We have been hearing lately the claims from the left and the Obama-Fuhrer’s administration that the “Privileged” should be paying more and more in taxes. We could, of course, spend time and energy going over the economic facts that show that those at the top end of the income curve are already paying most of the taxes in the country. And that the real problem that we have is that almost half of all Americans don’t pay for the “Privilege” at all. And there is good reason to make those arguments on a regular basis. But there is something else contained in this claim from the left that needs to be shown for the lie that it is. Because the left wants us to accept a moral idea without having actually had to discuss or identify it. It is an evil and insidious idea that eats away at the very notion of what it means to be an American. And accepting it, without realizing it, helps the left in their quest to destroy the country.
At a deeper level this idea should be repugnant to every observant American. Being an American is not a “Privilege.” The left uses this terminology to imply that Americans have been granted some sort of special dispensation not available to others. But that is not, of course, the case.
“We hold these truths to be self evident; that all men are created equal…”
The American system was founded on the idea that individual rights apply to all men and that no king or dictator could either dispense or repeal them. Rights are A priori; given by God, or man’s very nature if you like. Rights are not a privilege; they are the foundation of what it means to be human. And while it is true that in many places around the world those universal rights are routinely violated, that does not invalidate them. We have those rights regardless of whether others like it or not. A privilege is limited to a special group; Rights are universal.
What is different is that America was the first country to recognize and implement a system that is based on these rights and allows the individual to exercise them in a free society of ordered liberty. But the left can’t admit this because, as noted above, it does not lend itself to the politics of envy, which is the left’s entire reason for being.
