Hamilay wrote:Melkor Unchained wrote:Ourobora wrote:I seriously don't understand why humans ought not to help other humans out. This whole "dependency" thing is not the case for the vast majority...
I think this is where the two sides (right vs left) begin to talk past each other. I can't speak for everyone else (and I only consider myself a member of the 'right' in the economic sense) but I don't think the complaint is so much that people shouldn't "help other humans out," I think it has more to do with the fact that we're often forced to do so. Charity and compassion are fine; coming around to my house and saying "Hey these guys are in trouble and oh by the way help them out or I'll throw you in a f'ing cage" is moral cannibalism.
Can you show that people are able and willing to give as much in charity as is provided by government welfare programs?
If you can't, it seems to me that this line of reasoning is not really relevant, as the logical conclusion of your policies is less helping of others regardless of whether you think charity is nice or not.
I suspect you already know the answer to this question...
But at any rate, being as said government programs are inefficient and/or easily abused, I would argue that attaining precise financial parity between the two is not necessary. Charities tend to have a more direct interface with actual poor people, whereas the government programs are (by necessity) a lot more monolithic. I have a cousin who isn't marrying the father of her child not because she doesn't love him, but because she gets more benefits from the state as a single mother than she would earn in tax breaks for being married. My own brother has been on unemployment for almost a year now and has spent the wide majority of his money on weed and comics.
Government-run programs are (in a country like this at least) simply too easy to abuse. It's not so much the amount, as it is what's done with it. I think the actual, genuine "need" (in this country at least) is probably far less than most people think it is, and I would guess that private charities (pound for pound) address it more directly than social welfare subsidies. Not because the government is OMG EBIL, just that they have more ground to cover.