A disturbing offshoot of “giving back” from the indoctrination farm that is our educational system is “community service” (both public and private schools chant the mantra), which, even when it is not required at a student’s school, is mandated by most colleges and universities as an admission requirement. There may a few antisocial, enlightened, self-interested kids out there who do not want to serve the community. If they go through the motions to further their educations, it is an exercise in hypocrisy. For the rest, it is psychological and philosophical conditioning to the idea that one’s community is owed service. Put another way, the individual is subservient to the nebulous concept of “society” and its very real embodiment: government, an idea our forefathers did not risk their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to advance.

The only people who can give back are those who have taken. That would include the crony capitalists who were bailed out in the last financial crisis, executives whose bankrupt companies the government has funded in pursuit of the green energy pipe dream, as well as the millions whose sustenance comes from so-called entitlements, nonproductive or counterproductive government jobs, and subsidies. There is nothing wrong with giving back, once it is properly understand who, morally, should be doing so; that is, who has produced the wealth and who has taken it. Eventually, pending governmental insolvency will drastically diminish if not eliminate funding to the latter group. The former group will only hasten that day if they keep treating their wealth as a source of shame rather than pride, acknowledging a duty to give it away and thereby implicitly endorsing the claims of those who have no right to it.