The late, great William F. Buckley Jr. once noted the inverse relationship between self-reliance and reliance on government, an observation which can apply both to societies and to individuals. It seems particularly apropos as the Biden administration once again giddily ignores the Constitution and readies student loan forgiveness that we cannot afford.
Firstly, even if the American government weren’t on the precipice of financial catastrophe (which it is), it should not be involved in college education at all — which has become exponentially more expensive and more woke with unconstitutional government money and influence. The Founders would be quite shocked at the suggestion that taxpayers should fund the college educations of a minority of Americans (as of 2021, 37.9% of Americans over 25 had a bachelor’s degree or higher).
It was quite disturbing to me to discover how many conservatives even believe that a waitress or a construction worker should fund their four- or five-year partying spree at college. Even useful and excellent degrees, as mine was, even students who worked very hard, cannot in good conscience demand other people’s money. A solution to admittedly onerous student loans is less government involvement and educational reform, not taxpayer funding.
Secondly, there is the issue of destroying the American character, the very virtues that helped Americans create the greatest country in the world. Self-reliance was a key and outstanding feature of the American character; without it, the American dream would never have existed. We used to be a people who believed we were the answer to local and national problems, and so we were. With FDR, that attitude started to change, and now even most conservatives believe the government should be the solution for a whole host of issues that would make the Founding Fathers turn in their graves. Part of the reason my generation is so disastrous is because we have a great sense of entitlement, but little to no self-reliance. We expect our parents or our government officials or our teachers to come in and rescue us every time. We demand education as our right and prosperity as our due. We have totally lost gratitude, yes, but we have also lost self-reliance.
“There is an inverse relationship between reliance on the state and self-reliance,” said Bill Buckley. It is quite true, and it should give us pause, especially in light of this news from USA Today:
Biden’s original plan for large-scale student loan forgiveness was undone by the Supreme Court in June. It would have canceled up to $20,000 in loan debt and affected as many as 40 million people, or almost every person with federal student loans nationwide.
After the ruling, Biden said he would employ a committee of stakeholders from higher education, loan servicers and borrowers among them, who would use a process called negotiated rulemaking, or neg reg, to draft a new plan for loan forgiveness.
The committee has met several times already, but its final round of talks began on Monday and will continue through Tuesday.
There are ongoing problems and arguments and such, because it turns out deciding how to spend other people’s money isn’t always easy. Greed isn’t usually a great motivator for charitable harmony.
But my main point, of course, is that this scheme emanates from a culture where the state encourages everyone to rely on it as the main arbiter of all that is good. That is because the more dependent we are on government, the less independent — that is, the less free — we are. Not only are our self-reliance and reliance on the state in an inverse relationship, but our dependence on the state and our liberty are also in an inverse relationship. And that is why, in a country where most people are to some degree dependent on a bloated bureaucracy, we are seeing our constitutional rights and liberties rapidly disintegrating.
Also for our VIPs: Why Shouldn’t Universities Sitting on $810 Billion in Endowments Pay Off Student Loans?
The government offered us money and “safety,” and we jumped at it. What we did not realize was that we were selling out our individualism and our freedom. Even many conservatives now have the knee-jerk reaction of discussing federal government action as soon as a societal or political problem arises. The government’s powers were severely limited in the Constitution for a reason: to prevent tyranny, to prevent the government from stifling the individual. If we would save America, we must revive the spirit of self-reliance and stop expecting the government to solve every and any problem. Otherwise, we are doomed to prove Bill Buckley right in a nationally suicidal fashion.
