Sunday, August 16, 2009

Moral Obligation

mor⋅al


Use moral in a Sentence

–adjective

1.

of, pertaining to, or concerned with the principles or rules of right conduct or the distinction between right and wrong; ethical: moral attitudes.


  


 

3.

founded on the fundamental principles of right conduct rather than on legalities, enactment, or custom: moral obligations.


 

4.

capable of conforming to the rules of right conduct: a moral being.


 

5.

conforming to the rules of right conduct (opposed to immoral ): a moral man.


 


 

Interesting definition.


 

My question is when did 'moral' become a license to steal or take money from one group of people and give it to another under the guise of moral obligation?


 

During my formative years I was taught it was my moral obligation to be a honest hardworking productive member of society, not a leech on it. 


 

It appears somehow this definition of the moral obligation has been perverted.  No longer is it a persons moral obligation to be productive member of society, it is the moral obligation of society to take from the productive members and give to the others. 


 

Why?


 

I can understand giving someone the basics, food, food shelter, clothing, medical care, the operative word being BASIC.  A person who works should not have their lifestyle lowered to provide an equivalent lifestyle to someone who chooses not to work.  The American dream was based on having the freedom to make a better life for yourself and your family.  How is this possible now with the government taking more and more money from you in the form of taxes under the guise of it's your moral obligation to help others.  It maybe a moral obligation to assist others less fortunate but it is not a moral obligation to bring your lifestyle down and theirs up to an equal standard.  That is socialism or communism and that is not what America was founded on. 


 

America was based on an individual's right to make themselves the best life they could.  The government's job was to insure that all American citizens had that right.  This appears to have been lost somewhere.  It appears that the officials we have elected to represent our interests have put the right of Americans to better themselves on the proverbial back burner. 


 

This if it is not stopped it is the death of America.  What reason will the upcoming generations have to better themselves, to be inventive or innovative if there is no reward, if everything they work for will be taken from them? 


 

It is time to rethink the perversion of term 'moral obligation' and return it to it's true meaning that being the individual has the moral obligation to be a productive member of society and not society taking from the productive members to reward the non productive members.

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