How much charity can you show under socialism? Wouldn't the enforced "giving" of socialism strip all the goodness from the act? How much joy would you feel if you gave to the poor so the police wouldn't show up at your door and arrest you for tax evasion? I suppose you can still express charity through acts, but a whole class of charity would be eliminated by government enforcement.
Frankly, I'd have a hard time doing things for others if almost everything I earned was taken from me and given to them already.
On the receiving end, it doesn't seem like there's a whole lot of gratitude when it comes to entitlements. On the other hand, if I'm in dire straits and someone pays off my credit card out of the goodness of their hearts, you can best believe I'm going to be very grateful indeed.
Finally, it seems to me like socialism puts an end to evangelization. Like what's the point then? How do you follow Pope Francis' call to keep your mouth shut about your faith, but express it through actions? Actions like what? The government is going to do those actions in your name whether you want them done or not, so why bother?
All good works, for that matter, require choice in order to be good. Coerced charity isn't charity at all.
In the end, I guess it all depends on whether or not you want to perfect the world through force or if you'd prefer to evangelize and let people practice their newfound faith on their own. I think the latter gives everyone a lot more opportunities to love their neighbors even if the results are less uniform.
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| And my goodness, but the socialists love their uniforms. |
I would have to imagine in Bernie's utopia, I wouldn't be giving any contributions to charities. That is the government's job in Bernie's mind. He shows it in his tax returns, I believe I see on twitter. If twitter is to be believed.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if my volunteer time would change? I don't know the answer to that. Of course, Bernie would probably shutter some of the places I volunteer.
I'm also wondering what happens to people like me who were responsible with regards to my children's education, and so they don't have much in terms of college loans. Do I get monetary forgiveness? Though they both got very nice scholarships, the schools still a lot of money to attend. One even had classes from our backyard anthropologist. Sorry, I digress.
Hopefully, I can be "re-educated"