Alternative title 1: Community above the Individual
Alternative title 2: the government has made us all our brothers’ keepers.
That is a political philosophy called Communitarianism. The short definition is a feeling of community but on steroids with the control clamps being brought out of the secret drawers.
If Socialism is the on-ramp to Communism, then Communitarianism is the on-ramp to Socialism.
The actual definition isn’t all that much different; from Wikipedia (emphasis mine):
Communitarianism is a philosophy that emphasizes the connection between the individual and the community. Its overriding philosophy is based upon the belief that a person’s social identity and personality are largely molded by community relationships, with a smaller degree of development being placed on individualism. Although the community might be a family, communitarianism usually is understood, in the wider, philosophical sense, as a collection of interactions, among a community of people in a given place (geographical location), or among a community who share an interest or who share a history.[1] Communitarianism usually opposes extreme individualism and disagrees with extreme laissez-faire policies that neglect the stability of the overall community.
It turns our founding ideal, that the Individual’s Liberties, Rights, and Freedoms are to be subsumed by “the Community”. In effect, the Community is both larger and more important than you.
This current pandemic is really bringing this attitude to the fore in which nascent totalitarians are seemingly freer to condescendingly diktat to we who believe that Individual Rights and Liberty are primary that we and our values are SHUT UP! Go read that Wikipedia, and then this at Encylopedia Britannica and then Standford Encylopedia of Philosophy, and finally Encylopedia.com for more in-depth definitions. I REALLY and STRONGLY suggest that you do to really understand much of the conflict and politics that is going on between the “Health & Safety” vs Freedom camps for either continued Lockdown or “Open’er Up!”. It comes down to, as always, Choice and Control.
It goes back to the story in Genesis 4:1-9 when Cain killed Able:
8 Now Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let’s go out to the field.”[d] While they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.
9 Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?”
“I don’t know,” he replied. “Am I my brother’s keeper?”
This is the operative demand that is being made today – that we are EVEN AS the phrase was originally used as a deflection from guilt and murder. A lie to cover up a murder. I had been trying to articulate the premise to today’s environment but knowing that Society is becoming more and more secular, Christian heritage and underlying themes and knowledge are passing into the mist. Just bringing up Cain and Able might now be a completely foreign idea to many (which is why many of our founding precepts are becoming foreign to Progressives, the most unchurched of America’s population).
I had put up a Notable Quote from Sarah Hoyt that read, in part:
THE GOVERNMENT IS NOT YOUR MOTHER. THE GOVERNMENT IS NOT YOUR FATHER. THEY CAN NEITHER SEND YOU TO YOUR
ROOMHOUSE, NOR SHOULD THEY GIVE YOU AN ALLOWANCE. AND IT’S CERTAINLY NOT THEIR JOB TO PROTECT YOU FROM DISEASE.
Yeah, she likes Caps Lock. Yet, because of Communitarianism running amok, we have come to the point that pushback is not only welcome but necessary. The highest level of Communitarianism is the phrase from the 2012 Democrat National Convention: Government is the only thing we all belong to. And they truly mean “belong to” giving the phrase “we’re all in this together” a rather dark and scary outlook – but fulfills the aim of Socialism of that there is Government and…well, Government. No Individuals.
Sarah Hoyt rebels (as do we) from this outlook in no uncertain terms.
And then Grokster Ian comes along and finally encapsulates and articulates the manner of soul-sucking manifestation of this yet-another-Individual-killing philosophy (do I need to remind you all that he’s here at GraniteGrok because he still makes my head hurt???) in his comment at this post (emphasis mine, reformatted):
The government is not your father, or your mother, but the government has made us all our brothers’ keepers.
Ultimately, this is the justification for the ‘public health trumps everything’ mentality: If someone else gets sick, you’ll have to pay for his treatment. If you get sick, someone else will have to pay for your treatment. “That is, if we all pay (for the consequences of your behavior), we all get a say (in what you can or can’t do).“
And in fact, NY Governor Andrew Cuomo made it quite clear in a post where he was asked if the illness (lockdown) is worse than the economic cure (reopening the State) – and promptly answered that he was both in the Health&Safety camp as well as enforcing, as a high Government official, the Communitarianism is the Law of his land:
CUOMO: No it doesn’t. It doesn’t equal death. Economic hardship, yes, very bad. Not death. Emotional stress from being locked in a house, very bad, not death. Domestic violence is on the increase. Very bad, not death, and not death of someone else. See that’s what we have to factor into this equation. Yeah, it’s your life. Do whatever you want, but you’re not responsible for my life. You have a responsibility to me. It’s not just about you. You have a responsibility to me, right? We started here saying it’s not about me, it’s about we. Get your head around the ‘we’ concept. So it’s not all about you, it’s about me too. It’s about we.
…Think about it as if it’s your family that might get infected, right? That’s what we’re talking about. When you think about it as your family, you have a different perspective. I’ll tell you the truth. It’s not an abstract argument where they say he says she says, he says, she says. I know that’s how it works. Protesters say this. Governor says this.
When I see 484 New Yorkers dying, I feel like it’s people in my family, and nothing comes before the public health risk of someone else’s life, and that’s where we are.
In this, he ties whatever YOU do to HIM. He places an obligation onto others that they otherwise would not accept but can make it stick because he is a high Government official. This is the Intersectionality Theory of gender studies full blown. This is the complete rebuffing of the notion of a Free Person – for how can one be Free is someone can just say “you are responsible for me”? It’s one thing to tell off someone that I reject it – it’s another when a Governor MAKES IAN’S WORDS TRUE.
It is a mandatory “brother’s keeper” scenario.
Or as NH Governor Sununu puts it “Public Health Trumps Everything”. I took it as being that it trumps the Constitution – now, I realize it was against the Individual as he’s using the same verbiage as Cuomo.
Dr. Robert Burnett in Idaho also made it clear that YOU are responsible for his health, with YOU being Idaho State Rep. Heather Scott (R) and Bonner County Sheriff Daryl Wheeler who simply are advocating for an opposite political solution to the economic health of their area. Burnett made it clear that it was a threat to HIM in his medical practice. The translation, again, was that everyone else is responsible for everyone else LIKE IT OR NOT:
Because you believe that the stay-at-home order is unlawful (which it is not, under state of emergency), and more importantly, have used your public office to encourage others to violate the order, you have put law-abiding citizens, and health care workers at increased risk of infection, hospitalization and death. As such, your punch has reached my face. It is criminal that you would use your public office to threaten the health of your constituents and your local and regional health care workers.
Mere disagreement against the Communitarian norms must be called out and be punished (Burnett actually threatens to remove medical care from those two). The communal Narrative must NEVER be abridged and he, too, places the Community above the Individual Right, in this case, of Free Speech.
And then there is another Communitarian, commenter, Wintercat, who made a lovely display of intolerance against those that participated in the ReOpenNH Rally this Saturday. Go to the link where she made it clear that anyone desiring their Individual Freedoms back was ignorant, selfish, scientific ignoramuses, conspiracy theorists; she is of the educated and “care for our fellow citizens”, and repudiated the traditional notions of New Hampshire – get with the Communitarian Program you rubes for “this state has moved past you. You’re irrelevent [sic] to the future”!
That was this past Saturday’s rally. As I point from the PREVIOUS rally, Communitarians are trying to rewrite both history and our Rights. There was a commenter that finally outed himself as a troll who I ended up banning and deleting his comments but before I did, I left these as rebuttal:
No, we see someone who is either scared of his own shadow (and you are making that QUITE plain), wish to use this emergency a la Rahm Emmanual, or just a bully who want everyone to act according to his wishes.
If you haven’t noticed by now, we’re ignoring the last two and starting to believe the first.
This comment was deleted.
GraniteGrok Mod Guest • 15 days ago • edited
As I have said before, name where the Right is enumerated that “no one can infect me with anything”.
But no, I’m not waiting around for you to come up with any reasonable answer (mostly because there isn’t one).
Besides – a Right is innate; it requires NOTHING from anyone else for you to exercise it.
But the mask is down – the Left is the only political side that is redefining a Right that requires OTHERS to do something FOR them in order to exercise it. Which is what you are doing (“YOU all must keep me from getting infected”).
Ain’t happening here – we don’t accept foreign political philosophies here.
GraniteGrok Mod Guest • 15 days ago
And which Constitutional Right would that be? I don’t remember seeing “Freedom from illness” ever in the Bill of Rights.
You also can’t prove actual harm by specific person. PPE up and self-isolate is your Freedom to choose – or not.
“We aren’t your brother’s keeper”.
No, we aren’t. I AM obligated to and responsible for my wife – I made a promise to her and God 39 years ago next month. Having participated in actions that created the Eldest and Youngest, I am still obligated to them as family (now that they have been out on their own for a couple of decades). I obligate, on a voluntary basis, to my friends and neighbors OF MY CHOOSING. They are my Community of my free choices and not because of someone else’s.
Because if one is not FREE to make that choice, one isn’t free at all, are they? I am not something that a Community gets to “own” simply because I am alive.
So who has tried to Communitarian you lately?
