Doing Good, and Doing No Harm.

Doing good very often requires action. Doing no harm almost never requires action.

Doing good is fraught with error. Doing no harm is reliable.

Doing good often requires the supposition that a future benefit can be delivered, without fail. Doing no harm requires doing nothing, or doing something in which the future results are entirely predictable, without wishful thinking.

Doing good is a demagogue’s tool. Doing no harm is the ancient tradition of Western civilization, stretching from ancient Greece to the present Judeo/Christian world.

Doing good requires a “problem” needing a remedy. Doing no harm has no such trigger.

Doing good is to make the proponent feel good, regardless of results. Doing no harm looks toward … well, dog-gone it, no harm!

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An excruciating example of how doing good can run off the tracks can be seen in the the movie Rabbit-Proof Fence (Made in Australia and directed by Phillip Noyce, distributed by Miramax Films, 2002).(It is available from NetFlix in DVD format,http://www.netflix.com/) It is based on a true story. The setting is Australia in the 1930s. The perceived problem (by government authorities) is mixing of the black natives with whites. An attempt was made to keep the races separated by passing laws prohibiting inter-racial marriage. Then the separation was to be sharpened by taking some select children from their “bush” families (by force), and raising them as whites in large state-run boarding schools. The selection process was aimed at children who were lighter in color, and who had fewer black features. The “blacker” children were left alone.

While this was occurring, the government was also building four or five “rabbit-proof fences” across the continent to stop rabbits from spreading into every last nook and cranny. (The rabbits had been introduced by white settlers, and had no natural enemies, and had become a threat to agriculture and to some native species of plants.)

The story centers around three young girls taken (by force) from a bush village in northern Australia who were transported to a boarding school about a thousand miles away. In the movie, their ages were about 13, 10, and 6. The oldest and youngest were sisters. At the school, the girls were dressed, fed and given classes in reading and writing in English.

At the time the girls were taken, a portion of the rabbit proof fence was being built near their village. Once at the school the oldest girl noticed that a portion of the rabbit proof fence had already been built a few miles from the school, and she reasoned that by following the fence, she would be able to return to her mother, her family, her village.

Eluding search parties the whole way, they get lost, find their way anew, go hungry, get insulted, get helped, get scorched by the sun, go dehydrated, find water, find food; and eventually the older one and her sister make it back to their village; and, wait, the authorities are waiting in the village, so they back off, and live in hiding some distance from the village until the authorities get disgusted and go home. The movie is inspiring and shows how love of family and yearnings for liberty can be unstoppable when there is the will to preserve them. It also shows how doing good can be really bad.

Who among us is to say what is good? How can we make sure that the proponent of the “good” is not merely seeking to fill a psychological void in himself. How can we be assured that the proponent of doing good is not aiming at personal gain of some kind?

The path to doing no harm is not complicated. Probably the simplest expression of it comes from Buddha: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

On a more philosophical plane, and from a witness to the immediate results of the French Revolution, we have Mssr. Bastiat: “Justice is the absence of injustice.”

Using a list of particulars, we have God, through his servant Moses, giving us The 10 Commandments.

Finally we have Benito Juarez: Mexican school children are taught a phrase devised by one of their revered presidents, Benito Juarez. This phrase is: “El respeto al derecho ajeno es la paz.” In English this is, “Respect for other’s rights is peace.” This man understood a great benefit of applied basic rights, to wit: peace. In plain American language: You and I will get along as well as we respect each other’s rights.

Two kinds of Rights: 1. The DO NO HARM type, and 2. The DO GOOD type.

Type 1
A right is a freedom to act, without restraint. Such as I have a right to breathe.

In general, actions are unrestricted as long as we don’t cause harm to others. (As stated by B. Juarez.) I have a right to walk on the sidewalk, but I don’t have the right to enter my neighbor’s house without his permission.

Rights can be voluntarily surrendered, such as taking a job and agreeing to be on the job from 9 to 5.

Rights can be restricted by means of law, such as there are many places where I cannot drive my automobile at a speed exceeding 35 mph. Laws always restrict rights. All too frequently, doing good results in the passage of laws that have no effect other than to reduce our rights. The founding fathers knew this and made it plain in their writings that they favored a society with few laws. “The government that governs best, governs least,” encapsulates their thinking fairly well.

The Bill of Rights does not grant rights, it merely clarifies that some rights are particularly mentioned as a foil to demagoguery and obfuscation. The Founders knew that demagogues and liars would do everything possible to limit rights by saying such rights never existed. Some of the Founders knew there was a risk of adding the Bill of Rights to the Constitution, as it might be argued that rights of citizens were limited to the listed ones. For that reason, Amendments 9 and 10 were included.

Here, in abbreviated form, is the Bill of Rights:

1. Congress shall make no law [establishing or prohibiting religion or abridging freedom of speech, or of the press].
2. [The people have the right to] keep and bear arms.
3. [No soldier shall be] quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner.
4. [The people have a right] to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects.
5. No person shall be held to answer [for a major crime unless indicted by a Grand Jury].
6. [For criminal prosecutions,] the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial.
7. [For common law] the right of trial by jury shall be preserved.
8. ... nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
9. ... enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny [rights retained by the people].
10. ... powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution [belong to the States and the People].

Note that in the first 8 amendments, acts are either permitted or forbidden:

1. “make no law”
2. “keep and bear arms”
3. [not] “quartered”
4. “be secure”
5. [not] “held”
6. “shall enjoy”
7. “shall be”
8. [not] “cruel … punishment”

Note that the first 8 Amendments are to restrict the governing authority, not the individual person. The 9th amendment states that the people’s rights are not limited by having set apart the first 8 amendments. The 10th amendment says that any power not specifically enumerated in the Constitution is available to the individual states, or to the people. Amendments 9 and 10 are more or less footnotes.

Doing Good versus Doing No Harm

Type 2
Now, contrast this with some selections from the 1947 United Nations Bill of Rights. [The numbers preceding the text are the Article numbers.]


12. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary … attacks upon his honour and reputation.
23. … right to work, to free choice of employment … protection against unemployment … equal pay for equal work … right to just and favourable remuneration
24. … right to rest and leisure
25. … the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself …
26. Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out which of the two bills is practical and workable. The UN bill is a bunch of do-good, feel-good drivel. In it, lurking beneath the wording, are the enemies of happiness, prosperity and liberty: laws and taxes at the disposal of a political elite. This elite bunch (the bureaucracy) is empowered to enforce egalitè and fraternitè (the two reasons why a French style revolution crashes and burns.) For a thumbnail view of the french revolution, please take a side trip to the following link French Revolution

Note the implicit understanding that there is a right of some people to take from other people (eg., favorable remuneration). Note too how in the UN “rights,” the use of force is ever present. How are the attacks on honour and reputation to be handled unless a man with a club or a gun is employed? Who is there to set that “enforcer” loose? (An all-seeing, all-compassionate bureaucrat, of course.) The right to work means that force must be used to make someone give you a job. The right to rest and leisure means your employer can be put in jail for not making sure you are happy with your time away from his hell hole of a company. Etc. Etc.

We can thank our lucky stars that the UN never had an army or a police force, and thus could never send a man with the club or gun to enforce such claptrap.

Two of the greatest crimes against the American people were do good projects started by the Federal Government, under Democrat Party control. These are: the New Deal, and the Great Society. The New Deal opened the door to greater and greater disregard for the Constitution. The Great Society expanded taxes, expanded government, and limited private initiative in ways undreamed by the Founders. These are curses from which we might never find relief. If ever this Republic is lost, it will be because of these two do good programs.

These two do good projects are mentioned here to identify them as do good works.

Summary: Doing good often does just the opposite: It does harm. Doing no harm is reliable; perhaps less heroic, even unnoticed, but reliable in enhancing liberty and general good will.