Anyone BUT the Federal Government

[N. David Griffin]

Compassion and Social Justice are laudable and desirable traits in the individual and in his local community, but placing that burden on the shoulders of the federal government requires that you also deliver into the hands of that government the mandate to use it's awesome coercive powers to compel such behavior from citizens far and wide. To do so in the name of compassion does not change the central fact that it is at the end of the day an abrogation of the founding principles of limited federal power and individual liberty which have thus far secured the success of our great American experiment.

We as a people must not fall prey to the temptation of chasing Utopia with legislation and bureaucracy. The 'well ordered' society is neither just nor free. Central planning and federal control are not the hallmarks of a free people, but rather are the leading indicators of totalitarian states throughout history. We ignore that history and the enduring corrupt nature of human institutions at the peril of our sacred liberties.

The inevitable response of the well-intentioned central planner is always to ask, 'If it is not the state's responsibility, then who shall do it?' The answer today is the same as it has been since our founding: Anyone BUT the federal government. That way lies the road to serfdom.