Rights, Liberty and Work

On my side bar, I have a blog called For Clavigora. The last post that Dr. Smith wrote was about work in an asylum. And how rights took 'the right to work' away from these inmates.

State intervention in regards to personal commitment to work is what I think is a wrongly focused "right". People in free societies can choose their vocations. And choice is what liberty is about.

These people in the asylum were "demoralized" because of their "lack of work", once "rights" were granted. Rights can be distorted when they are universalized without connection to a "moral base", or social order.

But, while the Protestant work ethic has guided our nation and underwritten much of our prosperity, it has also caused great harm to families, communities, and the culture itself. Driven people are addicted people, and yet, our culture deems them ambitious and hold these up as examples.

Work is neutral as to its "moral" base. Work is not unlike any other virtue or vice, it can be "good or bad". We all need self-reflection to know when work becomes an obstacle to other important aspects in our lives.