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Is It Really For The Common Good?

by Theresa Fritz Camoriano

While most of us regularly consider the effects of our personal actions on individual family members, friends, and neighbors, we usually do not think in terms of how our actions will affect "society", or the "community as a whole".   Those terms usually come into play only when discussing public policy.  Terms like "society" and "community" are very broad, abstract terms, which makes them very handy for those who want to make a cruel, harsh law sound very high-minded and benevolent.   No doubt Hitler thought that killing all the people who were not part of the "superior race" would be the best thing for "society"! 

When abstract terms like "society" and "community" are used in discussions of laws, we should be very alert and make sure we know exactly which individual people are intended to be included and excluded from that "society" or "community", because laws do not affect an abstract "community" or "society" -- they affect real flesh and blood people.  

Most of the laws that are justified on the basis that they will benefit the "community" or "society" are laws that harm some people for the benefit of others.  When making decisions about which people should be included in the group to be harmed and in the group to receive the benefit, how should elected officials choose whom to include and exclude?  Should the people be selected based on race, ethnic heritage, income level, occupation, religion, sexual orientation, disability, geographic location, or some other characteristic?  For example, should a law benefit whites at the expense of blacks, or blacks at the expense of whites?  Or should a law be enacted to benefit farmers at the expense of plumbers (such as farm subsidies),  to benefit steel workers at the expense of auto workers (such as steel tariffs), or to benefit owners of professional sports teams at the expense of insurance salesmen (such as subsidies for sports arenas)?  Perhaps we should benefit people in rural areas at the expense of those in the cities (such as the Kentucky Education Reform Act)?  Just which "society" or "community" should be sacrificed for the benefit which other "society" or "community"?

When it is considered acceptable for the government to harm some people for the benefit of others, then the politically powerful are free to plunder and abuse the politically weak.  That is what we have seen in all communist and socialist countries, where the good of the community has been put above the good of the individual.

The basic premise of the legal system in the United States has been that the rights of every individual should be protected.  It should not matter whether you fit into any particular group -- you should have the same rights and obligations as everyone else.   That is what is meant by "equal justice under the law".  And we have had "a rule of law, not of men", which means that the law should be applied as it is written and should  not be reinterpreted at the whim of those in power.  If our laws protect every minority of one, or every individual, then they protect us all.  But if they permit the abuse or harm of one person for the benefit of another, they will eventually harm us all.  

When you hear people complaining about the "rugged individualism" of Americans and suggest that we should abandon rugged individualism for the benefit of society as a whole or for the good of the community, you know that what they really want is to allow the elite who hold political power to plunder or abuse some individuals for the benefit of others.  Instead of respecting each individual's right to choose his own course, they respect only the elite of which they are a member.  Despite the virtuous-sounding language, what they are really promoting is tyranny. 

The most important defense for the individual against tyranny is a respect for that individual's private property.  If you own your body, your home, your land, and your money, and if you have the right to control your property and the government is bound to defend that right, then the elite who hold political power are very limited in what they can do to control you.  Those who think they should be able to control your money and property, depriving you of your property rights, may speak of the good of "society" or of the "community", but watch who is included in their "society". 

Last week, we took a look at zoning laws, or what should preferably be called government restrictions on private property.  Those are laws that plunder the rights of a property owner to benefit someone else, such as neighboring property owners, who are usually referred to as "the community".   This is just one example of twisting language to justify the abuse of one person for the benefit of another.

Don't allow  yourself to be tricked by the high-sounding language.  When words like "community" and "society" are used, red flags should go up in your mind, and you should begin asking which people are really in the group labelled "society" or "community".  When you investigate, you will find that, in the vast majority of cases, "society" and "community" are just code words for the group with political power, and those benevolent-sounding words are just being used to provide political cover for a policy that abuses one group for the benefit of another.   

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