On Laws and Morality

Walter Williams, one of my favorite economists and columnists, finished his recent column, "Law vs. Moral Values" with these words: "Our increased reliance on laws to regulate behavior is a measure of how uncivilized we've become." Right on, Williams!

The other day, while eating Sunday dinner with my church's Home Bible Study group (several families), in giving examples of the "hidden" taxes already enacted of Obama's administration, I mentioned the cigarette tax.

"Oh, that's okay," said one friend. "That'll make people smoke less."

I was aghast at her comment. I hope that she didn't feel like I jumped on her with my response, but I feel very strongly about this subject. The government has no business in my (or anyone else's) morality. And killing oneself slowly is a moral issue.

When he announced he was switching parties, yesterday, Senator Arlen Specter said the Republican party has no more room for moderates. And callers on the talk shows explained that conservative Republicans (as opposed to moderate Republicans) means the "social conservatives," that is, those who want to make abortion illegal and keep gays from marital bliss. It's these people, they contend, that will kill the Republican party.

Now I don't care about the Republican party, except as a possible vehicle for getting into office truly good people. (The Republicans in office now do not fit that description.) And one way to know if people are truly good is if they have good morals, which, for the most part, means they have conservative values (and I'm speaking of "conservative" with a small "c;" the antithesis of "progressive," not Conservative with a large "c.") However, just because a person has conservative values and good morals does not mean he wants to force everyone else to have the same values and morals. In fact, I would say one of his values is respect of the individual's personal responsibility.

Truly good people for political office means those who thoughtfully support the Constitution as it was created originally, who believe the government must be limited to only its enumerated powers, such as to protect our country from attack, to print money, to be sure contracts are honored. Our founding fathers believed that, in order to have government thus limited and maintain personal liberty, the individual must be self-controlling based on his own morality. They actually expected a belief in God is what would guide the free people to do the right thing, NOT law.

I can find several good reasons the government should not be allowed to control our bad behavior.

1. The more government intrudes on our bad behavior, the more we tend to abdicate our own responsibility. It's much easier to say, "I didn't know it was against the law," than it is to say, "I didn't think about whether it was right or wrong." I have many students who believe that a behavior is not wrong if it's legal.

2. Who decides what is bad behavior? The Greens would have me believe that my cutting down trees is bad behavior. But I don't think so. Joe Biden says it's patriotic to pay taxes, and of course, he means those who are already paying 30% of their income in taxes shouldn't complain when their taxes are raised to 50% of their income. Obama's administration says that as a country we are immoral because of our "torture" of terrorists. But is it moral to allow further attacks to kill thousands of our people when we can avoid the attacks through waterboarding a few evil people?

3. As government gains more control of our lives, it becomes more corrupt. The more power it has, the more money it wants, and it finds ways to get both. This leads to two classes of people: those who obey the law and those in power who don't have to. Need I remind you of Tim Geithner's slide into office as Treasury Secretary although he hadn't paid his taxes until it became evident that his taxes would be noticed in the process of his confirmation hearings?

4. Government has a poor track record of managing anything. Anyone who has had to deal with Medicare or Medicaid knows what I mean. Heck, on the state level, just look at the department of motor vehicles. This is why peanuts tainted with salmonella managed to enter our food consumption. This is why my friend, Eva, cannot buy stuffed animals for the bags she makes to give homeless children. You see, Congress passed a law outlawing lead in children's toys, and requiring all stores reselling children's toys to test those toys to make sure they don't contain lead (that's the good behavior). Thrift stores are unable to afford the costs of testing just to resell a toy at a dollar, so they refuse to take children's toys anymore.

The only proper place the government has in regulating our behavior is when our behavior interferes with anyone else's rights, that is, those God-given rights that cannot be separated from us: our rights to freedom of speech, religion, assembly, and press, our rights to redress and to bear arms, our right to life and property.

We have, folded into all those rights, the right to fail. We have the right to do stupid and immoral stuff, as long as our actions do not interfere with others' rights.