In one form or another, I hear this one a lot:
“Forced compassion through government taxation can never replace or even supplement true Christian charity”
I grabbed it from this thread today, but I’ve come across it many other times.
The idea is that if the government is making us give our money to help others, it doesn’t really require charitable thoughts, and so it doesn’t count.
It’s among the weakest straw-man arguments that I’ve ever encountered, for a very simple reason: that’s not the point.
When it comes down to it, laws don’t change the internal behavior of those subject to those laws. The law is a tool of compliance, not internal change.
Laws against murder don’t make citizens value human life. Laws against slavery didn’t make everyone equal in everyone else’s eyes. Laws against theft don’t make people respect other people’s property. What they’re meant to do, though, is define a limit to those internal failures.
It’s true that using the government to provide social services doesn’t make taxpayers into better people. It does, however, provide for the poor. That is the point of these programs.
A question that I’ve asked in various places (not the above-cited thread, though) is this: If you believe that it’s okay to use the government to impose social values, such as laws against abortion, gay marriage, or whatnot … why not imposing a form of charitable giving? I’ve never seen a good answer to that question. The fact that I couldn’t come up with one myself is why I changed several of my own political positions a decade and a half ago.
November 12, 2009 at 4:16 pm
Kind of an amateur at this Wickle so bear with me.
Isn’t another argument on this that giving (charity ,tithing etc.) is different than rendering unto Ceasar anyway ?
November 12, 2009 at 4:21 pm
That would be a different argument, yes. Then we’d be arguing the definition of the social contract, and at that point, certainly Constitutional limits are a relevant piece.
I’m certainly not saying that there’s no such thing as a good anti-welfare argument … I’m just saying that the “forced compassion isn’t real” argument isn’t one.
November 12, 2009 at 4:30 pm
The laws against Murder, thievery, and slavery are federal laws because they infringe upon anothers rights not because of the moral justice of them. The social programs that the government has instituted are unconstitiional. And yes you are correct in that a law should not be passed because of the “morality” of it. At least not on a federal level. They don’t pass constitutional muster.
November 13, 2009 at 12:01 am
To clarify, since I know that I didn’t say this in the post …
Mostly, I’m speaking to Christians whom I see making some of these arguments. Being well to the left, politically, of a lot of my fellow Evangelicals, I get into this kind of discussion quite often. We don’t tend to quote the Constitution at each other so much as Biblical principles. The idea that government welfare subverts virtue comes up, and it doesn’t work.
Government policy, of course, should be bound by the government’s rules. The Constitution being that set of rules, it does need to be respected.
November 13, 2009 at 4:29 pm
I have always looked at the idea of welfare and paying for it through taxes the same way my tax dollars go to paying for roads, city parks, and clean-up crews. They are a part of making our society civilized. It makes sense to me as a society to maintain a small amount of support for the poor in order to make our cities and towns safer , clean etc…
I have been to Brazil and I can tell you I have no desire to have a cardboard shantytown spring up around my city, with all of the inherent problems of crime, disease and such that exist in such places and then can have an effect on my life.
So I really have no problem with my taxes going to these programs much like I have no problem paying for the police.
This also takes the compassion angle out of the argument.
November 13, 2009 at 9:22 pm
Topher, you know, that’s a great point.
Welfare programs do save us from some of those problems, along with some of the crime. I hadn’t really given any space to that side of the argument, but you’re right that there is a pragmatic angle to it, too.
Thanks for bringing that into the conversation.