Giving back to whom?

President Obama said something in his speech at Notre Dame that caught my attention. Actually, he said many things that caught my attention, but there is one that I want to focus on here. I knew that there was something wrong with his statement, but I did not realize what it was until I started reading today's transcript from the talk show host Rush Limbaugh. I'll be using quotes from both Obama and Limbaugh before taking the discussion in a slightly different direction. Obama was trying to speak as a Christian. Limbaugh was trying to speak as a Conservative. I will be considering this from the perspective of a Christian Conservative. Let's start with Obama.

Too many of us view life only through the lens of immediate self-interest and crass materialism; in which the world is necessarily a zero-sum game. The strong too often dominate the weak, and too many of those with wealth and with power find all manner of justification for their own privilege in the face of poverty and injustice.

Of course, Obama has a fix for this. He spoke of it during another speech, this one at Arizona State:

With a degree from this university, you have everything you need to get started. Did you study business? Why not help our struggling non-profits find better, more effective ways to serve folks in need. Nursing? Understaffed clinics and hospitals across this country are desperate for your help. Education? Teach in a high-need school; give a chance to kids we can't afford to give up on - prepare them to compete for any job anywhere in the world. Engineering? Help us lead a green revolution, developing new sources of clean energy that will power our economy and preserve our planet....one thing I know about a body of work is that it's never finished. It's cumulative; it deepens and expands with each day that you give your best, and give back, and contribute to the life of this nation.

Part of this is not news... he's been mistaking personal charity for nationalism for a while now. Nowadays what's important isn't helping people, it's contributing to the nation. This is, of course, the point at which patriotism becomes fascism.
Now Rush Limbaugh responded to the phrase on his radio program today, and brought up a very interesting point:

And then he was telling them, "Give back, give back," all these college graduates. Give back what? They've got nothing to give back. They haven't acquired anything yet! The things they do have, have been given to them, everything -- by their overindulgent Baby Boomer mommies and daddies. Now when they can go out and earn money so they can repay what they've been given, Obama is trying to tell 'em, "Don't do that! Don't give back. Go back and 'give back' by working at a nonprofit or some such thing." It's convoluted.

I hate this whole concept of "giving back" anyway, that somehow it is the duty of the successful to "give back." Walter Williams, an occasional guest host on this program, has it exactly right on this whole notion of "giving back." The only people need to give anything back are the thieves among us: the thieves and the criminals, the people who have taken things which are not theirs. They're the ones that need to give back... But this notion of giving back is so convoluted because Obama is talking to a bunch of college graduates who don't have anything yet and telling them to give back.

This whole notion of giving something back is rooted in the belief whatever you have is somehow ill-gotten. That you've cheated, lied, or stolen to get it or that you're somehow not entitled to it, and so you need to give back.

Now for a different perspective.

Obama is not telling people to do something wrong. It isn't a terrible thing to work for a non-profit. It's true that the country could benefit from more people being engaged in charitable work. Also, Rush is not off-base. To give, you need to have something to give. Some people choose to acquire and give money. Some give their time. Those who give their money support those who give their time. When's the last time you heard a missionary speak at your church? What's the first thing a new missionary needs if he's ever going to make it to the field? Funding. However, this is getting off my intended subject, so let me actually begin to make my point.

The problem with Obama's bent is that he is motivating by guilt. He would have you believe that being well-off is intrinsically evil, and trying to work at a well-paying position is nothing but rank selfishness. He also would have you believe that the rich only become rich at the expense of the poor, and there is no other way to do it except to not be rich. I've spoken on this before.

But the Bible does not motivate charitable giving by guilt. The story of Ananias and Sapphira proves that, when they are told that while they still owned the land, it was their own, and when they sold it, the money was under their control. In the Gospels, we learn that God loves a cheerful giver. Obama is trying to produce the fearful giver.

God wants us to give because we have charitable feelings towards our fellow man, because we care about others, and out of gladness for what God has provided for us. Obama is telling us to give because we owe our fellow man for the simple fact that we succeeded and they did not. (Of course, the definition of success is rapidly shrinking. At first it was $250K/year, then $200K/year, then $120K/year, and now it seems that merely having a college degree puts you in the crosshairs, even if you are not yet employed.) Obama is not approaching this from a Christian viewpoint, no matter what he claims. He is approaching this from a very authoritarian socialist viewpoint.

In the authoritarian socialist government, the State craves control. It cannot bear to rely on people's goodwill, which is why it seeks to control us through fear and coercion. The tax increases Obama is planning is the coercion, and his speeches to these colleges is the fear. He, like most or all liberal Democrats, do not believe that enough people will give to others unless they are giving back... unless they are paying a debt that they know will be collected upon one way or the other. Remember the death threats made against the AIG executives.

I actually have a way to describe the State craving for control. With my first baby, I had to bottle-feed. I got used to it pretty quickly and had him on a schedule. At x time, he got x ounces of milk. Now, for my second, I am able to successfully breastfeed. Breastfeeding is not like bottle feeding. It is a co-operation between the mother and the infant, a matter of supply and demand. It does not run on a schedule. She lets me know when she is hungry, which could be anywhere from one to five hours since her last feeding. There is no gauge, no ounce markers, and I have no way of knowing how much she has had when she refuses the breast and decides that she is done. The only way I can measure my success is when she is weighed at the doctor's office. Then I find out that, despite my fears that she isn't getting half what I would have given her on a bottle, she is actually gaining so well that the doctor is surprised that she is only on breastmilk. Now if I gave into my fear and switched to bottle-feeding, she would be deprived of a wide variety of benefits so well known by now that they no longer need to be proven, and that for no good reason, because breastfeeding is working perfectly well.

The authoritarian socialist government has the same sort of fear. It wants to know how much money is going into charity, and where it is going. It wants to be sure that everyone is "doing their fair share". It is not content with trusting a people who are so generous that, though our government's charitable contributions put us near the bottom of the list of contributors, the private outpouring put us clearly at the top. Obama will not be content with "measuring success by weight gained", in this case merely checking to see if there are fewer poor and/or they are better off than before. No, he must have full control over the very process, even if it is not the best and healthiest way for society to operate.

The Christian Conservative does not scoff at charity, nor does he believe that people can only be poor because they do not deserve help. He sees helping the poor as his blessed duty, blessed because he is capable of doing so, a duty because God's love motivates him to help. However, he must watch out for the liberal rhetoric, and understand that charity should not be coerced; nor must it be motivated by fear and coercion.