Sounds Like One of Perry's Atheists...

Sometimes I choose not to respond to gross ignorance... but not today! Also posted on KELO...

This quiet Sunday morning brings us a stunningly crotchety letter from Evan E. Evans, Jr. (wait -- there was more than one?) to that Sioux Falls paper. Evans rails against the spending of tax dollars on public works and offers the usual paean to (his own vaunted) rugged individualism.

The letter's anti-community and—dare I say it?—anti-Christian sentiments lead me to think that, given what I've learned from the lively KELO forum responses to Perry Groten's call for atheists to poke their heads out of their holes, Evans may the perfect candidate for an interview with Perry about the atheist worldview. After all, no Christian would speak so judgmentally and dismissively of his fellow community members, right? Only an atheist could be so immersed in his own selfish desires, right?

Even if Evans is a good churchgoer (and if he is, I hope they don't pass him the plate to raise money for a nursery or a playground for the church kids!), he's evidently not a good political scientist. Consider his position on public works:

And you want more. Well, let private industry do it. If it looks like a money maker, it will. If not, it will not happen. Just because it is not something someone can make a dime doing doesn't mean the city and I should provide it for you and your children. Get busy and find a way to fund it without my help, please.

Actually, Adam Smith (father of modern capitalism—ring a bell, Evans?) said unprofitable works are exactly the legitimate purview of government:

According to the system of natural liberty, the sovereign has only three duties to attend to; three duties of great importance, indeed, but plain and intelligible to common understandings: first, the duty of protecting the society from violence and invasion of other independent societies; secondly, the duty of protecting, as far as possible, every member of the society from the injustice or oppression of every other member of it, or the duty of establishing an exact administration of justice; and, thirdly, the duty of erecting and maintaining certain public works and certain public institutions which it can never be for the interest of any individual, or small number of individuals, to erect and maintain; because the profit could never repay the expense to any individual or small number of individuals, though it may frequently do much more than repay it to a great society. —Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations Book IV Chapter ix

(Adam Smith was also a Christian who believed Christian principles of love and community would and should restrain the selfish impulses of profiteers who would try to construct a laissez-faire system in which they could indulge in unchecked greed and exploitation. Useful thing, that Christianity.)

Now sure, unprofitability is not a necessary and sufficient condition for government action. But we as a society have every right, even under the philosophy of the blessed Adam Smith, to work through our government to build public works, like parks and hiking and biking paths, that would never turn a profit for a private builder but which still valuably contribute to the general welfare.

The point is, whether you're an atheist or not, you have an obligation to your community. You pay taxes for for things you personally may never use. To expect private industry to do everything is not only a shirking of your social responsibility but a recipe for disaster. "Let private industry do it," and it won't just be public ball diamonds and soccer fields that disappear in favor of more financially profitable investments. It'll be goodbye city police, goodbye public highways, and goodbye public schools.

Of course, Evans and his children have surely never enjoyed any protection from the police. Evans has surely never driven anywhere. And Evans surely never learned anything in school... at least not about community.