Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Why Individualists Make Stronger Communities

Individualists, ultimately hold the decisions that they make as the most important regulators of their behavoir. In other words, the promises they make of their own violition have greater weight than political law. At first, this might sound contrary to creating strong community, but consider this:

Political law has wrought abortion, no-fault divorce, insanity defenses, massive civil lawsuits for all kinds of ridiculous pretexts, safety labels that insult our intelligence on practically everything, etc...

Personal decisions bring marriages that actually stay together.
Personal decisions brought the first covenant, and the new covenant.
Personal decisions allow us to buy and sell peacefully to enrich each others lives.

This is how things get built up. From Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob, to the Twelve, etc... All made personal decisions, and in many cases there were strong financial and familial reasons to make particular choices, but there was always a choice.

But nowadays, you can always go to the state, and it will happily help you get out of the consequences of your choices. I think this is why many attempts at stronger community have failed. When the collective becomes a shield from personal responsibilty- well it's like having termites in your house. It doesn't matter how nice the house looks; at some point the termites will weaken the structure and the house will fall.

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