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“The hand of the diligent will rule, while the slothful will be put to forced labor.” – Proverbs 12:24
I must apologize to the sloth. I’m associating it with the political left. The sloth’s slow moving and sleepy nature is caused by its diet. Their diet, consisting mostly of toxic leaves that take a long time to digest and provide little energy, causes slow movement and laziness like behaviors.
The animal serves a great purpose of eating toxic plants thereby removing them from the forest to protect others. The political left encourages the deadly disease of sloth by feeding its constituents poisonous ideas resulting in laziness, entitlement, sin, and death of spirit.
Sloth is a deadly sin exemplified by laziness and indolence. It creates a lack of desire and an inability to act. It’s because of mindset often created by the environment (family or economic), not physical restrictions. Consider the productivity of Steven Hawking who was diagnosed with the deadly and debilitating disease of ALS at age 21 but lived an additional 55 years and made significant contributions to fields of physics.
Victimhood, lack of gratitude, self-centeredness, unhealthy dependence, and even narcissism are the most common mindsets of the slothful. They prefer taking the easy way out. The American spirit of independence, pioneering, and exploration embraces struggle and suffering which builds strength, resilience, and success. Sloth is not an American nor a Christian value.
“A slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich.” – Proverbs 10:4
The Two Philosophies
The American spirit, as delineated in the Declaration of Independence, is the foundation of success for America. This was a novel idea at the time. Instead of reliance on a King, the government receives its powers from the people. The people give their consent in exchange for protecting the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the freedom to pursue happiness. This creates the environment facilitating massive action. The American spirit is the opposite of sloth.
Work and struggle are essential for character development. Here’s a popular example. A man found a cocoon of a butterfly. He sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through a small opening. With good intentions, the man decided to help the butterfly. He took a pair of scissors and snipped to enlarge the opening.
The butterfly then emerged easily but its swollen body and small, shriveled wings prevented it from flying. It was never able to fly. The man’s kindness and incorrect philosophy caused more harm than good. The struggle required for the butterfly to free itself was God's way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon.
Overcoming struggles is the essence of capitalism and the American spirit. It’s the promise of keeping the fruits of our labor. Capitalism has made our country and other countries wealthy. It has facilitated lifting more people out of poverty than any other economic system. The massive activity comes out of the promise of investing the realized profit.
The Philosophy of the left is to secede our individual rights and freedoms to a subordinating government with the promise of a utopia for everyone. Instead of providing freedom for individuals to seek their own happiness, the government accepts responsibility to make everyone happy. Dependence on the government is the strategy and sloth is the outcome. Self-reliance and massive action are the casualties. The left’s electorate are seduced by the idea of removing life’s struggles. It’s the easy way out. Yet, a removal of struggle creates the deadly sin of sloth (lack of desire). “Help me cut the cocoon, I agree to depend on you. Take care of me and I will vote for you.” Sloth is a bargain with evil.
Government Dependency and Sloth Results
Is the promised utopia possible? One way to measure is to review how America’s welfare rolls have grown. The percent of the population enrolled in Medicaid grew from 9.3 percent in 1975 to 24.3 percent in 2022. Food Stamps grew from 7.9 percent in 1975 to 12.4 percent in 2022. Sloth and government debt grow concurrently. Are we closer to utopia or closer to a crisis with $37 trillion of government debt?
Government spending on transfer payments to individuals has grown significantly as well. In 1945, the government spent just $15.6 billion (in 2019 inflation adjusted dollars) on individual transfer payments (only 1.5 percent of the budget and equal to 0.6 of GDP). By 1994, transfer payments to individuals grew to 50 percent of the total budget. Are we closer to utopia knowing the poverty level has not improved in 60 years of spending?
Don’t we want to teach our children to be self-sufficient? Don’t we want everyone (including immigrants) to be self-sufficient? The Biden-Harris administration abused a loophole in public assistance programs to dole out benefits to many of the millions of illegal immigrants who entered the country between 2021 and 2024. The administration allowed illegals access to as many as 17 separate welfare benefits. Instead of self-sufficiency, this policy encouraged dependence (sloth) and cost taxpayers billions.
Government Fraud Contributes to Sloth
Recent discoveries by the new Department of Government Efficiency (D.O.G.E.) have uncovered an estimated $170 billion of fraud and wasteful spending in 22 federal agencies, as of May 11, 2025.
The left objects to the reduction in fraud and waste claiming it’s all part of the vital services government provides. The left’s brand message is, “let’s feed our mascot the poisonous ideas of dependency to achieve utopia.”
Summary
Sloth is a deadly sin. It is laziness and indolence. It’s a lack of desire, or inability, to act because of mindset, not physical restrictions. It’s the opposite of the American spirit as delineated in our Declaration of Independence. It’s called the Declaration of Independence, NOT the Declaration of Dependence.
As a deadly sin, sloth damages the soul of the individual and the soul of our country. As Pope John Paul II noted, “when the sense of God is lost, there is also a tendency to lose the sense of man, of his dignity and his life.” Sloth is not of God.
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