Citation?
Clearly he has never been cold, homeless or hungry, The truly poor care not where the money for food etc comes from . Please believe me on that. even three generations ago I woudl be confined to a workhouse…
That last sentence saddens me greatly .Such a common accusation.I know my comment will pale in comparison to that of others, especially being so short, but, as Christians, we must be responsible for ourselves. Even for the basics of life like food or shelter, we are to provide for ourselves inasmuch as it is our ability.
Yes, charity and care are important, but that does not mean that the State provides for our needs. Also, this can be easily abused…
Why do you presuppose there is a basis in Catholic faith to oppose this idea?
Hmmm, an interesting view. But a hollow argument. The poor must be fed.
There is a large imbalance of power between employer and employee. It is difficult to believe that would just naturally lead to acceptable outcomes. We see the same in failure of markets when a small number of companies control the bulk of supply. Prices then are high for no reason other than the lack of competition makes it possible.
The poor must be fed, that is His command. God also commands that we not steal. There is nothing hollow about following His commands.
When we form societies and empower legislatures we hand over some autonomy to representative and/or collective decision-making. In most countries, we’ve collectively decided that the well off pay more tax and the government use some of it to assist the least well off. To call that stealing seems odd. It seems a practice at least in tune with the call to help the poor.
If only the left would hear you! Or they do but keeping people scared and depending upon them may just be what certain string pullers want???
That is not the model of governance set down in the U.S. Constitution. But that said, if a society determines this is the way to feed the poor, it cannot be called charity, nor compassionate because it is neither. There is no charity in requiring others by force to give. That is contrary to free will. And the practice seems to be contrary to Subsidiarity, as well
Look again. You have a representative legislature. It makes laws. You can replace the legislature or members of it through a collective process. You have all this by collective choice and by collective consent. Get over it.
Look again, we are a constitutional representative republic. These programs are, at best, extra constitutional. There should be a widespread call for the end of welfare. It has cost multiple trillions of dollars since the Great Society programs began in the sixties, and poverty, not surprisingly, is perhaps worse. Inner city families have been destroyed by the rules of AFDC. The outcomes of the welfare state have been catastrophic
My prior post is accurate, no matter what name you apply to your society.
Yes, we were warned that the republic would survive only until the government learned it could bribe the people with their own money. The welfare state has been catastrophic for millions of Americans for two and three generations now. So much for the wisdom of collectivism. You’d think we would have learned this lesson watching 20th century central and eastern Europe.
If a law caused more harm than good, it would indeed be immoral to enact it. But how many share your judgement that welfare does that and should be done away with?