I’m getting old and I’ve worked hard all my life. I have made my reputation, the good and the bad, I didn’t inherit my job or my income, and I have worked hard to get where I am in life. I have juggled my job, my family, and made many sacrifices up front to secure a life for my family.

It wasn’t always easy and still isn’t, but I did it all while maintaining my integrity and my principles. I made mistakes and tried to learn from them. I have friends of every walk of life and if you’re in my circle, it should be understood that I don’t have to remind you of what I’d be willing to do for you.

However…. I’m tired of being told that I have to “spread the wealth” to people who don’t have my work ethic. People who have sacrificed nothing and feel entitled to receive everything.

I’m tired of being told the government will take the money I earned, by force if necessary, and give it to people too lazy to earn it themselves.

I’m really tired of being told I must lower my living standard to fight global warming, which, no one is allowed to debate.

I’m really tired of hearing wealthy athletes, entertainers and politicians of all parties talk like their opinions matter to the common man. I’m tired of any of them even pretending they can relate to the life and bank account that I have.

I’m tired of people with a sense of entitlement, rich or poor.

I’m upset that I’m labeled as a racist because I am proud of my heritage. I never stole any ones land, the government did that..

I’m tired of being told I need to accept the latest fad or politically correct stupidity or befriending a group that’s intent on killing me because I won’t convert to their point of view.

I’m really tired of people who don’t take responsibility for their lives and actions. Especially the ones that want me to fund it.

I’m tired of hearing them blame the government, or discrimination, or big-whatever for their problems.

Yes, I’m really tired. But, I’m also glad to be in the twilight of my life. Because mostly, I’m not going to have to see the retched, depressing world these young useless idiots are creating.

And lastly, because even though I shouted from the rooftops, no one listened or seemed to give a damn. You reap what you sow, and so do your children.

No one is entitled to anything. You have a choice to work, a choice to stay off drugs, a choice to make something of yourself. I have nothing to do with your choice. That’s all on you. You are entitled to what you earn.

Unknown

Most of the harm in the world is done by good people, and not by accident, lapse, or omission. It is the result of their deliberate actions, long persevered in, which they hold to be motivated by high ideals toward virtuous ends.

What can one human being actually do for another? He can give from his own funds and his own time whatever he can spare. But he cannot bestow faculties which nature has denied; nor give away his own subsistence without becoming dependent himself. If he earns what he gives away, he must earn it first. Surely he has a right to domestic life if he can support a wife and children. He must therefore reserve enough for himself and his family to continue production. No one person, though his income be ten million dollars a year, can take care of every case of need in the world.

But supposing he has no means of his own, and still imagines that he can make “helping others” at once his primary purpose and the normal way of life, which is the central doctrine of the humanitarian creed, how is he to go about it? Lists have been published of the neediest cases, certified by secular charitable foundations which pay their own officers handsomely. The needy have been investigated, but not relieved. Out of donations received, the officials pay themselves first. This is embarrassing even to the rhinoceros hide of the professional philanthropist. But how is the confession to be evaded? If the philanthropist could command the means of the producer, instead of asking for a portion, he could claim credit for production, being in a position to give orders to the producer. Then he can blame the producer for not carrying out orders to produce more.

If the primary objective of the philanthropist, his justification for living, is to help others, his ultimate good requires that others shall be in want. His happiness is the obverse of their misery. If he wishes to help “humanity,” the whole of humanity must be in need. The humanitarian wishes to be a prime mover in the lives of others. He cannot admit either the divine or the natural order, by which men have the power to help themselves. The humanitarian puts himself in the place of God.

But he is confronted by two awkward facts; first, that the competent do not need his assistance; and second, that the majority of people, if unperverted, positively do not want to be “done good” by the humanitarian. When it is said that everyone should live primarily for others, what is the specific course to be pursued? Is each person to do exactly what any other person wants him to do, without limits or reservations? and only what others want him to do? What if various persons make conflicting demands? The scheme is impracticable.

Perhaps then he is to do only what is actually “good” for others. But will those others know what is good for them? No, that is ruled out by the same difficulty. Then shall A do what he thinks is good for B, and B do what he thinks is good for A? Or shall A accept only what he thinks is good for B, and vice versa? But that is absurd. Of course what the humanitarian actually proposes is that he shall do what he thinks is good for everybody. It is at this point that the humanitarian sets up the guillotine.

What kind of world does the humanitarian contemplate as affording him full scope? It could only be a world filled with breadlines and hospitals, in which nobody retained the natural power of a human being to help himself or to resist having things done to him. And that is precisely the world that the humanitarian arranges when he gets his way.

When a humanitarian wishes to see to it that everyone has a quart of milk, it is evident that he hasn’t got the milk, and cannot produce it himself, or why should he be merely wishing? Further, if he did have a sufficient quantity of milk to bestow a quart on everyone, as long as his proposed beneficiaries can and do produce milk for themselves, they would say no, thank you. Then how is the humanitarian to contrive that he shall have all the milk to distribute, and that everyone else shall be in want of milk?

There is only one way, and that is by the use of the political power in its fullest extension. Hence the humanitarian feels the utmost gratification when he visits or hears of a country in which everyone is restricted to ration cards. Where subsistence is doled out, the desideratum has been achieved, of general want and a superior power to “relieve” it. The humanitarian in theory is the terrorist in action.

The good people give him the power he demands because they have accepted his false premise. The philanthropist, the politician, and the pimp are inevitably found in alliance because they have the same motives. , they seek the same ends, to exist for, through, and by others. 

[Excerpted from The God of the Machine, 1943.]

Author: Isabel Paterson

Isabel Paterson (1886–1961) was a journalist, author, political philosopher, and a leading literary critic of her day. Along with Rose Wilder Lane and Ayn Rand, she is one of the three founding mothers of American libertarianism.

Normally on Wednesdays, I do an anxiety piece but today I am going to give you some wisdom and a short story to back it up. The wisdom? You’re Co-Workers are not your friends. Now you probably knew that but it’s a broad statement that encompasses everything. You see any piece of information you give […]

Wisdom from a 50 year old (Me) – Coworkers are not your friend