David Hogg recently extended his long string of goofy comments by claiming that the AR-15 rifle can’t be a ‘self-defense’ weapon because it can be used to hit things that are far away.
Predictably, it got a lot of media coverage. And predictably, it generated a lot of comments along the lines of ‘How can anyone believe something that is so obviously wrong?’
But really, this kind of idiocy is predictable too. In fact, we’re going to great effort to cultivate it.
Yes, we live in a country where children are no longer taught, as part of the normal process of growing up, how to use guns and be safe around them. So many of them only know what they’ve seen in movies and on television.
But widespread ignorance about guns is just a symptom of something much more general, and much more serious.
There are lots of lessons we think that children should learn. To pick just three out of a very long list, many of us would like children to grow up to believe that they should:
1. Respect the property of others. In particular, they shouldn’t take stuff from people who don’t want to give it to them.
2. Respect the autonomy of others. In particular, they shouldn’t use violence, or threats of violence, to coerce people into doing things they don’t want to do.
3. Accept responsibility for their own successes and failures. In particular, they should weigh risks against possible rewards and act accordingly.
Okay, now suppose you’re trying to raise a child, and you’d like him to learn these lessons. So you say things like: Don’t steal, don’t bully, don’t take stupid risks.
But if the kid is paying attention at all, he’s going to look around and notice that he’s living in a society that embraces pretty much the opposite lessons. He’ll notice that:
1. He’s surrounded by things that are paid for with taxes — which is to say, money taken from people who didn’t really want to give it up.
2. He’s being forced to spend an awful lot of time in an institution (i.e., the government school monopoly) that operates primarily through the use of threats — one of two institutions in society (the other being prison) where you’re not allowed to leave, even if there’s something else you’d rather be doing with your time. (And of course, it’s funded by taxes.)
3. He’s surrounded by people who fail to exercise prudence or discipline or self-awareness, and who are rewarded for it with subsidies. (Which, of course, are funded by taxes.)
So, what conclusion should the kid draw from his continual exposure to this disconnect between what people say, and what he sees? On the one hand, maybe the people around him don’t realize what they’re doing. On the other hand, maybe they do realize it, and are just lying to him. Are they clueless, or hypocritical? And in either of those cases, why listen to them?
And what conclusion should we draw from our own continual exposure to people like David Hogg saying something stupid about taking away guns, or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez saying something stupid about taking away property, or an Antifa ‘warrior’ using a bicycle lock to split the skull of someone he disagrees with, or some kids going to the hospital after lying down in a busy street on a dare?
The conclusion I draw is that we’re seeing the predictable consequences of making it nearly impossible for kids to take seriously even the simplest, most universal of moral ideas.
At some point, probably every parent finds himself repeating the old admonition, Do as I say, not as I do. But it doesn’t really work that way. Never has, never will. What we ignore at our peril is that the ‘as I do’ part includes the things we do through government — taking people’s stuff away from them, using threats to control their behavior, insulating them from accountability.
‘But,’ you say, ‘what about all those people who really need help?’ Don’t we also want our kids to learn that:
4. Charity is good.
We do! But we’re also undermining that idea, because charity is voluntary.
As soon as coercion comes through the door, charity goes out the window.
Charity is given. It creates a bond of shared humanity between the giver and the recipient. Government subsidies, on the other hand, are extracted. And they dissolve that bond, creating a sense of resentment in many of the ‘givers’, and a sense of entitlement in many of the recipients.
Charity is a way of alleviating suffering. Government subsidies, on the other hand, have become a way of making certain kinds of suffering more or less permanent — if for no other reason than that the bureaucracies set up to administer subsidies inevitably become more interested in self-perpetuation than anything else.
All of which is to say: If we want children to grow up with virtues like respect, responsibility, and charity, we have to create an environment in which the children get a chance to practice the virtues, rather than an environment in which the virtues are constantly undermined.
In particular, where subsidies are concerned, we don’t even get to claim that ‘the ends justify the means’, because the short-term means (stunting the growth of virtue) make the long-term ends (the alleviation of suffering) impossible.
So what might happen if we started taking our own advice, instead of giving it away unused?
