Tocqueville said: “It’s not an endlessly expanding list of rights—the right to education, the right to health care, the right to food and housing. That’s not freedom, that’s dependency. Those aren’t rights, those are the rations of slavery—hay and a barn for human cattle.” This comment on the expanding list of rights sounds like a lot of today’s political talking points. Can Creator comment?

Here again is much divine wisdom on display. These are deep truths he speaks of because again, when rights become automatic handouts given in exchange for little or nothing from the recipient, the end result is disempowerment. When nothing must be earned, there is a decline in the need for action. When useful work, striving for excellence, and employing initiative and creativity to excel are the engines of human progress, to have the major engine of society revert to offering handouts of rights, privileges, goods and services from a central authority leaves no room for individuality of expression, lifestyle, or skill-building growth and ingenuity. What good are rights if they are automatic dispensations, given unilaterally from a powerful authority who governs everything about your life, when the individual is not free to express their own soul’s yearnings, perhaps in novel ways and with the possibility perhaps of reward from others for offering something new independently, because they can? That is the essence of the capitalist ideal. It is seen as unfair by some that the race goes to the swift, but those who strive for more, to do better, to reach a state of excellence, will indirectly raise up others by raising standards, showing new possibilities for accomplishing things in new ways, and to a greater extent than ever before. All will benefit in the end from improved functioning of society. The possibility of reward is a great incentive not only for the inspired innovator but for others who seek what they can accomplish, and may well throw in their lot to support them in some way, to join an organization they have and add their own muscle and intellectual capabilities working towards a larger goal. Here again, there must be freedom for such innovation to flourish. When everything is already predefined and doled out, but at a minimalist level of possible attainment, it may be seen as fair, but there is no fairness in mediocre uniformity when the divine human is capable of so much more when unfettered and set free.