The Enemy within Part One

Are we sowing the seeds of our own destruction?

It was Abraham Lincoln who said:

“If danger ever reaches us it must spring up from amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”

Phillip Van Stern said:

“The fight for freedom is an endless battle. Its victories are never finale; its defeats never permanent. Each generation must defend its heritage, for each seeming conquest gives rise to new forces that will attempt to substitute fresh means of opposition for the old. ”

In 42 B.C. the Roman orator and statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero understood the dangers that come from within when he said:

"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself.

For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.”

And George Washington warned, “Government is not reason, it is not eloquence—it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and fearful master!”

Suffice it to say that America’s unique freedoms will never be conquered from without. The United Stated has the most powerful military in the world and when allowed to fight without political restraint can defeat any army on the globe. The biggest threats to freedom are right here walking among us.

The primary threats to freedom are the perverse philosophical doctrines of 1. Altruism, and 2. Pragmatism (discussed in Part 2). And 3. Apathy.

The doctrine of “altruism” states that man is a sacrificial animal whose duty is to self-sacrifice on the behalf of others, on behalf of society. The stance this results in is that it is immoral and selfish for man to produce and keep the rewards of his own efforts, while it is moral and virtuous to live off the rewards of someone else’s labors.

The effect altruism has on society is that it undermines the original concept of rights. In order to give people new rights, which require no effort on the behalf of the beneficiary, in order to mandate prosperity for everyone real rights have to be compromised. Since the government cannot produce these new rights out of thin air they can only be taken from the real rights of individuals. Essentially, it is the redistribution of rights, but the catch is it takes from the real rights of all individuals and replaces them with artificial rights that are only given to specific groups of people.

Of course it is moral for an individual with the means to do so to voluntarily help his neighbor as long as he doesn’t put his own survival at risk but the collectivized form of altruism mandates the confiscation of private property by means of force. This is not only inherently anti-American but it goes against the moral principles needed for man’s survival.