The United States is known for its diversity: from our landscapes, to our immigrants, and to the different states across the nation—the United States truly has a wide range of interests, individuals, and industries. Our energy sources are no different, and as shown below, we use a diverse assortment of energy sources to power our nation.

Created with mapchart.net; Source: Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI)

In order to better understand energy policy for Missouri, it is important to know some background about each energy source.

Natural Gas

According to 2022 preliminary data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), natural gas generated 39.8 percent of electricity in the United States—the largest generator in our country. Natural gas is a fossil fuel, meaning it is formed from decomposing plants and animals. Companies use seismic surveys to determine where to drill for natural gas, similar to the process used for oil. The captured natural gas is then processed, and a chemical called Mercaptan is added. Mercaptan adds the smell that makes natural gas smell like rotten eggs so leaks can be detected. This now smelly natural gas is then used for combustion turbines or steam turbines to generate electricity. In recent times, combined-cycle natural gas plants have greatly increased efficiency by using both processes together. Natural gas is burned to power combustion turbines, and the heat byproduct from the combustion turbine (think of how a car engine releases heat) is used to heat water, create steam, and turn a steam turbine.

Coal

At 19.5 percent of electricity generation, coal is the second-largest energy source in the United States. Once used primarily to power locomotives and heat homes, coal is now mostly used to generate electricity by heating water to turn steam turbines. Coal, like natural gas, emerged as an electricity generator in the 1950s and grew quickly in the 1970s and 80s. However, coal emits much higher emissions than natural gas, and thus its usage is shrinking in modern times as natural gas continues to capture more market share.

Hydroelectric

Speaking of old energy sources, hydroelectric (or hydropower) is one of the oldest forms of electricity generation—with 1880 marking its first year of industrial use. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was a big proponent of hydropower, which uses moving water to spin turbines. By 1940, it generated 40 percent of our nation’s electricity. However, in 2022, it only generated 6.3 percent. American hydropower has largely fallen out of favor due to safety and environmental regulations, legal obligations to Native American tribes, and the economic costs associated with them. For example, two hydroelectric dams on the Elwha River came under attack due to environmental and legal concerns over the salmon population. The owners would have been forced to add expensive fish ladders, and continued legal pressure from the tribes persisted until they decided the dam was not worth the cost.

Nuclear Energy

Making up 18.2 percent of electricity generation, nuclear is the largest clean energy source in the United States. The first commercial reactor was built in Shippingport, Pennsylvania in 1958, and the nuclear industry grew rapidly in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. With nuclear fission, uranium atoms are split, which causes a chain-reaction and generates an immense amount of heat—which boils water and creates steam that turns a turbine. As time has passed, stringent regulations have slowed down the construction of nuclear power plants; the average age of a reactor for the remaining 93 reactors in the United States is 42 years old. Currently, the industry is regaining momentum as it transitions from large plants built during the Cold War to safer and cheaper small-modular reactors.

Wind

Wind energy makes up 10.2 percent of electricity generation. The mechanics of wind energy are relatively straightforward. The cycle of wind is used to turn turbines which generate electricity without creating greenhouse gas. In the olden days, windmills were used to cut wood, pump water, and grind grain—but now wind turbines are used to generate electricity. Financial incentives and requirements to use renewable energy in the 1990s spurred the development of wind power, with similar incentives continuing today. These wind turbines can also be located offshore in the ocean—such as ones taller than the Statue of Liberty in Rhode Island.

Solar

Enough energy from the sun hits the planet every hour to power the entire world for a year. Comprising 3.4 percent of our electricity generation, solar energy is a relatively small source of energy in the United States. Solar energy can be harnessed in two ways—through solar thermal or solar photovoltaic. Solar thermal technology is like the hot metal slide on the playground that would make you pay for foolishly venturing down it during recess. The sun heats up metal, which heats water—creating steam and turning a turbine. Solar photovoltaic is what most people think of when they think of solar energy—panels made up of a great number of cells turned towards the sun and capturing light energy to charge up like a battery. America’s largest solar photovoltaic farm is the Solar Star Farm in California.

Petroleum

Oil is typically used in transportation, but it can also be used in electricity generation—although it makes up only a tiny 0.9 percent of generation in the United States. The process to create electricity from petroleum is similar to the process for natural gas, as it can be used in steam, combustion engines, or in a combined-cycle power plant.

Biomass

Biomass is a fancy term for burning wood or using biofuels created with corn, soybeans, etc., to turn turbines. Although it is a large U.S. export commodity, our nation only relies on biomass energy for 1.3 percent of electricity generation. Developments are in the works for converting municipal solid waste (paper, shirts, furniture), animal manure, and human sewage into electricity sources.

Geothermal

Accounting for only 0.4 percent of electricity generation, geothermal is the smallest energy source in our nation. Since the earth has an inner core, outer core, mantle, and crust (where we live), heat from pressure and magma in the outer core and mantle produce heat that we can harness for electricity. Wells are drilled into the earth’s surface (some going 2 miles deep) and the heat is used to boil water and turn a steam turbine.

Now that we have a foundation on all of America’s top energy sources, we can further explore how energy is produced and transmitted and consider what would be the best energy policies for our nation and Missouri.

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• Nuclear War
• Total Surrender
• Recommended State Department policy

The understanding of the joke is that whatever policy or ideas elected officials want to enact, it is the government employees—the bureaucrats—who have to carry it out. Too often, the bureaucrats carry it out in a manner that benefits them, not the elected officials or the public. (I care more about the latter.)

The City of St. Louis is experiencing a problem like that right now, with its efforts to combine its three 911 systems into one. Consolidating 911 centers should be one of the low-hanging fruits for service sharing among local governments. There are numerous examples of it benefitting communities in Missouri. Unfortunately, while many efforts have succeeded, a few have been stalled due to resistance from local bureaucrats.

The problems in St. Louis are all the more confusing because this effort is entirely within the same city government. In theory, it should be easier to implement service sharing in one government rather than sharing 911 services across different governments (which isn’t really that hard, either.) But, shockingly, the various city employee unions have thus far been able to stall the reform efforts. The mayor’s plans to consolidate and improve the 911 system have been blocked, thus far, by the unions representing the dispatchers who are currently within different departments. From the article:

One union represents police dispatchers, and another represents EMS and fire dispatchers. The unions have demanded bargaining over any dispatcher cross-training. Uncertainty about which union would represent a combined dispatcher position slowed attempts by Mayor Tishaura Jones and her former public safety director, Dan Isom, to allow dispatchers to handle all types of emergency calls.

The unions complained Jones and Isom’s plans for consolidation were made without consulting them and that the changes in job duties were clearly something that should be covered in contract negotiations. [emphasis mine]

Missouri attempted major public-sector union reforms a few years ago. While some reforms were passed into law, a lawsuit unfortunately led to the reforms being overturned by the Missouri Supreme Court.

St. Louis has public sector unions delaying improvements to a system that would improve the city’s currently terrible 911 system and spend tax dollars more efficiently. But hey, fiefdoms have to be protected, right?

FDR was right about public sector unions. They shouldn’t exist.

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That isn’t to say the issue doesn’t crop up from time to time. In 2013 non-union officers in Kansas City had their employment threatened by the union when they refused to cough up money for the union’s activities. And while that incident is an exception to the Missouri rule, it’s an episode that supporters of good government in Missouri have to keep in mind as they survey the policy landscape post-Janus. 

Indeed, Janus brings with it the opportunity to reassess public policies that generally provide considerable latitude to government unions. Most states have a laws on the subject that are literally to the left of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, since Roosevelt himself was highly skeptical of collective bargaining and traditional unionization among government workers. Not only does the risk persist that a union could elect members into government to negotiate them sweetheart contracts, but the prospect of a company’s failure that faces private labor negotiations hardly ever truly attaches to a government agency—if economic conditions go sideways, taxes can be raised, services can be reduced, or some combination of the two could take place to protect the government union’s interests.

Point being, government unions have been given a wide berth to operate over the last half-century, and it is overdue that the latitude they’ve been granted was reviewed—in light not only of the law and the Constitution, as will happen in Janus, but of good policy as well. Government union members, non-union government employees, and taxpayers certainly deserve better than the status quo.

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Government unions—the unions representing government employees such as teachers, firefighters, and state workers—bargain in a much different setting than private sector unions. Rather than negotiating with private companies, government unions negotiate with public officials. This means that public sector collective bargaining affects everyone—not just the few who happen to be associated with a specific business.

In the public sector, unions can use political muscle to help elect politicians favorable to their interests. When it comes time to negotiate pay and pension benefits, politicians are often willing to return the favor.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, a great advocate of organized labor, understood the differences between unions in the government and unions in the private sector. According to FDR, when it comes to government labor, “the employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives in Congress.” For this reason FDR thought that “the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service.”

Roosevelt was right. The labor laws we use in the private sector are a poor fit in government. Instead, the laws that allow public employees to bargain with their managers should have special features that protect both government workers and the public at large.

I welcome reform introduced in this spirit. Look for more posts from me on this subject in the coming weeks.

The post Missouri Legislature Takes Up New Roosevelt Laws appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

In 1937, Roosevelt wrote to the President of the National Federation of Federal Employees, a government union, and gave his opinion that employee organizations have a “logical” role in government. Roosevelt believed that government employees should organize in order to ensure “fair and adequate pay, reasonable hours of work, safe and suitable working conditions . . . and impartial consideration and review of grievances.”

However, Roosevelt was careful to clarify that “meticulous attention should be paid to the special relationships and obligations of public servants to the public itself and to the Government.” In particular, he believed that collective bargaining agreements were incompatible with public sector work:

The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations. The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives in Congress. Accordingly, administrative officials and employees alike are governed and guided, and in many instances restricted, by laws which establish policies, procedures, or rules in personnel matters.

FDR’s issue with government collective bargaining is that in our system of government, “we the people” set public policy through the democratic process. Binding the people to a collective bargaining agreement takes authority away from the people.

FDR applies similar logic to the topic of strikes:

. . . a strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government until their demands are satisfied. Such action, looking toward the paralysis of Government by those who have sworn to support it, is unthinkable and intolerable. 

The issues FDR was concerned about affect us today. For example, the Monarch Fire Protection District is still bound by the terms of a collective bargaining agreement signed years ago, before voters put a new, pro-taxpayer board in charge of the district. And in University City, unrest with the firefighters union has caused a couple of incidents imperiling public safety. Now the University City firefighters union is using a collective bargaining agreement to try to limit the city manager’s discretion in contracting out for basic services and managing public safety.

Regardless of whether we should go as far as Roosevelt and prohibit collective bargaining in our government, it is important to craft labor relations laws in light of the important differences between the public and private sectors. Laws ensuring that government remains accountable, even when government workers are unionized, could be called Roosevelt laws in honor of FDR’s legacy.

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As first appearing in the Kansas City Star and the American Spectator:

A surprised and outraged Franklin D. Roosevelt called it “a date which will live in infamy.” But Dec. 7, 1941, may also be remembered as one of the great turning points (for the better) in world history. It had the startling effect of rousing a sleeping giant (the United States) into purposeful action, and that was the primary factor in stopping the forces of evil from cruising to an easy triumph in World War II. In Churchill’s words, the world was in danger of entering “a new dark age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.”

The Japanese Imperial Navy struck Pearl Harbor in two waves beginning at 7:48 a.m. Hawaiian Time. Japanese aircraft destroyed much of the U.S. Pacific fleet and killed a total of 2,403 Americans – which compares to the 2,605 Americans and 372 U.S. residents from other countries who lost their lives in the surprise attack on the United States launched by al Qaeda on 9-11-2001.

As the Japanese readied for their attack, Hitler was sitting pretty – perilously close to winning a two-front war. Having already conquered France and other smaller European nations in 1940, German troops scored one victory after another against the poorly equipped and outmanned British Army in Southern Europe and North Africa in 1941. “Evacuation going fairly well – that’s all we’re really good at!” Alexander Cadogan, at the British Foreign Office, observed in his diary during the British withdrawal from Greece. “Our soldiers are the most pathetic amateurs, pitted against professionals.”

Things looked no better on the eastern front – with the German army on the outskirts of Moscow. In three parallel offenses, German forces invaded Russia in late June – sweeping across the vast countryside with the same lightning speed that marked the earlier invasions of Poland and Western Europe. Desperately short of every kind of war materiel from boots and rifles to tanks and planes, the Russian army was saved by the onset of winter.

Pearl Harbor changed everything – ending the long, enfeebling debate inside the U.S. between isolationists and interventionists. Suddenly, America was at war, and almost everyone – from FDR on down to Charles Lindbergh, hitherto an arch isolationist – agreed that this was a war that had to be fought with everything we had. Overnight Lindbergh turned from dove to hawk. Though unable to regain the Army Air Corps commission which he had resigned in April 1941, Lindbergh flew 50 combat missions in the Pacific Theater as a civilian consultant.

Within days of Pearl Harbor, hundreds of thousands of Americans made up their minds to join the armed forces. That included the two oldest sons of Joseph Kennedy, another isolationist and outspoken advocate of the appeasement of Nazi Germany, whose departure from London where he had served as U.S. ambassador to the Court of St. James’s was a major addition by subtraction for both Roosevelt and Churchill. The older Kennedy left England in October 1940, at the height of the Battle of Britain, which reduced much of London and other cities to rubble.

My late father – then 24, a reporter with the Kansas City Star, with a wife and baby daughter – was one of the many who rushed to serve. He failed his first Navy physical – being exceedingly thin – but passed the second time after gorging on food and water. He was one of the “ninety-day wonders” – sent to officer training school for just 90 days of rigorous physical and classroom training – and went on to skipper a submarine chaser that saw action along the eastern seaboard, off the coast of North Africa, and in the North Atlantic.

If any disaster may be called a good disaster, it was Pearl Harbor, which awakened America with a violent start and averted what might easily have been the greatest setback to human freedom, joy, and advancement in world history.

Andrew B. Wilson is a resident fellow and senior writer at the Show-Me Institute.

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This presentation covers three main points: what caused the Great Depression; what caused it to go on for so long; and how did we finally get out of it.

Many believe that the cause was the stock market crash of 1929, which caused the Great Depression and a laissez-faire approach toward the crisis, ultimately making things worse. However, that is incorrect. In fact, while the crash started the crisis, it was a series of well-intentioned but poorly thought-out government actions that turned a sharp recession into a depression.

This presentation details how, in fact, President Roosevelt built upon the policies of President Hoover to combat the Depression. However, these policies did not get the country out of the Depression. In reality, it took a combination of events, including World War II, to actually end the Depression and restore strong economic growth. After watching this presentation, you will have a better understanding of that era in American history and the effects of public policy on the economy.

Download the slide show

The post Why Was The Depression So Great? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Nevertheless, economist Robert Murphy catches several writers — who should know better — repeating this hoary old myth. For instance, Nobel laureate economist Paul Krugman recently compared the current Republican position on federal spending to Hoover’s during the Depression:

“Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers, liquidate real estate.” That, according to Herbert Hoover, was the advice he received from Andrew Mellon, the Treasury secretary, as America plunged into depression. To be fair, there’s some question about whether Mellon actually said that; all we have is Hoover’s version, written many years later.

But one thing is clear: Mellon-style liquidationism is now the official doctrine of the G.O.P.

To which Murphy responds:

To his credit, Krugman acknowledges that this quote comes from Hoover’s own memoirs, written well after the fact. But to his discredit, Krugman fails to notify us that on the very next page of Hoover’s memoirs, after he explains the liquidationist advice he got from his treasury secretary, Hoover wrote,

“But other members of the Administration, also having economic responsibilities — Under Secretary of the Treasury Mills, Governor Young of the Reserve Board, Secretary of Commerce Lamont and Secretary of Agriculture Hyde — believed with me that we should use the powers of government to cushion the situation.“[2]

If you read Hoover’s memoirs in context, you see that his whole point in bringing up the Mellon doctrine was to tell his readers that he rejected the advice. Hoover was trying to show people (and of course I’m paraphrasing here), “Hey, I did everything I could to get us out of that awful downturn! You should have seen the crazy laissez-faire stuff my treasury secretary was recommending.”

And Hoover was not exaggerating when it came to his expansion of the government. It’s relatively well-known that Hoover endorsed and signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff into law, causing American exports and imports to decrease by more than 60 percent by the end of his term. However, Hoover’s meddling was hardly limited to the sphere of international trade. He increased federal spending by almost 50 percent and dramatically increased taxes, including raising the top income tax rate from 25 to 63 percent. Perhaps most disastrously, Hoover urged businessmen to keep wages up, which they did even amid serious deflation. These artificially inflated wages forced businesses to lay off workers. Soon, the country experienced the greatest mass unemployment in history, with a quarter of the labor force out of work.

It was Hoover’s dramatic interventions into the economy that turned what would have been a severe recession into the Great Depression. In a 2009 article, UCLA economist Lee Ohanian estimated that Hoover’s high-wage policies accounted for two thirds of the 27-percent drop in GDP from 1929 to 1931. Unfortunately, Franklin Roosevelt built on Hoover’s mistakes instead of learning from them. Rexford Tugwell, a leading member of FDR’s brain trust, later remarked that “[t]he ideas embodied in the New Deal legislation were a compilation of those which had come to maturity under Hoover’s aegis.” Not surprisingly, the continuation of bad policy did nothing to remedy the economic situation, and the country stayed mired in depression until after World War II.

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FDR’s Second Bill of Rights includes:

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

The right of every family to a decent home;

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

The right to a good education.

The framers of the Constitution saw the need for a Bill of Rights as a means of protecting the people from an overbearing and oppressive government. They drafted a bill of negative liberties, or protections that define what the government cannot do. They gave no guarantee of housing, food, or employment because they saw the dangers that the notion of positive rights pose as a potential threat to liberty — the idea that, just by being born, people are entitled for others to provide them a comfortable life.

Because the government does not produce any wealth, even the most basic obligation to one individual must be paid for by taking from another. In order to guarantee one person a profitable job, a decent home, or adequate food, wealth must first be taken from those who have rightfully earned it, infringing on their liberty to do as they wish with their own money.

Unfortunate individuals who receive assistance do not receive those benefits because it is their inalienable right, but because it is irresponsible to let them starve or freeze in the streets. No one is entitled to anything that is not their own, no matter how basic of a necessity; however, it is the responsible duty of able individuals to help those in need through their charitable impulses.

Although the end result may be the same, in terms of the needy receiving necessary aid, there is a stark distinction between an unalienable right to something and the responsibility of an able man to care for their fellow man. The difference can be summed up in one word: liberty. The liberty of every individual to do as he pleases with his own money and resources. Although it is repulsive — and, at the very least, irresponsible — for an able individual to let those less fortunate starve, I have no right to infringe upon their liberty to do as they please with their own money.

This is by no means an argument against all government assistance. Obviously, the government cannot allow its citizens to starve or children to live on the streets, homeless. Rather, my objection is with the larger issue of entitlements justified through a notion of positive rights. When fully implemented positive rights lead to socialism, a concept that has been tried and found ineffective at growing economies, raising standards of living, or even helping the very poor. To paraphrase Margaret Thatcher, “The trouble with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.”

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I’ll start by saying that I agree that there exists a moral and ethical obligation to see to the well-being of our neighbors. As I noted in a speech I delivered a couple of months ago, this was also an opinion shared by most of our nation’s founders, and it bears no small significance for the approach they took in shaping our Constitution. As they were debating how the American republic should be structured, one of their major influences was Montesquieu’s The Spirit of the Laws, in which the French philosopher described the attributes that must be cultivated for different types of government to be successful. In regard to a republic, virtue was deemed to be the most important quality that citizens could possess.

Virtue, as the founders understood it, was displayed when individuals willingly set aside their own personal interest and, fully understanding the risks and possibility of mistakes, voluntarily acted for the improvement of those around them. The virtuous person understood that they had a responsibility to assist their neighbors and community when the circumstances called for it, and they would not shrink from this duty. A major reason that the founders insisted on high levels of individual liberty was because they recognized that virtue could not exist without liberty. People may be compelled to take action that has a positive outcome, but if they do so unwillingly it is merely obedience, with no moral value. In the eyes of the founders, only a people free to make choices for themselves can truly be virtuous.

From a policy standpoint, this sort of virtue is the ideal way to try to address society’s challenges, for a couple of reasons. The first is efficiency. Private organizations, like private businesses, are more immediately accountable to the people giving them money than are government agencies. If a private organization is doing a poor job, people will simply quit funding that group and either identify or create another organization that will use their money more wisely. A government agency, on the other hand, does not face the same pressure because its funding is not usually dependent on its effectiveness. People are required to fund government projects regardless of whether they agree with them and regardless of whether they prove to be beneficial. Thus, private voluntary organizations have a much stronger incentive to become as efficient as possible.

The second reason that private virtue is favorable to government-driven charity is that government funding does not grow on trees. Every dollar that government spends is a dollar that will ultimately come from one of its citizens. And the consequence of that dollar going to the government is that the citizen cannot spend it on a good or service that will improve his own life — or, as the case may be, the lives of those around them.

This leads directly to the third reason that private virtue is favorable: It gives individuals a sense of personal investment in the causes to which their charitable dollars are flowing. When the government forces citizens to pay taxes, those citizens may have no clear idea as to how that money will be spent, and therefore they are unlikely to take any pride in or ownership of the programs they are funding. On the other hand, when people contribute to private charity — especially local charities — they are far more likely to take a personal interest in helping them to succeed.

For much of our nation’s history, virtue as expressed through private charity was a very important aspect of the American way of life. Alexis de Tocqueville, whose Democracy in America offered the definitive outside assessment of society in the early United States, was stunned to find the prevalence of voluntary associations dedicated to assisting the needy and accomplishing public goods. Indeed, this sort of voluntary philanthropic association remained the status quo through the 19th century and into the early 20th century.

Every once in a while, however, a disaster would arise that inspired Congress to dedicate taxpayer dollars toward recovery efforts. Especially early on, these efforts did meet with considerable opposition. My favorite example comes from when Davy Crockett (a native East Tennessean like myself) served in the House of Representatives. A bill arose that would have appropriated $20,000 to help citizens in Georgetown recover from a devastating fire, and Crockett voted in favor of the bill. At a later date, a similar bill was proposed. This time, Crockett opposed the measure — but he also offered to contribute a week’s worth of his own pay to the recovery effort. Asked about his reasoning, Crockett explained that after the first vote, one of his constituents had confronted him, reminding him that even if there was great cause for charity, it was the responsibility of the private citizens to provide it. As the constituent put it to the congressman, elected officials must remember that unless an expenditure was being made for the common good of all citizens, rather than the targeted subset of citizens toward which charity is directed, the tax money was not within the elected officials’ purview to give.

Precisely 100 years after Davy Crockett explained his opposition to federally funded charity efforts, Congress confronted with a much larger concern. In 1927, the Mississippi River overflowed its banks, killing hundreds, rendering thousands homeless, and destroying hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of property throughout the Midwest and South. Concern quickly mounted that private charity alone would not be able to address the needs of those suffering, and many in Congress believed that if any situation ever justified the application of tax dollars, this one did. President Calvin Coolidge expressed major reservations about allowing the federal government to intervene in the matter, but he ultimately acquiesced to the political pressure and signed the bill.

From that point forward, most lawmakers (and, increasingly, private citizens) took it for granted that the federal government should be able to require taxpayers to foot the bill for charitable programs of various stripes. This led to Franklin Roosevelt’s “New Deal,” which arguably prolonged the Great Depression, and later Lyndon Johnson’s catastrophic “War on Poverty.” Even though the American impulse toward private charity has remained present, private voluntary organizations have ceded more and more ground to government-driven charitable efforts.

And so this all comes back around to the current health care debate and the role being played by some religious leaders. Churches and other religiously affiliated organizations used to dominate the charitable scene in the United States. If someone was hungry, homeless, or otherwise in need of help, they would look to a religiously affiliated organization for help — which was good, because it allowed those organizations and the private individuals who supported them to live out the virtue that our founders believed was so important, and it kept individual citizens personally invested in their neighbors’ well-being.

Eighty years later, we should be very concerned that we now have religious leaders and people of faith — for whom acts of virtue should have an even higher spiritual significance — calling upon the government to do their charitable work for them. I understand — and share! — these leaders’ desires to see an alleviation of suffering in the world, but where charity, virtue, and morality are involved the means are every bit as important as the ends. A work that would have been good if accomplished as a result of funds and labor willingly given can itself become evil if accomplished with stolen resources and slave labor.

I hope that these faith leaders will realize that abdicating the charitable roles to which they have been called to a government that will accomplish its goals by compulsion is directly destructive of the virtue and moral development that should be their objective.

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Now, such competition needn’t always be dramatic. When my buddies and I play Wiffle Ball, it is hardly a fierce competition, but we do divide teams and make a game of it. The alternative — the cooperative game — involves giving everyone the same amount of swings at the ball, not keeping any score, not really trying, etc. That alternative is stupid and boring. The competitive game — and, I repeat, this is only barely competitive — is much preferable. Don’t get me started on how much fun it is to play competitive baseball, basketball, etc. Even when I ski, I always pay to do the slalom course a few times to compete against myself.

Years ago, I read a quote from a biographer of FDR who stated how we needed to create a cooperative society, not a competitive society — although I can’t now find this quote on the web. I am sure I had some type of gagging reflex when I read that. Obviously, there is a need for a great deal of both cooperation and competition in life, but would you rather live in a place where the primary goal involved everyone helping out everyone else, or everyone trying to be the best they can be? I know I prefer the latter, and that is how societies evolve, advance, change, and grow.  

Where I am going with this? Well, Mizzou researchers have found that the human brain grows most when associated with evolutionary competition. We all need cooperation in life, but it is competition that brings out the best in us and makes life the challenge and blessing it is.

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