"...and set up programs to help the homeless and other needy folks.
He could have given us affordable medical insurance and education."
A response to your not so convincing argument.
- Role of Government: Government primarily is a protector of individual rights and property rather than an active provider of social welfare.
- Critique of Koan: In your world need, not merit, becomes the basis for rights, and the productive are penalized for their achievements.
- The Founders: The Founders believed that those who are productive should be free to keep what they earn, and that charity or welfare (funded by the forced redistribution of wealth) undermines the moral foundation of a society based on individual rights.
- Koan's Precedent: The more one produces, the more vulnerable one becomes to having their wealth seized for the sake of others’ needs. According to your view, once the principle of redistribution is established it justifies any form of plunder.
- A Just Society: Society should be based on voluntary exchange, and the individual should have the freedom to pursue their own happiness without being forced to sacrifice for the "greater good."
Wealth Redistribution
Life is unfair, if you want government bureaucrats to level the playing field life will be even more unfair.
Need never justifies the taking of someone else’s property.
Is government responsible to provide basic needs like health care, education, and shelter? Yes, but only a very basic level and only so far as to preserve social stability and the common good.
Personal responsibility and self-interest made America great, collectivism and state-enforced charity diminished that greatness.
If your tribe wishes to loot and mooch find another country that accepts that morality, I suggest you look at Syria, South Sudan and Somalia.
 |
