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Re: Charity and force
Tom Brosz — (archived)

<There is a belief among some people, including early Christians, that a family, village or tribe will take care of its own. It does not leave people behind, does not allow them to starve, doesn't even WANT to leave 'em behind.

So tell me, which of these villagers is pointing a gun to get contributions? Are you really that thick, or do you just like to see my blood pressure go up?

If the village chieftain is going from door to door with a spear to get people to support an ill neighbor, there may be something wrong with the either the chief, the village, or the whole concept. Whenever I hear of neighbor helping neighbor, something that happens all the time in real life, somehow I never hear that one neighbor is holding a pistol to the other neighbors to get contributions or help.*

To make charity, or sharing, identical to forced redistribution of wealth is NOT an equivalence I'm going to allow you to get away with. Stop trying. Save it for the gasbrains who can't or won't think.

Charity is charity, and force is force. Once you have established that need is the only justification you need to take something by force from someone, then there is no upper limit, and in a society where the government spends a vast majority of its funds on doing exactly this, true charity is poisoned and crippled.

As long as charity and guns are unalterably mixed in your world view, I don't see how I can get any further on this. I have no trouble making this clear to younger people, but this idea seems to be so ossified in the minds of older liberals that it is impossible to get them to wrap their minds around the idea that good works based on a foundation of looting--the "Robin Hood Principle"--is a concept that is rotten at the core.

*Although Lord knows being able to hold up passersby with a sidearm would make the Salvation Army bell ringer's day a lot more lucrative.

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