Like it or not, we’re in this together

Stanley R. Goldfarb, Las Vegas

Monday, Aug. 24, 2009 | 2:01 a.m.

The preamble to the U.S. Constitution states:

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common Defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

The phrases “a more perfect union” and “the general welfare” tell us that the founders wanted to unify the states and create a society — groups of people working together, living together, and helping, caring about and protecting each other.

Would “We the People” have a moral right to ask any one of us to voluntarily surrender his pursuit of happiness and endanger his life to protect us if we didn’t believe all of us are in this together?

This “togetherness” — “united we stand, divided we fall” — is the heart and soul of liberalism and the antithesis of libertarianism. So that’s why, if you are an uncaring individual and have the wrong impression that while enjoying the rights and privileges of American citizenship you have no duty or responsibility to the rest of us, the rest of us will force you to chip in and carry your weight.

Rather than deport you into exile, we will simply take your share in the form of taxes and apply it toward the “general welfare.” Freedom is not free.