Nathan Slatter

I was talking to my daughter rather straightforward the other day because she had gotten into trouble for doing something. In the midst of her mother getting on to her she made the worst statement she could have ever made with me around. She said, as an excuse, “I’ve had a rough life!”

And, admittedly, she has. She was born with a heart murmur, she had an almost constant UTI until she was 2 or 3, she couldn’t walk until she was older and her speech became clear only around the time her brother was beginning to talk. He’s two years younger than she. So, perhaps she has had rough life – or it was rough at the beginning.

Today, though, she doesn’t have a rough life. She has good food (and a lot of it if she wants) on her table, a roof over her head, a family that loves her, and we have her in a private school that is focused on her type of learning abilities because she doesn’t excel in a public school setting.

Upon making such a statement I began explaining to her that she didn’t have a rough life and why she didn’t. I was rather irritated.

I was irritated for a very specific reason. I cannot stand when people proclaim that they are owed something because they’ve had it bad. That’s just crap. I’ve had it bad too. I was dependant on the state for a while in the past. I’ve been depressed. I’ve been poor. And I’ve been broken. The fact is, though, that I had to change the way I thought about life and living in order to change the direction within which I was going. I was able to stop depending on the state and started depending on my own capability to support myself, and more importantly, my family.

And, I’m sorry, but the fact that someone is poor isn’t a good enough reason for them to whine and complain about where they are. I’m sick and tired of my hard earned dollars going to someone who feels that the rich owe me because I’m poor. And I’m not rich, so how is it even possible that I’m the one that has my money stolen from me. And, yes, it is robbery. Money taken from an individual under duress (no matter the good intentions with which it is taken) is still thievery and not exactly moral.

I’m completely agitated at the fact that the money that is taken from me is used to pay for someone else’s moral proclivities. Some people require that we pay for the healthcare of everyone and others are completely sure that we should use said money to fund wars – neither of these are things that I feel that I should be forced to pay for. I can give that same amount of money (and probably would) to those in my local community that need help – or at the very least give it to private charities that assist people in my community. As far as the war goes – I don’t think we should be in it so I don’t think I should have to fund it. It is that simple.

I pondered the idea of various types of socialism. For instance, there is the acceptance and understanding that a universal healthcare is, in fact, socialism. And not all people have a problem with that statement even if they may have a problem with the practice. I find it strange that the very people who will rail against their money going toward paying for someone else’s morality and will argue ’til they are blue in the face to that fact, will turn around and force the funding of their own moral actions upon others, couching it in national security and spreading democracy.

I have to compare the apples to oranges and look to the “good” that we are performing in Iraq. We are taking a lot more than money and going into a nation to “help them” enter into the modern age of democracy. Isn’t that a sort of socialism? Taking from the rich to assist the poor? Is this really any different than socialism? The idea that “sacrifice” is necessary of us all so that everyone can be assisted? The idea that forced funding of a war is necessary so that morality can be achieved?

In the end, I don’t believe that anyone owes me anything. I think things may be moral to do and correct – but, in the end, I am not owed anything. Nor do I owe anyone else anything. During my long speech, I made the following statement to my daughter and this pretty much sums up the ideals of my own life.

I said, and this is adlibbing because I didn’t have a recorder at the time, I don’t owe you anything. Nothing. I don’t owe you a roof over your head, food in your belly, nor a private school so that you may learn efficiently. I owe you none of these things. I give these things to you for a single reason that outweighs all others, barring none. I give these things because I love you.

And to follow that up – If I am forced to that which I want to do out of love then my love is not good enough, my personal morality isn’t good enough, and my very existence in this life isn’t good enough. And I, as a pretty moral guy, find it quite offensive to be forced to do something by another’s moral compass because mine own isn’t as good as an entity that is so far removed from real life that they have no concept of, well, reality.

I’m offended that my decision has been taken away from me. I’m offended that my morality isn’t good enough. I’m offended that there are those that believe I owe them something more than love.