In my last post I showed how the government has usurped, in many ways, the role of the family in providing certain kinds of care that Nature intended the family to provide for one another. Today I will show how the government weakens the family by providing that care.

If a Nation is to become stronger, its families must become stronger. And, as with exercise where weight must be added for the muscle to grow, families must lift together the burdens placed on their shoulders.

State Welfare & the Metaphorical Arch

When the government steps in and takes upon it the responsibility of providing shelter, loans, certain kinds of education, medical care, food, utilities, and personal income to name a few, it usurps the role of family and removes the “weight” off the family’s shoulders. As with exercise, by lessoning this burden, the family is prevented from growing at best, or weakened at worst. It eliminates the struggle and the tension necessary for growth and the gaining of strength.

The hard and difficult experiences of life that force us to grow, necessarily create a type of tension within us and the family unit. However, that tension is not destructive and shouldn’t be removed at all costs. What should happen is that by the individual and family growing as a result of the tension, those burdens which once were hard to bear become bearable. By becoming stronger ourselves we are then able to bear one another’s burdens. By the family becoming stronger, we can bear the burdens of those not part of our own immediate family, but reach out to the broader family of neighbor, community and world. However, without first becoming strong ourselves we have no strength to offer to those in need.

With the tension gone because of the lack of sacrifice, it weakens the individual and family unit. When we become weaker as individuals, our families become proportionally weaker. When our families become weaker, the Nation likewise weakens. What we need is not an elimination of tension and opportunities to bear our burdens; what we need is to bear them together. This is illustrated by the following quote.

Victor Frankl, a Holocaust survivor, wrote in his moving memoir Man’s Search for Meaning:

“I consider it a dangerous misconception of mental hygiene to assume that what man needs in the first place is equilibrium or, as it is called in biology, “homeostasis,” i.e., a tensionless state. What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him… If architects want to strengthen a decrepit arch, they increase the load that is laid upon it, for thereby the parts are joined more firmly together.”

The family is the arch. The responsibilities of life are the load. When the government decreases the load upon individuals and families by supplying out of its seemingly boundless resources the necessities Nature intended the family to supply for each other, it succeeds most often in this one thing: keeping this metaphorical arch – the individual and the family – from rising to their potential. Furthermore, their help is, often times, actually not help at all and can be detrimental. For me to say otherwise would be to deny my years of personal experience and observations.

Human Potential

Is humanity not the crowing creation of Nature? Indeed we are. We are not here because we are lacking in capacity or natural endowments. We are in the position we are because we are strong and endowed with gifts that must be used for the benefit of ourselves and each other. The mind, imagination, moral perception, imagination, industry and science placed in the being of Mankind is awakened, instructed, strengthened and refined through the experiences nature provides us in supporting ourselves, supporting others, and, at times, allowing ourselves to be served by those around us.

A baby chick hatching from its egg struggles to make its way through. If aided, it will die as it didn’t gain the strength necessary to survive upon its arrival into the world. So too has Nature deemed that through struggle and sacrifice we should live as well as grow in strength and capacity. Through these experiences we can become refined as polished stones – both as individuals and families – and thus become more fit to help and serve one another. We learn that we are entitled to nothing but our own freedom but instead are indebted for everything we have and are. We learn that through love we become One.

Conclusion

I believe in a society where love and peace prevail and where we are all our brother’s keeper. To do this, we must be the keeper – not the government. The government weakens us and our families by taking away the opportunities for struggle, service and sacrifice. If we can no longer bear our burdens by having been weakened through inaction, how can we expect to bear one another’s burdens that theirs may be light? Is not that our divine responsibility? A welfare state weakens our ability to fulfill that.

The families of America are in trouble. There is no disputing this fact. Again, we turn to Confucius, “To put the world right in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order.” Just as architects who desire to strengthen a decrepit arch increase the load that is laid upon it, so should we allow families to work together to carry the burden life has entrusted them to carry, and thus they, like the arch, will be more firmly joined together.

No one likes to struggle. No decent person likes to see another person struggle. However, as much as we hate to see people struggle, the government should not be the hand that reaches out to help. It should be the hand of Mother, Father, brother, sister, son, daughter, Grandmother, Grandfather, aunt, uncle, cousin – it should be yours. Strengthen those hands – the hands of Family – and you will strengthen the Nation that we all might bear one another’s burdens that they may be light.