Mr. Shorock is a senior majoring in Speech, with a minor in Economics, at Ottawa University in Kansas.
The "true believer" of our day seems marked by a willingness to force others to act according to his beliefs. Too civilized to resort to direct open force, he advocates government action instead.
Much may be said for a person who is generous with his own resources, but a "true believer" wants everyone to be generous. Not that he would play the role of Robin Hood; his is the more civilized approach of asking government to do the job. Thus, the primitive "justice" of waylaying the tax collector and dividing his purse among harassed taxpayers becomes the "true believer’s" rationale for seizure and redistribution of property that men have earned and are using in service to willing customers.
Those persons greatly concerned about the use of alcohol often follow similar tactics. It is not enough for them to understand that drinking can lead to loss of judgment and injury to one’s health. Nor is it enough, they say, to make these facts available so that others might come to the same conclusions. The "true believer" concerning the evils of drinking would not allow anyone to drink — would force him not to.
The person who advocates governmental redistribution of wealth is often heralded as the great humanitarian. And only the Prohibitionist is presumed to be deeply concerned about the drinking problem. Thus, those who have the least faith in their own ideas are judged to be the true believers.
If a person has faith enough in his own ideas, he feels no need to force others to accept his moral judgments and conclusions. If his premises and facts are sound and his logic valid, others should have no problem agreeing with his con-elusions; and in case they do not, the failure may be his rather than theirs.
Those who would force others into agreement would seem to be admitting failure. Any idea which inspires so little confidence among its advocates is hardly worthy of becoming a law to govern everyone.
As a reminder of the foolishness of trying to force others to my standards of morality, I refer frequently to a small card at my desk:
May I have ideas in which I have enough trust that I never feel a need to force others to live by them. And may I have ideas worthy of this trust.
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Princes and Paupers
For a man who can command another man’s labor and self-denial for the support of his own existence is a privileged person of the highest species conceivable on earth. Princes and paupers meet on this plane, and no other men are on it at all. On the other hand, a man whose labor and self-denial may be diverted from his maintenance to that of some other man is not a free man, and approaches more or less toward the position of a slave.
WILLIAM GRAHAM SUMNER, What Social Classes Owe to Each Other