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A Few Thoughts

By Theresa Fritz Camoriano

In Nazi Germany, Jews were made the scapegoats for the country’s problems.  As a result, it was considered acceptable to treat them as less than human, and, eventually, to kill them for the good of “society as a whole”.  Socialists are always willing to inflict pain or even death on some individuals for the benefit of others. 

We wonder how decent people ever could have allowed such atrocities to happen, and yet, in our own society today, we see certain groups being treated as scapegoats for our problems, and it has become politically popular to attack these people, taxing them, taking away their property rights, and otherwise subjecting them to abuse that would be considered unacceptable for “regular people”.  Who are these people who are fair game for abuse?  Just think of how we treat smokers, successful businessmen, and people who own tracts of land.  In each case, these people are dehumanized and are accused of being the source of our problems in order to create a justification for abusing them.  While I don’t expect the gas chambers to be right around the corner, I do have grave concerns for a society that allows the dehumanization of these people as an excuse to rip them off or mistreat them, supposedly for the benefit of others. 

Louisville’s police chief has fired some police who were determined to have abused a man they arrested, even though the man never filed a complaint.  Bravo! 

Recently a U.S. Court of Appeals determined that government regulations preventing Mr. Gable from having access to $80 million worth of his coal underneath the Daniel Boone National Forest is not a taking, because the regulations benefit “the public”.   Apparently, stealing is no longer stealing if the person who is being robbed is wealthy and if enough people share in the loot!  If the public wants to take Mr. Gable’s coal, it ought to pay for it.  I was recently talking with an immigrant from Russia who said, “When they start talking about ‘the public’, you should be very concerned.  There is no ‘public’; there are only individuals.”  He was exactly right.  If we think it is morally acceptable to take Mr. Gable’s property without compensation because it benefits “the public”, then we have lost our moral compass, and any property or even human life is fair game.

Kentucky is now cracking down on illegal gambling machines that have been common in convenience stores.  It’s not that the state thinks gambling is bad – after all, it sponsors the lottery.  It’s just that it doesn’t like the competition!

When you ask people whether they want to lose certain state-sponsored benefits, such as “free education”, “free parks”, and other “freebies”, of course they will say no.  However, if you give them the full picture, asking how much they are willing to pay for these “free benefits”, or whether they would prefer to be in control of the way their money is spent for education, parks, etc., you might get an entirely different picture. 

There has been a big fuss recently about a college professor in Colorado who said the people killed in the 9/11 attacks deserved to die.  People are upset about being forced to subsidize him with their tax dollars.  I don’t blame them.  I was not at all happy when the renowned communist Angela Davis was paid with our tax money to teach a course at the University of Louisville.  People should not be forced to pay taxes to support the promotion of beliefs with which they disagree – remember the first amendment’s ban on state-sponsored religion?  The answer is to phase out the state subsidy for higher education.  This not only would solve the problem of forcing people to support the spouting of ideas with which they disagree, but it would reduce the cost of higher education, which has become greatly inflated due to taxpayer subsidies.  This step also would make the education establishment accountable to its customers, which would put a lot of these propagandists out of business and would eliminate a lot of the other nonsense that happens on college campuses.  State budgets could be greatly reduced, and scholarship funds could be established to help low income students get an education.  Middle class people would be no worse off, since they always end up footing the bill for state programs anyway. 

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