Yes, that sounds so noble to say that we should not ask our country for anything, should passively allow the country to tell us wherever to go whenever they want, never having to make any decisions for ourselves, never to exercise our own judgments and discriminations or discernments in terms of what we want or what we think will be best for us to do or not do in terms of what is in our best interests or else not, to be a puppet on a string, to never say never, to never say no, to allow ourselves to be cowed and intimidated by authoritarian figureheads and moneybag gamesters, to imagine ourselves as creatures of government rather than the builders of it, etc. etc.
And in the same breath you blame Johnson for the Great Society, which teaches the poor to just stop trying, to accept their loser status, to just collect a welfare check and forget about it. The recipients of donation funds of any sort cannot presume to exercise the privileges of citizenship reserved for established affluent landowners. In short, beggars can't be choosers. The borrower is a slave to the lender.
The poor you have with you always, so we do have a sort of institutionalized slavery of a back-door variety.
But, anyway, who said we all have to win a contest? The thought of winning is a temptation. It may flatter the human ego to imagine that we could win the ultimate prize of money and prestige, and then we remember that we are but dust, that we are as grass that grows for a season and then withers away. Winning is just not that important in the long run. Of what use will be the money after your soul is taken away? We must prepare for eternity, which involves a different sort of race, not one of personal glories and achievements but rather one of a Christian nature that you wouldn't really understand, or rather your pride would not admit of even if I tried to tell you. So figure it out for yourself.
