Cause and Effect; S. Yankus

CAU,SE AND STANLEY Y ANKUS EFFECT IN ANY specific community during any specific period of time, the weather, the water supply, the schools, the customs, the language, the government, and various other environmental factors are nearly identical for all persons. In such similar influences and surround ings it would be reasonable to ex pect the lives of the people to be as similar as sardines. But they are not. It is easy to observe that the lives of some men and women are marred by hatred, scorn, envy, fights, and even murder while others live quiet, respectful, hon orable, peaceful lives in the same vicinity. This startlin,g contrast makes it evident that some individuals are able to achieve a high degree of self-improvement while others have little success. Mr. Yankus moved to Australia from Michigan in protest against government intervention in agriculture, but knows that it is not a sufficient purpose for his life.

The men and women who usually fail in their self-improvement see no rhyme or reason in the events that take place in their lives. As they see it, life is a series of gambles. If something goes wrong, it was an accident; if something turns out all right, it was pure luck. Those who are successful in their self-improvement have learned that opportunities are a product of cause and effect chance plays no part. Favorable opportunities are produced by the use of good methods and hard work. Cause and effect run through the entire gamut of human ex periences, from one's smallest pleasure to his biggest problem. In order to find the happiness we seek in life, it is beneficial to un derstand the role of cause and ef fect. It is my purpose to examine the relationship between cause and effect, self-improvement and free545 546 THE FREEMAN September dome Let me begin with these two premises: (1) Cause and effect operate in the universe. (2) Self improvement is the most effective means of creating freedom.

A farmer near Crystal Brook, South Australia said, "I will pay a reward of two dollars to anyone who can tell me something that happened without a cause." The reward money attracted many wild guesses from people who were eager to get an easy dollar from this farmer. But none of the answers were valid. After some thought, most peo ple will concede that everything has a cause, but the thought of having to accept responsibility for all of their troubles produces fear. So the concession is hedged : "Yes, but I am not in complete control of all the causes that produce troubles in my life. It is not my fault that other people injure me, lie to me, and cheat me in various ways. Furthermore, my freedom is curtailed' by a socialistic gov ernment over which I have no controL" Put Yourself in Charge Assume for a moment that you were in charge of the planet, Earth, and it was up to you to arrange the scheme of things. No doubt, you would want to arrange the affairs of this world so no one could write you a letter of complaint. The only way you could avoid all complaints is by estab lishing perfect justice. What is j ustice e~cept to give to each per son exactly what he deserves?

The means of accomplishing jus tice would be to have cause and effect operate in all things: good for good, bad for bad, no work no pay. In spite of appearances to the contrary, that is how I per ceive the world to be arranged. Our perception of how the world is arranged is very important be cause almost all of our actions re late to it. One of my good friends believes that all diseases are caused by harmful living habits and wrong eating instead of contagious germs. To prove his belief in cause and effect to an acquantance, he said: "Do you think that God gets up in the morning yawning, stretching and saying, 'Gee whiz, I slept badly last night and I am not in a good mood this morning. So I think I will show the people on earth some of my mighty pow er. I'll give Jack diabetes, I'll give Tom polio, I'll give Robert rheu matism, I'll give Henry a heart at tack, and I'll give Sam cancer.' Or do you think that God established perfect laws of cause and effect which work unfailingly and justly at all times and to all people on this earth?" Without hesitation, the acquaintance decided that 1972 CAUSE AND EFFECT 547 cause and effect operated, in the universe. The Bible explains cause and effect in this way: "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a moan soweth, that shall he also reap." (Galatians 6 :7) Freedom Not for Sale Do you really want freedom?

Your sincere and eager reply may be, "Yes, of course. Give it to me." But is that possible? Let us in vestigate the means of getting any and every fragment of self-im provement we possess. Suppose you want to learn how to speak a foreign language, or learn how to build a modern home, or learn how to repair a radio, or learn any other skill. Can you go into a re tail store and buy these skills for a thousand dollars, or can your parents or anyone else who loves you give these skills to you as a gift, or can the senators and rep resentatives in government enrich your life with these skills by pass ing laws, or could you side-step all the hard work and steal these skills on some dark night? Of course, you cannot. Isn't it magnificent the way the Creator arranged the scheme of things so no one could cheat on his or her self-improvement! You get nothing for nothing; you only get exactly what you deserve as a reward for your personal effort.

This is proof that cause and effect operate in the acquisition of all self-improvement. And since free dom is obtained by self-improve ment, it becomes clear that free dom has to be earned by each in dividual who wants freedom. Let it be emphasized that freedom is an individual affair in self-im provement which can begin right now. Those who wait until the next election to increase freedom, wait in vain. It is a vain hope to be lieve that freedom can be estab lished in a nation by benevolent statesmen for the perpetual en joyment of all. If that were pos sible, it would already have been done a long time ago. Freedom has never been ob tained by the use of an excuse. Many individuals will admit the importance of freedom but they use this excuse : "It is a full time job for me to support my family. I haven't got the time or energy to worry about freedom." Fair enough. However, these individ uals do admit they have enough time to earn a living. If each fam ily practiced the virtue of self improvement by being self-sup porting, it would free more slaves than the Civil War between the States. What is more, no war would have to be fought. To find out who the slaves are, let us trace cause and effect. When a farmer or anyone else accepts govern ment subsidies, medi~al aid, wel548 THE FREEMAN September fare, or whatever, he causes a tax payer to earn part of his living for him. The effect of forcing a taxpayer to work without compen sation is slavery by taxation.

The Pain of Slavery There are many men and wom en who believe that the socialistic idea of slavery by taxation is the ideal arrangement. How can we tell who is right? The answer is revealed by cause and effect. The effect of harmful causes is pain ful. A Spanish proverb says: "God comes to us without a bell." Pain is the silent language used by Cre ation to tell us we are acting wrongly. There can be no dispute that slavery is a painful arrange ment; consequently, the socialistic idea of slavery by taxation is not in harmony with Nature's laws. Time and time again men have turned to government to secure their safety and protection by passing laws. Recently the govern ment of South Australia passed a law to protect car drivers from being killed. The law requires car drivers to wear seat belts; but since the law has been in effect, the number of deaths due to car crashes has increased. The govern ment Minister of Transport is sin cerely puzzled why the law failed to achieve its objective.

Never before in the history of the world have there been more laws in effect than at present. As more and more government laws are enacted each year, it would be logical to expect the government protection to get better. Instead, the daily newspapers report the sad stories of an increasing num ber of individuals who are being harmed and killed. The government laws have failed to furnish protection because al most all of these laws fail to har monize with Nature's laws. In any contest for supremacy, Nature's laws of cause and effect will always prevail over government laws. After school hours, I delivered newspapers to earn some money when I was a boy in Chicago. One cold winter day when it was snow ing, three older boys knocked me down in the snow and stole the money I had collected from my newspaper customers. This bitter experience taught me to take more precautions for my safety. Actu ally, no one else is as deeply con cerned with your protection as you are. You have everything to gain by making protection a do-it-your self project because the only gen uine protection you have in this world is self-improvement. Once you 'grasp the fact that bad effects are never produced by good causes, the secret of obtaining protection is yours. The good that you do will return to you like an Australian boomerang.

1972 CAUSE AND EFFECT 549 Each Experiences the Consequences of His Actions Cause and effect operate in the universe - what does that actually nlean? It means that everything that goes wrong in my life is my own fault. It means that every complaint I have made against others is my fault. Accepting such a heavy burden of faults is not as terrible as it seems. It is really beneficial. If the faults were all caused by other people, my safety and protection would be out of my control. Since the faults are mine, I have the wonderful opportunity of practicing every virtu e I can think of to increase my self-im provement. "And who is he that will harm· you, if ye be .followers of that which is good?" (I Peter 3:13) The men and women who pur sue the ideas of freedom enthusi astically are often hampered and frustrated by all sorts of social istic controls. Under such condi tions it is easy to develop an in tense hatred toward socialists in order to "get even" with them.

However, hatred is a harmful in dulgence because it destroys self improvement. Since freedom and self-improvement go hand in hand, freeing ourselves of hatred in creases our freedom' - we are not tied to our enemies. Here is my homemade recipe for getting rid of hatred: Whenever someone harms us in some way and we are incapable of punishing the offender, we react to the in justice by hating the offender. Hatred is a vote of "no confidence" in Creation. The invisible forces in the universe which are capable of spinning the stars and planets through space are also capable of seeing that justice is done through cause and effect. Our help is not needed by Creation in this particu lar task, even though it may hurt our vanity to have our aid rejected. All that is required of us to get rid of hatred is the understanding that cause and effect are at work in every human situation - noth ing is forgotten, nothing is for given, nothing is concealed.

If you are very skeptical and you want convincing proof that cause and effect will, punish the socialistic offenders for their err ors, try this experiment at your own risk. Insult the first ten peo ple you meet today. Now that you have produced ten causes - ten angry people - make a brave at tempt to escape the effects. Cause and effect always gets its man! You won't be able to escape the penalty for your misdeeds; neither will the socialists be able to es cape the punishment they deserve. Your hatred will be totally un necessary. I) CLARENCE B. CARSON THE FOUNDING OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC 14 Freeing the Individual 550 SCRIBES are quite often merciless tyrants in dealing with characters out of the past, spearing them with an assortment of verbs and freezing them in predetermined categories with their adjectives, much as a butterfly collector does with his helpless insects. There is no surer way to shatter the integ rity of an individual or to distort a historical epoch than by the in discriminate use of categories. No man of wit is likely to believe that a category comprehends him, even when it is well chosen. But when categories drawn from other times and places are imposed upon men and events which are foreign to them, the result can only be to confuse the subject under discus sion.