"That's Already Been Settled" E. Zarbin

When my wife said we should make a contribu tion, my reaction was: "No, it's a waste of money. The people behind that are fighting the wrong thing. If they were fighting to repeal all Federal aid to the arts, I probably would contribute some thing." "That's already been settled," my wife retorted. "What's already been settled?" "Congressional funding of the arts." She maintained the issue now was to make cer tain the funds were not used for vulgar purposes such as displayingas art someone's bottled urine or photographs of homosexuality. Certainly I could agree tax money should not be used for those pur poses any more than they should be used to sup port three-cushion billiard parlors. But the need was not lobbying to ban the use of Federal funds to support pornography or disgustments: rather, the need was to ban stealing from billiard players (and everyone else) to support the arts.

On the surface, it appears the question of social welfare programs has been settled. Along with theft-supported giveaways to the arts, we have Social Security,Medicare, Medicaid, aid to educaEarl Zarbin, a retired newspaperman, does historical research and writing in Phoenix, Arizona. tion, ad nauseam.However, there is no assurance these programs willlast forever. A late example of this was Congress' repeal of the law requiring Medicare recipients with qualifying incomes to pay higher taxes for the financing of catastrophic illness. Congress reacted after hundreds of thou sands of Social Security recipients made known their displeasure. What if hundreds of thou sands-or millionsof Americans under age 62, or 60,or 50,made known their displeasure with the entire thieving system of Social Security? Would Congress sit still? Or would it repeal the social stealing approved by Congress in 1935?

Similarly, if millions of Americans rallied against subsidies for irrigation water, electrical production, and all other Federal theft programs, would not Congress respond? You bet. If the peo ple made known they would vote out of office any one who failed to repeal stealing as Congress' favorite pastime, the·entire transfer payment sys tem could come tumbling down. Indeed, ask individual citizens if they support theft. I think most would say they do not-even for so-called good causes. They prefer to decide for themselves whether something is worthy of their personal financial aid. What I suspect many of them do not perceive is the connection between committing theft themselves and Congress (or state legislatures or city councils) doing the same thing through the enactment of laws and their enforcement with the power of the police. Many citizens might agree there is a need to help others pay rent, buy food, receive medical care, and become educated, but they would rebel and stiffen their backs if approached directly by a man with gun in hand to demand they turn over 234 cash in their pockets for these purposes. Yet the majority of them tolerate the same conduct if the theft is enacted into law and the stealing is accom plished by government agencies.

Clearly, the masses of people have been deceived in their understanding of what govern ment should be and what it has become. It should ~estrict itself to protecting life, liberty, and proper ty; instead, it is the main agency for intrusion into virtually every aspect of living, threatening the wellbeing of the people by spending too much, and by inflation. If my wife is correct-the triumph of the social welfare state in these United States has "already been settled"-then I might as well contribute to such narrow and unproductive causes as combat ting the use of federally collected tax money to finance the public display of bottles of urine as art. But I think she is wrong-the only thing that has been settled is that the masses of people have been temporarily blinded and deceived by the siren song of those who pretend the world is better off when subjected to an elite in control of coercive forces. To me, nothing has been settled. Ifthis puts me out of step, I at least know that I still tramp to my own beat. D THE JOHN TEMPLETON HONOR ROLL FOR FREE ENTERPRISE TEACHING The Foundation for Economic EducatioI1 is pleased to announce the publication of its descriptive survey detailing The John Templeton Foundation Honor Roll for Free Enterprise Teaching for 1990.

Copies of the honor roll are available on request by contacting: Janette Brown The Foundation for Economic Education Irvington-on-Hudson, New York 10533 telephone: (914) 591-7230 fax: (914) 591-8910 235 A REVIEWER'S NOTEBOOK Religion, Wealth and Poverty by John Chamberlain G ilbert Chesterton, who is the mentor of Jesuit Father James Vincent Schall, the author of Religion, Wealth and Poverty (Vancouver,B. C.: Fraser Institute, 202pages), was a distributist. But this doesn't mean that he wanted to divide the wealth into equal shares. He wanted everybody to own property, to have land, a home, and tools. He was willing to let people who had brains, take it from there. The Chesterton commitment was to free will.If you believe in it, you come out in your attitude toward poverty in one place. It is not a static rest ing point. You have powers of imitation, and you don't have to accept poverty for yourself. But if ideology rears its ugly head Chesterton won't save you. Let us say the ideology is socialism. In asking the simple question of why are the poor poor, socialismimplies that it is because the rich have the money. In a non-free will world this means that poverty must be eternal.