The Social Security Card
Is A Symbolic Reminder
Of America’s Trading Liberty For Security

You cannot survive in modern America without your Social Security card. Almost everyday somebody is asking for your "social."

However, the Social Security card is repugnant to the founder’s original intent and philosophy of limited government. It has been dubbed "Anti-Social Insecurity," but Americans cling to it like a life belt.

Woe to the politician who even hints at "privatizing" social security. This cow will come back to trample on him in the next election.

The Constitutional Approach to Welfare

The Constitution’s general welfare clause has been violently twisted to mean exactly the opposite of the founders’ intent. The phrase appears in two places. The Preamble states that one purpose of the Constitution was "to promote the general welfare."

In addition, Article I, Section 8 defines the taxing power of Congress to include "Power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States . . . . " Throughout the Federalist Papers both Hamilton and Madison expressed concern to secure both the public good and the rights of private citizens. However, they were disturbed by the possibility that factions and special interests might misuse the power of government for their own welfare at the expense of the general welfare. The Social Security Card is evidence that their concerns were well justified.

Herein lies one of the most misunderstood and misconstrued passages in the Constitution. The general welfare clause was interpreted by the Supreme Court early in the twentieth century, contrary to all precedent, to represent a virtually unlimited grant of power to the federal government to spend money for any welfare scheme it desired. Even a casual reading of the Federalist Papers, however, reveals this interpretation as foreign to the intent of the founding fathers.

The function of law is to be an impartial standard of justice. But when law is manipulated to confiscate the property of one class of citizen for transfer to another, the law itself becomes an instrument of injustice.

The biblical pattern of welfare consists of individuals, churches, and private organizations responding in genuine compassion to the needs of their neighbors. The poor should be encouraged toward a lifestyle of responsibility and financial self-sufficiency, as opposed to the dependency and laziness fostered by the welfare state.

In its original context, promoting the general welfare meant that all expenditures from the public treasury must benefit the public at large. Twentieth century liberals have twisted this to justify the erection of a massive welfare state which serves special interests and indigents. They have foisted the Social Security card on a hapless population.

The Biblical Approach to Welfare

Thus, justice has come to refer not to adjudication in the courtroom sense of determining right and wrong, but to a fair distribution of scarce resources. However, in Scripture the Hebrew word for justice in nearly all cases is “shapat.” The primary sense of this word is to exercise the processes of government. It means to judge with righteous justice or to determine right and wrong or to rule as God would rule. The same word can also mean "to rule" as in Psalm 96:13 and Genesis 18:25.

Thus, the meaning of the Hebrew word alone contradicts liberation theology, which attempts to justify socialist doctrine from Scripture--not to mention the clear biblical teaching against the doctrines of socialism intertwined in the very fabric of Scripture. Liberals and social gospel advocates superimpose a Marxist view of justice on Scripture when they define biblical "justice" as "the fair distribution of scarce resources."

It is impossible for government to protect individual life and property and, at the same time, involve itself in wealth redistribution programs, epitomized by the Social Security card. In order to redistribute wealth, government must violate the property rights of some individuals in society to aggrandize itself or those it nurtures in dependence. It is no more right for governments--who are commissioned to uphold the law--to steal than it is for individuals (see Ex. 20:15). Taxation is authorized only for God-ordained functions.

The Bible consistently teaches that God has entrusted the dominion mandate, and as a consequence the stewardship of private property, to individuals, not to government (see Gen. 1:28). Civil government has, in fact, been instituted to protect the property of individuals and to ensure just dealing in all their relationships. Hence, any use of government power to deprive individuals of their property or inheritance is proscribed. Such abuse, coming usually in the form of illegitimate taxation, leads directly to slavery.

Most often there are enticing words of a common purse and wealth for all (see Prov. 1:14). By uniting together, men are told they will have power to institute necessary economic "reforms." Such actions are based on the threat of violent assault, whether they be conducted by mob rule or the more "respectable" electoral process.

When men vote money for themselves out of their neighbor’s pockets, they gradually, but surely, transfer control of property and the tools of production into the hands of the government. This is the critical distinction between socialism and capitalism, of the culture of the Social Security card and the culture of freedom.

In the former, the state owns the tools of production; in the latter, the individual does. Capitalism can, of course, become idolatrous if it is not tethered to the Ten Commandments.