Weekly Posting of the Conservative Cow Doctor

 

Slipping Away

Monday morning, March 7th, I was finishing the last hundred yards of my predawn 11 mile run. Non-runners will never understand the peacefulness of running the streets alone in the darkness, so I won’t even try. I was plodding down a sidewalk which passes under the railroad tracks and was doing my best not to let gravity entice me into running like a border collie chasing a rabbit. Melting snow from the previous afternoon had frozen into hidden patches of black ice during the night. My right foot was planted on solid pavement when my left foot stepped onto an ice covered curb cut. I instantly did the splits and momentum twisted my body forward. My right fibula snapped allowing my ankle to dislocate 90 degrees to the outside and I crashed to the icy sidewalk.

In less than ten seconds, and almost as if she had been waiting for me, Laura was there. She was a young lady driving to work who noticed the red flashing light on my headlamp as I lay stretched out on the sidewalk. She hopped from her car and asked the customary, “Are you okay?”

“No, I just broke my leg,” I responded as I reached down and snapped my right foot back where it belonged. It didn’t hurt as bad as you might think, but I knew I wasn’t going to just shake this one off and crawl the last hundred yards home. Laura called for an ambulance while good Samaritans gathered to help in any manner they could. Later that morning while sitting at the hospital, I pondered my sidewalk crash. I am sorry to say, the names of all the kind people who stopped in the darkness to help a complete stranger, will never be known to me. God knows though.

Five days later, on a sunny Saturday afternoon, with my swollen and fractured leg in a splint, I crutched my way back to the crash scene. Equipped with sidewalk chalk, my trophy wife and I prepared to draw a crime scene figure on the pavement and photograph it for a facebook posting. I tossed my crutches aside and dropped to my hands and knees to draw. Within fifteen seconds a car stopped thinking I had fallen from my crutches and needed help getting up. (Apparently they don’t appreciate fine sidewalk art in Helena.)

I told you that story to explain true charity—the Godly principle of giving while expecting nothing in return. It is even more generous to give at a level requiring you to surrender something you want. Just like King David refusing to offer a sacrifice which costs him nothing, Laura gave of her time knowing she was late for work. That is true charity.

Let me twist my story in a different manner to make a point. Suppose Laura stopped and ordered someone else to call for an ambulance and demanded they stay with me until it arrived. She then hopped back in her car and disappeared in the darkness. The end result of both stories is exactly the same; however do you think Laura is charitable in story number two? Obviously, I think not. The lesson is this: You can only be charitable with your own time and property. It is impossible to be charitable with the time and property of someone else, because that is offering a sacrifice which costs you nothing. Socialism is founded on the false principle of providing charity with other people’s money.

This brings me to my point. James Madison warned in the Federalist Papers charity is not a function of government and should actually come from anyone but government because feeding on the bounty of others quickly becomes a dangerous entitlement. If you need proof, look at last weekend’s riots in London. The U.K., facing a 1.4 trillion dollar national debt, is proposing austere budget cuts of social programs and the people are discombobulating. Was Madison predicting this pitfall of socialism could happen in America?

We are entering the final 20 days of Montana’s legislative session and the big spending bill, HB 2, is front and center. Those of us on the fiscally conservative wing of the political spectrum will be chastised for cutting government programs. Headlines will portray us as misers balancing the budget on the backs of sick kids, college kids, poor people and seniors. When you read them ask yourself this: Has Montana dangerously slipped away from Christian principles of true charity to the socialist principles of entitlement? Time will tell. In terms of restoring our republic, no one said it would be easy, only worth it and undoubtedly there will be challenging times ahead. Be careful you don’t slip and fall.

 
 
 
 
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