Liberty or Sustainable Development? – Part 2
By Michael Shaw
February 17, 2009
Chapter 2: The Decay of Liberty – An Illustration
The American culture is experiencing the consequences of declining individual responsibility and rising dependency. The genuine free trade principles that guide an honest economy have been abandoned.
Instead we live with increasing subsidies, barriers to entry, government regulation and government intervention into the lives of what could and should be a free citizenry. The mechanics of special-interest politics vest power in the hands of big government liberals and big government conservatives while our freedoms vanish. The consequence of this decline has been to alter the purposes of American social, political and economic institutions.
One example is charity. In a free society, charity receives contributions from individuals or groups to help others meet needs. In essence, charity is both a broker and an agent of benevolence. In modern society, many charities are ‘tax deductible’ 501c(3)’s. They seek grants of coerced tax revenue in exchange for regulatory compliance to government mandates. The consequence is that the goal of charitable incentives shift from genuine benevolence to creating a growing caseload. A growing caseload depends on receiving ever larger government grants. Coercive money sources are incompatible with benevolent giving. Shifting charitableness from benevolence to bureaucracy contributes to social decay.
The cause of this decay is not an accident. It can be traced, in part at least, to the globalist political movement. Compare now to conditions forty years ago and you find a documented plan for creating a global state collective. It is called “Sustainable Development.”
“Liberty or Sustainable Development?” is a 13-Chapter serial adaptation of the transcript of Michael Shaw’s opening speech from the video America’s Choice: LIBERTY or Sustainable Development. Michael Shaw is President of FreedomAdvocates.org. See Part 1 here.
Chapter 2 originally posted July 6, 2008 on NewsWithViews.com
This article contains links to outside sources not controlled by Freedom Advocates and therefore are subject to change.
