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> Adults also know that collective agreements to provide the means to help those who are in trouble through no fault of their own are called "charity", and are

> Adults also know that collective agreements to provide the means to help those who are in trouble through no fault of their own are called "charity", and are best done by private institutions While your other arguments are subjective, this one is just plain factually wrong. It will always be far less efficient to depend on a few individuals to shoulder large expenses or for disparate organizations (each with their own overhead expenses) to find and collect smaller contributions than it is for everyone to pay just a small amount automatically to collectively cover an expense through a single origination. In addition to the massive inefficiencies of charity, and the fact that many charities are really little more than scams, there are still several other problems with them. See for example: https://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/charity/against_1.shtml https://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/charity/against_1.shtml https://harvardpolitics.com/charity-band-aid/ https://harvardpolitics.com/charity-band-aid/ Some of these problems are even seen by some people as benefits. For example, federal or state aid to victims of a natural disaster would go to help everyone impacted, but a charity to help them can allow someone to only support certain people while discriminating against others. Some people actually find it extremely preferable to restrict all their charitable giving to only people with a certain religion, or skin color, or political alignment, but the freedom that gives a person to leave "the wrong kind of people" to suffer is still a massive problem when your goal is to help everyone impacted. Charity is great, when it's not a total scam, and it's equitable, and the origination is lucky enough to find enough people willing to take the time to research them and give them enough donations to accomplish what needs to be done, but it's still no substitute for government programs. Government programs can have their problems too certainly. They can be run poorly, they can not do enough to help people, and the help they provide can be less than equitable, but you're entitled to a much higher level of control and transparency over government programs and you always have the ability to vote for improvements and hold the government accountable when they fail to deliver.

pdonis 4y ago
>* It will always be far less efficient to depend on a few individuals to shoulder large expenses or for disparate organizations (each with their own overhead expenses) to find and collect smaller contributions than it is for everyone to pay just a small amount and collectively cover an expense through a single origination.* On the assumption that the single organization will actually do the job, perhaps. But it won't. Ask anyone who has actual experience with such government organizations, as, for example, my wife and I have (she far more than me--she was a social worker for 20 years). They don't actually help the people they're supposed to help. So your claim is factually wrong, not mine. I did not claim that private charities are perfect. I only claimed that charity is best done by private institutions, i.e., that on net they do better than government programs.
- autoexec 4y ago
  Government doesn't always work as well as it should, but you have the power to change that. You can vote for changes and hold your elected officials accountable. That's the strength of government solutions. You and those around you come together to vote on what needs to be done, how it should be done, and who is responsible for overseeing that. I also have family who worked in social services and they always wished they could do more to help people, but too many of the people around them were preventing that. Too many people voted against plans to increase funding and refused to hold officials responsible perhaps because of the letter next to that official's name, or because they didn't want to help "the wrong kinds of people" at all, or because they thought as you do that charity is enough to fix everything. If charities were the answer they'd have already stepped in to fill all the gaps left over after the government has done what it can, but of course they haven't. This is the main weakness of government programs. They depend on people working together and holding their elected officials accountable. People vote against government programs, and refuse to hold anyone accountable, and then complain when the programs don't solve their problems and use that as evidence that the whole system can't work, but it's still clearly the most efficient way to solve many problems, and often the only way some people are currently getting any help at all. Improving it just requires us to put in the effort.
  - pdonis 4y ago
    > You can vote for changes and hold your elected officials accountable. That's the strength of government solutions. No, it's the weakness of government solutions. If I want to help people, I can start a private charity and go help people. If I want to government to help people, I have to get a majority of the country to vote for politicians that will make that happen--assuming there even are any. > You and those around you come together to vote on what needs to be done, how it should be done, and who is responsible for overseeing that. If you believe people should be helped, you can go help them. If you and a bunch of your friends all believe that, so much the better: you can get together to help more people. This is how helping is supposed to work, and how it has worked all through human history when it has actually worked at all. If you want the government to force everybody to pay for helping people, you are imposing your value judgments on them. That's not how freedom is supposed to work. It's also lazy on your part: you say you want to help people, but instead of actually doing the work of helping--figuring out the individual needs of individuals who need help, deciding whether they deserve to be helped, and then doing what is needed to help them--you're punting it to a government bureaucracy. Which, as I have already said, won't actually do it anyway. And it's no answer to that to say that, if only people would just vote the right way, governments would magically change. That utopian vision has never worked. > Improving it just requires us to put in the effort. Your efforts would be much better directed at helping people yourself, than trying to use government force to do it.

pdonis 4y ago

>* It will always be far less efficient to depend on a few individuals to shoulder large expenses or for disparate organizations (each with their own overhead expenses) to find and collect smaller contributions than it is for everyone to pay just a small amount and collectively cover an expense through a single origination.* On the assumption that the single organization will actually do the job, perhaps. But it won't. Ask anyone who has actual experience with such government organizations, as, for example, my wife and I have (she far more than me--she was a social worker for 20 years). They don't actually help the people they're supposed to help. So your claim is factually wrong, not mine. I did not claim that private charities are perfect. I only claimed that charity is best done by private institutions, i.e., that on net they do better than government programs.

autoexec 4y ago
Government doesn't always work as well as it should, but you have the power to change that. You can vote for changes and hold your elected officials accountable. That's the strength of government solutions. You and those around you come together to vote on what needs to be done, how it should be done, and who is responsible for overseeing that. I also have family who worked in social services and they always wished they could do more to help people, but too many of the people around them were preventing that. Too many people voted against plans to increase funding and refused to hold officials responsible perhaps because of the letter next to that official's name, or because they didn't want to help "the wrong kinds of people" at all, or because they thought as you do that charity is enough to fix everything. If charities were the answer they'd have already stepped in to fill all the gaps left over after the government has done what it can, but of course they haven't. This is the main weakness of government programs. They depend on people working together and holding their elected officials accountable. People vote against government programs, and refuse to hold anyone accountable, and then complain when the programs don't solve their problems and use that as evidence that the whole system can't work, but it's still clearly the most efficient way to solve many problems, and often the only way some people are currently getting any help at all. Improving it just requires us to put in the effort.
- pdonis 4y ago
  > You can vote for changes and hold your elected officials accountable. That's the strength of government solutions. No, it's the weakness of government solutions. If I want to help people, I can start a private charity and go help people. If I want to government to help people, I have to get a majority of the country to vote for politicians that will make that happen--assuming there even are any. > You and those around you come together to vote on what needs to be done, how it should be done, and who is responsible for overseeing that. If you believe people should be helped, you can go help them. If you and a bunch of your friends all believe that, so much the better: you can get together to help more people. This is how helping is supposed to work, and how it has worked all through human history when it has actually worked at all. If you want the government to force everybody to pay for helping people, you are imposing your value judgments on them. That's not how freedom is supposed to work. It's also lazy on your part: you say you want to help people, but instead of actually doing the work of helping--figuring out the individual needs of individuals who need help, deciding whether they deserve to be helped, and then doing what is needed to help them--you're punting it to a government bureaucracy. Which, as I have already said, won't actually do it anyway. And it's no answer to that to say that, if only people would just vote the right way, governments would magically change. That utopian vision has never worked. > Improving it just requires us to put in the effort. Your efforts would be much better directed at helping people yourself, than trying to use government force to do it.