This week, a young person came to my front door to ask me to sign a petition to keep the California government from reducing funding for some kind of ‘help kids stay out of jail’ program. I was mentally in ‘no solicitors at my door’ mode so I was focused on getting her to go away.

I told her that my taxes were already much too high. She replied that this wasn’t a tax increase, but rather a petition to keep the program from being cut (!) I told her that I would support most any tax cuts to lower my tax burden. She replied that I’d end up having to pay more for these kids in prison if I didn’t pay now (was that a threat?). Still treating her as an uninvited solicitor, I just told her goodbye.

After shutting the door, I realized that a monster had just visited me and that I should not have let her get off that easily. Not that my words to her would have swayed public policy, but in the name of justice, her true identity should have been put on display for her to witness. I’ll explain:

Governments have a monopoly on the use of force. They are necessary to maintain law and order. Those living under their jurisdiction don’t have the legal or military means to disagree their laws. If some people didn’t agree with a government-imposed tax or ban on liquor, they would be forced in to submission at the point of a gun or tanks if necessary.

Therefore, to preserve freedom, governments must be limited to the role of preserving everyone’s right to be left alone to pursue goals and happiness; i.e., to be protected from others’ initiation of force–whether it be in the form of street gang extortion or fraudulently stealing one’s earnings or foreign plunderers.

However, like many people, this young lady wishes to utilize the government’s guns to force other citizens to pay for their chosen charities and programs. She doesn’t follow the golden rule of utilizing voluntary free trade by trying to convince me to freely donate to her cause. Instead, she seeks to round up enough people to turn our democratic government in to an agent of forced charity. The government would then reverse its role of protector of individual rights, and become the aggressor: treating individuals as slaves to fulfill the desires of a simple majority—regardless of whether the simple majority is creating the wealth that is extorted.

So even though the person at my front door has built layers of obfuscations on to her presentation, her honest solicitation should have been: “Citizen. I support this charity. Please join me in taking control of the government’s guns to steal wealth from other citizens (whether or not they agree with the purpose or execution of this charity) for my charity. But don’t worry; I see by your meager property that the government won’t steal too much from you. Instead, the government will steal most from those people who have created the most wealth.”

I apologize for this long post, but I must expound on one more point. What prods this person at my door to behave this way?

She obviously thinks it’s right and even moral. I’m almost certain that she’s righteously practicing the false moral of altruism: sacrificing one’s values ostensibly for the benefit of others (especially non-human these days). I make this point to illustrate how evil altruism really is because it’s not a personal choice—those who treat it like a virtue invariably choose to impose it on others because, after all, why shouldn’t all people be “moral?” Those who honor altruism are the first to “help” others sacrifice their values by force. In this case, it’s taking control of the government’s guns to force others to “give” their earned wealth away (it’s not so important where it goes, just as long as it’s “given”).

At my front door, I should have at least held up a mirror so that this person could see the monster she really was.

This week, as the media focuses on immigration, the Iraq fiasco, affirmative action, the miscellaneous murder and/or fire, and the 2008 presidential candidates, Iran still continues to develop doomsday nuclear weapons with no meaningful opposition from the west.

Apparently, it will require more than the murder of thousands of New Yorkers to prod the US leaders and public to take action. Unfortunately, in today’s altruist and PC culture, an entire US city will have to be sacrificed with a body count over 50,000 before the war on terror is taken seriously—before totalitarian theocracies like Iran are treated like the murderous thugs they are and are no longer tolerated. Waiting for Iran to go nuclear before dismantling their religious government will be far more destructive on all sides.

These days, celebrities often publicly announce that they’re “giving back to the community” when choosing to fund a particular charity. This overused phrase implicitly suggests that they have previously taken from the community. But how is this possible in a free market?

In a free market (laissez-faire capitalism), people exchange value for value. If a singer/producer/distribution company creates a recoding for which millions of people gladly pay $20, then no coercion or “taking” has occurred. If a basketball player inspires sports fans to attend games at the tune of $100 per seat, then again, no coercion or force has occurred. The celebrity creates wealth that previously didn’t exist, and trades it for wealth that others also created.

Perhaps the need to “give back” speaks about the psychology of the celebrities. Aside from simply using the phrase because they believe it to be some form of second handed altruistic morality, celebrities often do not understand their own value and thus don’t feel deserving of their wealth (and we all can think of examples of so called celebrities who don’t appear to create any value).

Unfortunately, their use of this phrase also implies that everyone who earns wealth in our (relatively) free society should also “give back.” Those who are envious of others’ earned wealth and any other Marxists will certainly champion this false idealism.

Unless people have gained their wealth through coercion or theft, all wealth earned in a free market rightly and justly belongs to the creators. There is no need to “give back” any part of it, for without their chosen activities, their wealth would have never existed in the first place.

I’m planning on writing a broader piece about the US news media, but I must point out the blatant hypocrisy and gall of the news media to run stories and comment about how there is too much ‘Paris Hilton goes to jail’ coverage. These news media outlets choose to devote reporters and airtime to this story, and then run further stories about how there’s too much attention given to such unimportant stories. They say this as if they’re not in control of their own programming.

They also don’t seem to realize that they’re complaining about too much Paris Hilton coverage to the same audience that tunes in to consume such stories. Every one else has already tuned out.