To the editor:
As hard working citizens, rampant illegal immigration, swelling welfare rolls, and the growing malaise toward the future of our society rightly upsets us. We know these things are wrong, but what makes them wrong? How do we articulate the underlying truths that inform our feelings that things are not right?
Our forebears established a great organization, the United States of America. It may seem strange to think of our country as an organization, but America is as much an organization as any company or club. It is because we have lost sight of this simple truth that we find ourselves in our current state of national decline. Organizations operate on certain principles that we as a people would do well to rediscover if we are to restore our country.
Organizations function on an exchange of value. People form or join organizations because they perceive value in doing so; they expect to obtain benefits beyond those of non-members. Likewise organizations accept and retain members because there is a benefit in having them.
This foundational concept of value for value has been the impetus for all societies, this is the true social contract that holds us together. In America the value once demanded of us was that we be productive citizens, that we use our liberty to create value. Understanding this leads us to another characteristic of organizations.
Organizations are exclusionary. Whatever benefits an organization offers to its members are for them alone. Every organization has the right to regulate and restrict who is allowed membership by what is most beneficial to the organization and current members. Not only are members, current and prospective, required to provide value, the manner in which they provide that value can also be regulated.
Whether written or not, all organizations have core values that influence the character and decisions of the organization. Members are required to uphold the culture of their organization.
It is self-evident that benefits offered by an organization are exclusive to its members. If an insurance company proposed to pay out benefits to non-members, the company would quickly cease to exist. Who would ever accept the responsibilities of membership when the same benefits may be had by anyone?
That is precisely the arrangement that we are faced with today. In the current system we are expected to create value that is then redistributed to non-producers. Furthermore, legal protections, economic safeguards, even the right to vote, traditionally benefits of membership, are given out indiscriminately.
We are told that we have a moral duty to surrender our country; to become beasts of burden so that the non-working class may enjoy the benefits to which they have become accustomed. We are held accountable to the full extent of the law while illegal aliens roam our country freely living on the indulgence of the government’s understanding. Producers are relegated to the background of their own organization as priority is given to these non-member classes.
Society is an organization. We provide value to our organization and are right and justified to expect exclusive value in return. As Adam Smith said: “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.”
