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.