everyone equal. If one realizes any level of affluence, and acquires abundant possessions, they make him feel criminal because he has more than others.
Keynesian social engineers tout the innocent unproductive populace as the backbone of society — although they are never satisfied with what they have, and continually crave for more. Furthermore, they feel entitled to a share of the producer’s income, and the government provides it for them in housing, food, healthcare, and schools. Vilified as insatiably greedy is he who buys his own home, eats his own food, gets his own healthcare, and chooses which schools he attends. The wealthy are repeatedly accused of achieving success illegitimately — they obviously cheat the system to make their money — a la Gordon Gekko in the original movie: Wall Street. (Not to be confused with the gecko that rakes in millions of dollars for an American insurance company, and makes it look so easy even a caveman can do it.)
Successful people work hard, have expertise in their respective fields, provide excellent service, and risk failure. There rests the beauty of a free capitalistic society — effort, skill, good service, and fearlessness result in financial reward proportionately.
People strive for a better lifestyle for themselves and their family. Remove that incentive, and those who produce will stop producing and all of society will suffer for it. It is the pursuit of private property which propels mankind forward — even for the French. Many people living in centrally planned societies look at the affluence we enjoy, and yearn to have the same opportunities available to them in their own countries. But alas, many suffer under despot leaders — who, of course, deny themselves no luxury — yet oppress their subjects through so-called ‘social justice’.
Liberty is good, and prosperity is the natural by-product of a free society. Edmond Burke, the great English statesman of the 18th century, correctly observed: free men are not equal, and equal men are not free. Let us not become fatalities of those who want to strip us of our liberty and thereby impoverish us as a nation. Birthed as the beacon of freedom, America must stand firm in her heritage, and resist the guilt manipulators who condemn her, and want to control her citizens by ‘simplifying’ their lives.
