http://goudsmit.pundicity.com/21783/collectivism-and-the-8th-commandment
In the 18th century our Founding Fathers fought the War of Independence to escape the tyranny of the British monarchy. Our Founding Fathers envisioned a New World where citizens of the United States of America would be bound by the Constitution and live as free individuals in a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
The 10 Commandments were foundational to the Judeo-Christian tradition of the United States and to its ordered liberty. The Commandments provided the infrastructure and moral basis for the secular laws written to govern American society.
The separation of church and state was an acknowledgement that different religious doctrines existed within the Judeo-Christian tradition. The Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment was a defense against the tyranny of an official state religion.
What our Founding Fathers did not envision was the secular tyranny of collectivism – collectivism is a late 19th century political ideology.
“Thou Shalt Not Steal” is the 8th Commandment that strictly forbids stealing. So, let’s talk about stealing – the taking of another person’s property.
Stealing assumes a separation between self and other and is an acknowledgement of property rights. That is, one person cannot take another person’s property unless both parties acknowledge that each person has a separate existence and that property belonging to one is not the property of the other.
There would be no moral injunction against stealing and no Commandment or secular law against stealing without this fundamental acknowledgement.
The problem with collectivism, whether it is socialism or communism, is that it defies this most fundamental acknowledgement. Collectivism denies the property rights of an individual and, therefore, that individual’s existence as a separate entity.
Collectivism says that what is yours belongs to the state and the state is the entity that determines its distribution. Theoretically, without property rights there are no human rights because if what I produce is not mine and the fruits of my labors belong to the state, then I do not belong to myself. I am without human rights.
Collectivist ideology is antagonistic to the Judeo-Christian tradition because it denies the existence of the self. In collectivism the individual’s life belongs to the group.
This most fundamental and critical issue of property rights and its connection to human rights and the self is denied by the humanitarian hucksters selling socialism. When Obama tells business owners “You did not build that” he is denying their human rights and misappropriating them to the state. Obama is the prime time humanitarian huckster disingenuously selling socialism as the provider of social justice and income equality. He is the consummate con man deceitfully selling “resistance” as freedom fighting.
