From age two until age six my mother was my sole caregiver. She worked five or six days a week every week to provide for me and I when I wasn’t in school a friend or an Aunt would look after me. I walked to school and back alone when I started First Grade and played in the park across the street from where my mom worked, unaccompanied after school and on weekends. Often I was out in the neighborhood playing with my friends without adult supervision of any kind. My parents did spank me with a belt on occasion when my behavior was very bad indeed When I was a child of about 8 or 9, I learned to ride a bike with out training wheels on gravel streets with no sidewalks. I had no helmet, no knee or elbow pads and I fell often, but learned to ride a bike. By the sixth grade I rode my bike to school almost every day. If I got into any sort of trouble at school, I was in bigger trouble at home after my parents found out.

What did I learn from those years that I was under my parent’s authority? For openers I learned that good parents work hard and sacrifice to raise their child. I learned to be where I was supposed to be and to be on time. I learned to entertain myself and not depend on others to entertain me. I learned to make my own friends and not be afraid to go out in the world to find them. I learned that often to achieve a goal one must take risks including the risk of personal injury. I learned that if you fall down and fail, you should to get up and try again. I learned that success through failing and taking risks will not only help you develop confidence but often brings new freedom. And finally, I learned that I was accountable for my actions and their effect upon others.

When I reflect upon all of the above I also realize that my parents did not try to shield me from the consequences of life. They did the hard things to support me and never complained about life being unfair or too hard. I learned that risk accompanies everything in life. I learned that I am responsible for my own progress or lack thereof. I also learned not to blame others for my failures and that failures will nearly always lead to success if one is persistent. And I learned that life can be hard and unfair but we can prevail and make life worth the living.

Sadly it seems that in today’s world most people believe life should never be hard, that everything must be fair, one should not have to take risks, and finally if you do not achieve what you want it must be somebody else’s fault! This attitude is why our government at all levels has now become “Robinhood.” The government takes by force from the “rich” to give to the “poor.” Today having a “need” is justification for the government to steal the assets of one person and give them to another, with impunity. It is also why so many people believe that the “rich” “owe” something to “society” and that the wealthy should “give back” to “society” as though something was taken from “society” by them. We seem to have forgotten that society is composed of individuals and that “society” is not a tangible entity. It is to the individual that we must look.

Just because an individual has a need does not justify stealing to fill that need. A need does not generate a right to be fulfilled and thereby grant permission to take what you did not earn. An individual who earned what he has does not have either a moral or social obligation to share it with others and definitely does not have a legal obligation to share it. An individual who has become successful and therefore wealthy has already given to “society” his contribution in either goods or services and furthermore has likely to have provided employment for a goodly number of individuals along the way. Businessman and corporations also do not have any obligation to pay an employee according to his “needs” but rather pay must be based on the worth of the job and the value that the employee adds to the business. To base wages upon individual needs is the definition of communism (i.e. “From each according to his abilities and to each according to his needs” Karl Marx – I believe). For the government to force industry to pay a certain wage is fascism. Yet it seems that is the mindset of the vast majority of Americans today. This worries me.