The one and the many

“Greater love hath no man,” teach the Christians, referring in particular to the mythic Son of God who gave up his life to appease the wrath of his own divine Father and save humanity – believing humanity, anyway – from the eternal damnation and suffering the Father had intended for them because their first parents, his original human creations, pilfered fruit from his private orchard.

Though the Son and the Father, along with the Holy Ghost, are actually just one God, and that a loving one, according to the story.

But never mind all that, right now.

Ask a libertarian, a Randian, an individualist anarchist, or even a garden-variety American “rugged individualist” whether, according to his considered moral opinion – and each and every one of them does have a considered moral opinion – , the one must die for the many, or the many have a right to demand of the one that he die for them – and perhaps a right to kill him themselves, if need be, if he refuses.

Pshaw.

The rich man has a perfect right to spend his riches as he wishes, choosing to allow the poor to freeze, starve, or die for lack of competent medical attention.

And if a deca-billionaire many times over chooses to set aside some billions or tens of billions to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the freezing, or care for the sick the surprise is as great as the praise publicly heaped upon him for his remarkable philanthropy.

May we be frank?

For them, Jean Valjean was a thief who deserved to be sent to the galleys or even the guillotine.

If one may not demand so much as a loaf of bread from someone to feed one’s starving mother what fantastic fool would think one could demand that he die for others, however imperiled or numerous?

Transformed from a moral view about how things stand among individuals to a view of what the state itself may and may not rightfully do, this is the opinion that dominates the conservative movement and has dominated the Republican Party since the days of Reagan and Thatcher.

Including the Protestant Christian right, clergy and all, for that matter, despite their fairy tale about God the Father and his Son, and the Catholic lay pundits, though not the Catholic clergy whose hierarchy officially rejects it.

Just so much baloney that suits capitalist society to a T.