Subject:
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Re: Finally some church/state mingling that I can really get behind!
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Wed, 13 Aug 2003 14:08:09 GMT
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Viewed:
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218 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Larry Pieniazek wrote:
>
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Carl Nelson wrote:
>
> > Give $10 to a panhandler on the street, without sneering at his line about
> > needing it for bus fare to go home.
>
> Terrible idea. Why would you want to do that?(1) ALL your examples above are
> worthy charities (based on the assumption that you as donor have validated facts
> about the situations), but this one is just plain altruism.
>
> And altruism is a bad idea. It enables bad things in the receipient and is
> morally wrong, at least in my view.
>
> 1 - "because I believe god told me to do so" is not an acceptable answer to me
> although I acknowledge it may be to others.
Point taken--probably not the best illustration of charity. "Buy a panhandler a
meal" would have been a better example.
Religiously speaking, Jesus would have helped the panhandler to overcome
addiction, adversity, laziness, or whatever other trait or events that had made
the person a beggar on the street to begin with. He wouldn't have given a
compulsive gambler money to fuel his addiction. He would have helped the man
cure the addiction.
Altruism in its purest sense (unselfish concern for others, or in biology
detrimental individual behavior that's good for the species--comes from the
Latin alter (other), thus literally "other-ism") is fine. Charity without
regard to the consequences is probably not; the crueller thing is sometimes
kinder over time.
As Ferris said, "-ism's in my opinion are not good."
Your point also illustrates another fallacy in the governor's reasoning. IMO,
everyone should pay taxes to the government (even if it's only $10 at low
incomes, or even if they're given money through welfare only to pay part of it
back). Otherwise, a situation is created where people are not invested (in the
emotional as well as financial meaning) in the support of self-governance. They
have no stake in the cost of it, and therefore no reason to be concerned with it
being efficient or using the money that it receives well. So it's another
example of something that sounds good in the short term but doesn't really help
anyone out.
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