Which of these things demonstrates love? The giving of charity or the redistribution of tax revenues? Which of them works good upon the soul? Is the command to “Render therefore unto Caesar” greater than the command to “Go, and do thou likewise?”
If, as you said in your inaugural speech today the free market is the greatest force for producing wealth, why then do you and other politicians abandon free market principles to “redistribute” that wealth? Whatever happened to “if any would not work, neither should he eat?”
You said once that your own personal salvation couldn't be realized without a collective salvation. What is the basis for that belief? Is it no longer true that “every man shall bear his own burden?” Are our relationships with others personal or collective? If they are personal, how then are they different from our relationship with God?
Not all men have faith in God. Not all men are charitable. I recognize and understand that. There is a need to take care of the poor and the destitute, but is a man truly poor and destitute when he owns a car, several televisions, and other such conveniences? Is a man truly poor and destitute when he earns literally thousands of times as much income as your own brother?
Oh, perhaps the Telegraph misquoted George, but I seriously doubt that living in a hut compares to the homes of many of our “poor.” I'm not entirely certain that your brother didn't change his tune out of partisanship either. He either said “live here on less than a dollar a month” when talking to the Telegraph or he didn't. He either lives in a rough neighborhood as he allegedly said to the Telegraph…
“Huruma is a tough place, last January during the elections there was rioting and six people were hacked to death. The police don't even arrest you they just shoot you.
“I have seen two of my friends killed. I have scars from defending myself with my fists. I am good with my fists.”
or he doesn't, as he allegedly said to the Times…
“Life in Huruma is good. In other places you must lock yourself in to keep yourself safe,” he told The Times. “Here I am surrounded by friends and family and feel safe and secure.”
That though (whether your brother is lying about his circumstances or not) isn't the issue really, just an interesting side note. I still have to ask you though, which gives you the bigger bang for your buck? Giving charity directly? or giving charity redistributing tax revenues through a government bureaucracy? If I give $100.00 to a local charity that feeds the poor, and if you take $100.00 out of my taxes to feed the poor, which of us will end up providing more actual food to the poor?
More importantly to me, if I give $100.00 to a local charity that feeds the poor, am I not showing my compassion for my fellow man? On the other hand, if you take $100.00 out of my taxes, how does that show compassion on my part? How does it show compassion on your part? For that matter, where do you find justification in our founding documents for taking money from me using the hand of government to give it to someone else?
I suppose you might think that it's in the Preamble to the Constitution, where it says “We the people in order to… promote the general Welfare,” but I don't think that's right. Perhaps you find it in Article 1, section 8 of the Constitution where Congress' powers are enumerated, in this bit “The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to … provide for the … general Welfare of the United States,” but I think even there you would be mistaken. After all, the authors of the Constitution didn't think that way.
“[T]he government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.”
— James Madison (speech in the House of Representatives, 10 January 1794)
Arguably, one of the founders of your own party, Thomas Jefferson didn't think that it was the duty of government to interpret the general welfare clause in the constitution in that way either.
“They are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare, but only to lay taxes for that purpose. To consider the latter phrase not as describing the purpose of the first, but as giving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please which may be good for the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless.
“It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and as they sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please...Certainly no such universal power was meant to be given them. It was intended to lace them up straightly within the enumerated powers and those without which, as means, these powers could not be carried into effect.”
— Thomas Jefferson (Opinion on National Bank, 1791)
Please stick to the objects that our government is confined to by the constitution. Let the people find their own salvation. Government and bureaucracy just can't do it for us. Just because you believe that our Constitution is a charter of negative liberties putting undue restrictions on government's ability to redistribute wealth in a socialist manner doesn't make it so. Thomas Jefferson saw the Constitution as a way to defend our individual rights, without which our freedom means nothing.
Perhaps one of our greatest statesmen looked upon government welfare programs in a most realistic way. I ask you Mr. President to consider the words of Benjamin Franklin.
“Repeal that [welfare] law, and you will soon see a change in their manners. St. Monday and St. Tuesday, will soon cease to be holidays. Six days shalt thou labor, though one of the old commandments long treated as out of date, will again be looked upon as a respectable precept; industry will increase, and with it plenty among the lower people; their circumstances will mend, and more will be done for their happiness by inuring them to provide for themselves, than could be done by dividing all your estates among them.”
— Benjamin Franklin (letter to Collinson, 9 May 1753)
Our salvation, and our charity, are our individual responsibility. Our government was founded in order to protect our individual liberties so that we could see to them. Don't you think it's time you, who speak of a time of responsibility and accountability in government led us truly, by making government step out of our way? Abandon this foolish, Marxist notion of dividing the estates of those of us that pay taxes among those that don't.
Redistribution of wealth leads to sloth, anarchy, and the ultimate destruction of an economy and a people. Don't you think that the “change we need” might well be the abandonment of redistributionist policies?
http://perrinelson.com/2009/1/20/1299.aspx
