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Here is a wild concept, mandate that people take care of people. Use the government only to enforce this. The government is full of corruption and waste, they a

Here is a wild concept, mandate that people take care of people. Use the government only to enforce this. The government is full of corruption and waste, they are innefective in matters that require an actual soul (such as people who have made mistakes, people who have no reason to care, impoverished people, prisoners ETC.)... What if you could take the percentage of taxes that you spend every year and choose whom to help with it. Of course those who were receiving it would have to fulfill certain requirements, but wow what a concept. How about deducting some amount from that mandatory contribution of the person were to volunteer in the community? We would have charities all over the place competing for this money, competition would produce far better results than the abysmal record of the state/federal social services. Many people may even give the money as cash to some people - personally. Have government oversight review and publish how well any charitable organization is doing at helping people become self reliant financially and socially (this will separate the wheat from the chaff). People may actually become caring and have empathy for these people that they are helping. When people help others, they become happier people. Many people may even donate more money on top of the required amount and volunteer or switch careers to one that helps those in need. Imaging that. That is something that no government could ever accomplish. The government really de-humanizes people. It takes our money and does some things to help people. We never see this happen directly. The government keeps the bums and beggars out of sight so we never even see them. The government jails drug attics and other impoverished criminals so we never see them either. All we ever see from the media is bad news. We never see lives being turned around from welfare or other social services. My money says that once people start taking care of each other, their humanity will grow 1000% ala the Grinch.

wikiburner 13y ago
I've had similar thoughts on social security. It would make a lot of sense to simply require citizens to save or invest a certain portion of their annual income. You could have enforced diversification (certain percentages allowed for high vs. low risk), and accreditation boards to vet and approve mutual and index funds. Also, the investment would have a very stimulative effect on the economy, and you could probably also set it up in such a way that it works on autopilot (like a 401(k)) for those that can't be bothered.. It would be quite a bit less draconian than the government simply confiscating the money. In the private sector, the current setup would rightly be called a ponzi scheme.
- vidarh 13y ago
  That's only viable if you also force salaries up dramatically for low earners, or what you are doing is requiring people to starve.
  - wikiburner 13y ago
    No, I'm saying individuals would invest in lieu of social security. Those low earners are already losing part of their income to social security. There would obviously have to be a transitionary period where the government makes up the shortfall, in order to honor the commitments made to retirees. It would be painful, but only a small addition to the 87 Trillion in current liabilities of the U.S. government. http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887323353204578127374039087636 http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142412788732335320...
    - vidarh 13y ago
      No, most low earners are receiving more back in benefits of various types than anything they pay into the system. Thus if you replace these systems with mandatory investments, you are reducing their available cash.
      - wikiburner 13y ago
        I think you're either misunderstanding me or how social security works. I'm only talking about replacing social security, not "these systems". Everyone who gets a paycheck pays their 6% in social security, regardless of income level.
        twoodfin 13y ago
        But the curve that determines your payout is dramatically tilted towards low earners: That is, SS pays a much larger fraction of your highest earning years income if that income was low. As a result, low earners have to live only a few years past 65 to receive benefits greater than what they put in. High earners have to live decades.
noonespecial 13y ago
With the possible exception of some sort of enforcement, I think you may have just described what I always hoped churches(1) would be to their communities. So few seem to care for much more than a bigger parking lot and a taller... whatever the hell they build on the front of those things these days. (1) Mosques, Synagogues, Temples, etc.
calibraxis 13y ago
I'd agree, if each person had equal percentage of control over that tax money. So, Larry Ellison would have as much to allocate as a homeless person. (Otherwise, allocation decisions concentrated in hands of those already with more power over those decisions.)
Kliment 13y ago
Sounds like a recipe for even worse corruption. Pay into your friend's charity, have your friend pay into your charity. Make a deal with a homeless person that if you get back half of what you give them you'll give them a lot of money. You can continue on your own.
- frobozz 13y ago
  Not to mention taking advantage of the deduction by "volunteering" at your friend's charity in some kind of fuzzily-defined "advisory" role, probably by attending a series of "thought camps" with your friend at his villa in The Bahamas or chalet in Klosters.
  - itsameta4 13y ago
    But would everybody take advantage like that, or even most? I think humanity would still gain a lot, even if we cause a few new problems here and there.
- goggles99 13y ago
  >Sounds like a recipe for even worse corruption. Pay into your friend's charity, have your friend pay into your charity. I never said that there would be no rules or regulations. If fact, I mentioned that the government would be needed for this purpose. I don't claim that there would be no abuses, but I can't see how it could possibly be as riddled with abuse as our current system. I think with the taxpaying citizens personally involved, they will demand a high level of adherence and enforcement. They will also feel a greater sense of personal violation when someone they know abuses the system. I know several people who claim that they know so and so who are collecting welfare and making all kinds of money under the table. If they feel a personal with that money and that system, they are more likely to report that person or at least discourage them. Likewise, the fraudster is going to feel more pressure by the whole movement to avoid committing the abuse.
ufseagull 13y ago
>What if you could take the percentage of taxes that you spend every year and choose whom to help with it. You realise that, especially where I live, one can make tax deductible donations to a wide variety of organisations? I give away thousands and get to write off much of the tax. In fact, I give away a few thousand and can technically qualify for a different tax bracket, I believe. >We would have charities all over the place competing for this money, competition would produce far better results than the abysmal record of the state/federal social services. No, you would have charities spending this money on advertising and gimmicks to get their share of your dollar. Some charities today spend large proportions of their budgets advertising and engaging in lawsuits (e.g. Susan B Komen) What the government does is use it's uniquely large scale to help people. Education, healthcare, housing, welfare - for many countries in the world, having the government provide these services results in an relatively efficient system. I for one would rather pay the Medicare Levy in Australia than pay for private healthcare in the US - last time I was living there, the US system left me about $1500 worse off, and that was a year without any medical mishaps.
- goggles99 13y ago
  >You realise that, especially where I live, one can make tax deductible donations to a wide variety of organisations? I give away thousands and get to write off much of the tax. In fact, I give away a few thousand and can technically qualify for a different tax bracket, I believe. But most people doing this are still experiencing a net negative. You might donate $1000 to save $200 off your taxes. This is a rather small incentive. >No, you would have charities spending this money on advertising and gimmicks to get their share of your dollar. Some charities today spend large proportions of their budgets advertising and engaging in lawsuits (e.g. Susan B Komen) Fine, but these organizations would not last. People want results, not more/better commercials. Did you not read my whole post? I mentioned that these orgs would be performance analyzed and all the data published. All their financial records would be public. >What the government does is use it's uniquely large scale to help people. Education, healthcare, housing, welfare - for many countries in the world, having the government provide these services results in an relatively efficient system. I for one would rather pay the Medicare Levy in Australia than pay for private healthcare in the US - last time I was living there, the US system left me about $1500 worse off, and that was a year without any medical mishaps. It is far from efficient, even if it was - the greatest benefit would be humanizing citizens (this would naturally branch into and benefit many other facets of society). Also I am talking about welfare/social services here, not medical services.
pron 13y ago
But "the government" is people. Society said, "let people take care of people", and government is the answer to how to do that. The government is "full of corruption and waste" because people are. We constantly try to find ways to organize society (and government as a crucial part of society) in ways that minimize corruption and waste, or mitigate their effects. > That is something that no government could ever accomplish. What you're suggesting is simply a new form of government. It might be great; it could perhaps work. But it's certainly not something to suggest offhand. Our current form(s) of government is a result of centuries (and millennia) of gradual, and sometimes revolutionary, progress. I wouldn't just throw it out the window. But hey, if you want to start a revolution, by all means – go for it. It's been a while since we've had a good revolution in the West. And if you're American, then it would be doubly great because we haven't seen any political revolutions in America since its founding (though if you're American you probably won't, because Americans like complaining about their government and alienating themselves from it, but they tend to do very little to improve it; at the end of the day, they're just too docile).
- logn 13y ago
  > And if you're American, then it would be doubly great because we haven't seen any political revolutions in America since its founding (though if you're American you probably won't, because Americans like complaining about their government and alienating themselves from it, but they tend to do very little to improve it; at the end of the day, they're just too docile). Some notable events in American history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_United_Stat... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_history_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_history_of_the_United_St... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_rights_movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_rights_movement
  - pron 13y ago
    I didn't say "no notable events". I said no political revolutions (although the civil war almost counts).
JonSkeptic 13y ago
I'm not sure that mandatory required charity is anything more than asking for trouble. People should give, people should help, but they should do it willingly. If you force them to do it, they will resent both the charity and you. That is a scenario that offers short term benefits at best.
- goggles99 13y ago
  >'m not sure that mandatory required charity is anything more than asking for trouble. People should give, people should help, but they should do it willingly. If you force them to do it, they will resent both the charity and you. That is a scenario that offers short term benefits at best. Every study on the subject has consistently found that giving creates a sense of happiness and fulfillment. These feelings more often than not encourage the givers to give more, to encourage others to give and to also give their time and efforts (not just money) to help others. It increases their humanity. Why would people giving to someone of their choice (the receivers are of course qualified recipients) and seeing the good it does that person VS the government taking the money out of your pocket, wasting half of it and spending the other half on programs that under perform cause more trouble? I may very well be wrong here, but I don't think someone with your opinion has ever given directly to a needy person...
  - JonSkeptic 13y ago
    >Every study on the subject has consistently found that giving creates a sense of happiness and fulfillment. Willful giving. You cannot force charity, people will resent it as they will resent anything else you force them to do. As others have suggested, it will become nothing more an exercise in tax dodging in the best case scenario. >I may very well be wrong here, but I don't think someone with your opinion has ever given directly to a needy person... Also, don't be a passive aggressive asshole.
adventured 13y ago
Mandatory charity is by definition not charity. It's a form of forced labor. Charity: n. the voluntary giving of help, typically in the form of money, to those in need.
- goggles99 13y ago
  >Mandatory charity is by definition not charity. It's a form of forced labor. Please have a better argument than semantics and proper English usage. Everyone knows what I am talking about. Also, if this is forced labor, so if mandatory tax filing, mandatory Obamacare ETC.
JulianMorrison 13y ago
> What if you could take the percentage of taxes that you spend every year and choose whom to help with it. Then it would be spent on pet shelters and the national trust instead of homeless shelters and the national health, because middle class people fundamentally don't like poor people, and are mildly frustrated taxes go to them at all, except as a means to clear the streets of nuisance beggars. Photogenically poor people in exotic places we can feel superior to are different, of course. Those, the middle classes will tithe to, provided it goes to "schools and infrastructure" to civilize them up.
- microcolonel 13y ago
  Excuse me, but where does this generalization about the middle class come from? Maybe they just want to do their part in a more effective way than having it stolen out of their income, then whittled down to a few percent, which is then distributed in obtuse ways which ruin the market forces which once made these people's lives easier year-over-year.
- goggles99 13y ago
  Did I not mention that there would be rules/laws involved? You may say that those with lots of money can get those laws bent in their favor, and generally this is true with the government. The people of America today are so uninvolved and uninformed that this happens without repercussions. With this system, people are going to be watching things a bit closer. They are personally vested in this whole process.
microcolonel 13y ago
>What if you could take the percentage of taxes that you spend every year and choose whom to help with it. Kinda like just spending your own bloody money. The great thing about this alternative is that 100% of it goes where you want it, rather than the low tens of percentiles. P.S. "ala the grinch" doesn't really make sense, it should be "a la grinch" since la handles the "the".
Symmetry 13y ago
mandate that people take care of people. Use the government only to enforce this. That sounds far more difficult, subject to corruption, and less efficient than having the government care for other people directly. Sure, having everybody be good to each other could be much more efficient than government aid, but having the government mandate and define "good to each other" is so very difficult.
- goggles99 13y ago
  I encourage you to become more familiar with the IRS and the Dept of Welfare and Social Services, the cost they ensue, and the level of fraud/corruption/waste. I also encourage you to personally meed and observe those being served by WSS, see the ineffectiveness and vicious cycle these people are trapped in.
ctdonath 13y ago
Charities existed, in robust force, for a long time before the government stepped in and confiscated so much money from people they didn't have much left to care for others as they saw fit. We had charities all over the place competing for this money, and did produce far better results than the abysmal record of the state/federal social services, until the government stepped in and made it terribly difficult to provide such charity - on the grounds of closing the inevitable gaps which government still fails to close (and never will). The competition to provide charity is being destroyed by a government regulating competitors out of existence. I leverage an opportunity to provide food to the poor. It's amazing how many places can't take bushels of bread for distribution thereto because of governmental regulations. In requiring better donations (vanishingly small improvements at prohibitive cost), nothing gets donated and the food all too often gets trashed. Just change tax code to allow 1-1 deduction of charitable donations from tax liability (instead of taxable income), without limit, along with relaxing burdensome regulations on charities (realizing that something done poorly is better than nothing, and requiring something better leads to nothing).
- consonants 13y ago
  Gubbamint is keeping the hungry from these bushels of bread not fit for human consumption, why can't they see the harm they're doing? Isn't bad food better than nothing? >realizing that something done poorly is better than nothing and requiring something better leads to nothing Oh my god you actually typed it. Or we can adequately fund our social programs so that they are held to a certain standard and don't depend on the whims of the middle and upper classes.
  - ctdonath 13y ago
    Socialism works great until you run out if other people's money. ...which we have; the pipeline just hasn't emptied out yet.
  - goggles99 13y ago
    I would think one day even those like you would realize... Money is rarely the answer. Same with our prison and criminal justice systems, education, ETC. Spending has ramped up dramatically in these areas and yet the results are either not improved or worse... What would you consider "adequately funding" our social programs. More government(especially federal) is not the answer. Your type is always saying, just a bit more, just a bit bigger, even when things get even worse you think a bigger government can fix it. How blind you are not to see that the government often caused the problem to begin with.
dragonwriter 13y ago
> Here is a wild concept, mandate that people take care of people. Use the government only to enforce this. > [...] > That is something that no government could ever accomplish. I think there is an inconsistency in your argument. You've just suggested a mode of action by government, not something government cannot do. As to the particular mechanism, however, it is unlikely to work. The basic idea... > We would have charities all over the place competing for this money, competition would produce far better results than the abysmal record of the state/federal social services. ...is fundamentally flawed. The theoretical efficiency of competitive markets is intimately tied to the assumption that both the benefits and costs are known to and born by the participants in the decision making processes, aligning rational self-interest with efficient decision making. In the charities competing for money from givers to provide services to those in need, the features which make markets theoretically efficient do not apply. > All we ever see from the media is bad news. We never see lives being turned around from welfare or other social services. That's because bad news is good for selling media (the perception that the world is a dangerous place and you need to keep consuming the media source from which you got that impression to know where the next imminent danger is very useful to holding an audience, independently of any connection it has to real circumstances), not because lives aren't turned around by welfare and other social services.
- goggles99 13y ago
  >I think there is an inconsistency in your argument. You've just suggested a mode of action by government, not something government cannot do. You have a logical point but I think everyone understood what I was saying just fine - so your point does not apply to the reality and context of the situation. Some might say you are "trolling" myself, I think that you are just very anal. >...is fundamentally flawed. The theoretical efficiency of competitive markets is intimately tied to the assumption that both the benefits and costs are known to and born by the participants in the decision making processes, aligning rational self-interest with efficient decision making. In the charities competing for money from givers to provide services to those in need, the features which make markets theoretically efficient do not apply. Your argument may again carry weight by logical reasoning, but that is your fallacy. The competition would be maintained by the citizens emotional and humane (these are not logical things) drive to see the money coming out of their pocket actually directly and effectively help someone in a meaningful and lasting manner. That is what the competition is all about. >That's because bad news is good for selling media (the perception that the world is a dangerous place and you need to keep consuming the media source from which you got that impression to know where the next imminent danger is very useful to holding an audience, independently of any connection it has to real circumstances), not because lives aren't turned around by welfare and other social services. You missed my point. I was merely stating this example because the majority of people never see any tax dollars taken from their paycheck helping a fellow citizen. They never see any emotional or inspiring linked good come of it. The majority see what is in their local community and what is on the news. They have no natural connection to the needy. This is a very bad thing IMO.
lbrent 13y ago
> The government is full of corruption and waste, they are innefective in matters that require an actual soul. Something totally unheard of in charities or churches for that matter? > What if you could take the percentage of taxes that you spend every year and choose whom to help with it. I cannot see how this would not lead to a very disproportional distribution of welfare. Very few people, I guess, would rather give their money to rehabilitated murderers or sex offenders than to orphans or abused women for example.
- goggles99 13y ago
  >Something totally unheard of in charities or churches for that matter? The difference here is that charities can easily be replaced or you can choose a different one. There would definitely be oversight to expose problems and shut down fraudsters. >I cannot see how this would not lead to a very disproportional distribution of welfare. Very few people, I guess, would rather give their money to rehabilitated murderers or sex offenders than to orphans or abused women for example. You would be surprised. Sure those like you would give it to orphans and widows. Also, charities generally don't "turn down" people because they just got out of jail. If fact, I suppose that it could be mandated that they don't. There are easy common sense rules for all these types of concerns.
  - lbrent 13y ago
    > Also, charities generally don't "turn down" people because they just got out of jail. No, but there are many charities that serve a very specific purpose. And I would bet that there are far more who are involved in work with children than with convicts. Actually I know there are (I have my own limited experience in this specific area), but more to this later. > Sure those like you would give it to orphans and widows. I would be very surprised if "those like me" would not turn out to be in the vast majority. By the way, I picked rehabilitated criminals for a reason. During and for a while after university, I was living in a self sustained formerly occupied house and we has decided to reserve one floor for former prisoners to offer an easier start back into a regular life outside of social housing. Yet over the years due to people moving out and new people moving in and lost romantic ideas (who could have guessed that most people serving long time sentences are not highly educated and politically left-leaning) of how this living together would work, a majority of the house voted the former convicts out. Some of us tried to help to set up an alternative and work together with local welfare organizations or churches, but again they either lacked funding or met resistance of their members (mainly on the side of the churches). This experience let me to doubt your plans. But something I would really love to see, and something you might probably be able to agree on too, would be some kind of mandatory community service. Maybe one or two weeks per year in an area of choice. I think that could result in more compassion and social cohesion than "just" giving money.

wikiburner 13y ago

I've had similar thoughts on social security. It would make a lot of sense to simply require citizens to save or invest a certain portion of their annual income. You could have enforced diversification (certain percentages allowed for high vs. low risk), and accreditation boards to vet and approve mutual and index funds. Also, the investment would have a very stimulative effect on the economy, and you could probably also set it up in such a way that it works on autopilot (like a 401(k)) for those that can't be bothered.. It would be quite a bit less draconian than the government simply confiscating the money. In the private sector, the current setup would rightly be called a ponzi scheme.

vidarh 13y ago
That's only viable if you also force salaries up dramatically for low earners, or what you are doing is requiring people to starve.
- wikiburner 13y ago
  No, I'm saying individuals would invest in lieu of social security. Those low earners are already losing part of their income to social security. There would obviously have to be a transitionary period where the government makes up the shortfall, in order to honor the commitments made to retirees. It would be painful, but only a small addition to the 87 Trillion in current liabilities of the U.S. government. http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887323353204578127374039087636 http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142412788732335320...
  - vidarh 13y ago
    No, most low earners are receiving more back in benefits of various types than anything they pay into the system. Thus if you replace these systems with mandatory investments, you are reducing their available cash.
    - wikiburner 13y ago
      I think you're either misunderstanding me or how social security works. I'm only talking about replacing social security, not "these systems". Everyone who gets a paycheck pays their 6% in social security, regardless of income level.
      - twoodfin 13y ago
        But the curve that determines your payout is dramatically tilted towards low earners: That is, SS pays a much larger fraction of your highest earning years income if that income was low. As a result, low earners have to live only a few years past 65 to receive benefits greater than what they put in. High earners have to live decades.

noonespecial 13y ago

With the possible exception of some sort of enforcement, I think you may have just described what I always hoped churches(1) would be to their communities. So few seem to care for much more than a bigger parking lot and a taller... whatever the hell they build on the front of those things these days. (1) Mosques, Synagogues, Temples, etc.

calibraxis 13y ago

I'd agree, if each person had equal percentage of control over that tax money. So, Larry Ellison would have as much to allocate as a homeless person. (Otherwise, allocation decisions concentrated in hands of those already with more power over those decisions.)

Kliment 13y ago

Sounds like a recipe for even worse corruption. Pay into your friend's charity, have your friend pay into your charity. Make a deal with a homeless person that if you get back half of what you give them you'll give them a lot of money. You can continue on your own.

frobozz 13y ago
Not to mention taking advantage of the deduction by "volunteering" at your friend's charity in some kind of fuzzily-defined "advisory" role, probably by attending a series of "thought camps" with your friend at his villa in The Bahamas or chalet in Klosters.
- itsameta4 13y ago
  But would everybody take advantage like that, or even most? I think humanity would still gain a lot, even if we cause a few new problems here and there.
goggles99 13y ago
>Sounds like a recipe for even worse corruption. Pay into your friend's charity, have your friend pay into your charity. I never said that there would be no rules or regulations. If fact, I mentioned that the government would be needed for this purpose. I don't claim that there would be no abuses, but I can't see how it could possibly be as riddled with abuse as our current system. I think with the taxpaying citizens personally involved, they will demand a high level of adherence and enforcement. They will also feel a greater sense of personal violation when someone they know abuses the system. I know several people who claim that they know so and so who are collecting welfare and making all kinds of money under the table. If they feel a personal with that money and that system, they are more likely to report that person or at least discourage them. Likewise, the fraudster is going to feel more pressure by the whole movement to avoid committing the abuse.

ufseagull 13y ago

>What if you could take the percentage of taxes that you spend every year and choose whom to help with it. You realise that, especially where I live, one can make tax deductible donations to a wide variety of organisations? I give away thousands and get to write off much of the tax. In fact, I give away a few thousand and can technically qualify for a different tax bracket, I believe. >We would have charities all over the place competing for this money, competition would produce far better results than the abysmal record of the state/federal social services. No, you would have charities spending this money on advertising and gimmicks to get their share of your dollar. Some charities today spend large proportions of their budgets advertising and engaging in lawsuits (e.g. Susan B Komen) What the government does is use it's uniquely large scale to help people. Education, healthcare, housing, welfare - for many countries in the world, having the government provide these services results in an relatively efficient system. I for one would rather pay the Medicare Levy in Australia than pay for private healthcare in the US - last time I was living there, the US system left me about $1500 worse off, and that was a year without any medical mishaps.

goggles99 13y ago
>You realise that, especially where I live, one can make tax deductible donations to a wide variety of organisations? I give away thousands and get to write off much of the tax. In fact, I give away a few thousand and can technically qualify for a different tax bracket, I believe. But most people doing this are still experiencing a net negative. You might donate $1000 to save $200 off your taxes. This is a rather small incentive. >No, you would have charities spending this money on advertising and gimmicks to get their share of your dollar. Some charities today spend large proportions of their budgets advertising and engaging in lawsuits (e.g. Susan B Komen) Fine, but these organizations would not last. People want results, not more/better commercials. Did you not read my whole post? I mentioned that these orgs would be performance analyzed and all the data published. All their financial records would be public. >What the government does is use it's uniquely large scale to help people. Education, healthcare, housing, welfare - for many countries in the world, having the government provide these services results in an relatively efficient system. I for one would rather pay the Medicare Levy in Australia than pay for private healthcare in the US - last time I was living there, the US system left me about $1500 worse off, and that was a year without any medical mishaps. It is far from efficient, even if it was - the greatest benefit would be humanizing citizens (this would naturally branch into and benefit many other facets of society). Also I am talking about welfare/social services here, not medical services.

pron 13y ago

But "the government" is people. Society said, "let people take care of people", and government is the answer to how to do that. The government is "full of corruption and waste" because people are. We constantly try to find ways to organize society (and government as a crucial part of society) in ways that minimize corruption and waste, or mitigate their effects. > That is something that no government could ever accomplish. What you're suggesting is simply a new form of government. It might be great; it could perhaps work. But it's certainly not something to suggest offhand. Our current form(s) of government is a result of centuries (and millennia) of gradual, and sometimes revolutionary, progress. I wouldn't just throw it out the window. But hey, if you want to start a revolution, by all means – go for it. It's been a while since we've had a good revolution in the West. And if you're American, then it would be doubly great because we haven't seen any political revolutions in America since its founding (though if you're American you probably won't, because Americans like complaining about their government and alienating themselves from it, but they tend to do very little to improve it; at the end of the day, they're just too docile).

logn 13y ago
> And if you're American, then it would be doubly great because we haven't seen any political revolutions in America since its founding (though if you're American you probably won't, because Americans like complaining about their government and alienating themselves from it, but they tend to do very little to improve it; at the end of the day, they're just too docile). Some notable events in American history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_United_Stat... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_history_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_history_of_the_United_St... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_rights_movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_rights_movement
- pron 13y ago
  I didn't say "no notable events". I said no political revolutions (although the civil war almost counts).

JonSkeptic 13y ago

I'm not sure that mandatory required charity is anything more than asking for trouble. People should give, people should help, but they should do it willingly. If you force them to do it, they will resent both the charity and you. That is a scenario that offers short term benefits at best.

goggles99 13y ago
>'m not sure that mandatory required charity is anything more than asking for trouble. People should give, people should help, but they should do it willingly. If you force them to do it, they will resent both the charity and you. That is a scenario that offers short term benefits at best. Every study on the subject has consistently found that giving creates a sense of happiness and fulfillment. These feelings more often than not encourage the givers to give more, to encourage others to give and to also give their time and efforts (not just money) to help others. It increases their humanity. Why would people giving to someone of their choice (the receivers are of course qualified recipients) and seeing the good it does that person VS the government taking the money out of your pocket, wasting half of it and spending the other half on programs that under perform cause more trouble? I may very well be wrong here, but I don't think someone with your opinion has ever given directly to a needy person...
- JonSkeptic 13y ago
  >Every study on the subject has consistently found that giving creates a sense of happiness and fulfillment. Willful giving. You cannot force charity, people will resent it as they will resent anything else you force them to do. As others have suggested, it will become nothing more an exercise in tax dodging in the best case scenario. >I may very well be wrong here, but I don't think someone with your opinion has ever given directly to a needy person... Also, don't be a passive aggressive asshole.

adventured 13y ago

Mandatory charity is by definition not charity. It's a form of forced labor. Charity: n. the voluntary giving of help, typically in the form of money, to those in need.

goggles99 13y ago
>Mandatory charity is by definition not charity. It's a form of forced labor. Please have a better argument than semantics and proper English usage. Everyone knows what I am talking about. Also, if this is forced labor, so if mandatory tax filing, mandatory Obamacare ETC.

JulianMorrison 13y ago

> What if you could take the percentage of taxes that you spend every year and choose whom to help with it. Then it would be spent on pet shelters and the national trust instead of homeless shelters and the national health, because middle class people fundamentally don't like poor people, and are mildly frustrated taxes go to them at all, except as a means to clear the streets of nuisance beggars. Photogenically poor people in exotic places we can feel superior to are different, of course. Those, the middle classes will tithe to, provided it goes to "schools and infrastructure" to civilize them up.

microcolonel 13y ago
Excuse me, but where does this generalization about the middle class come from? Maybe they just want to do their part in a more effective way than having it stolen out of their income, then whittled down to a few percent, which is then distributed in obtuse ways which ruin the market forces which once made these people's lives easier year-over-year.
goggles99 13y ago
Did I not mention that there would be rules/laws involved? You may say that those with lots of money can get those laws bent in their favor, and generally this is true with the government. The people of America today are so uninvolved and uninformed that this happens without repercussions. With this system, people are going to be watching things a bit closer. They are personally vested in this whole process.

microcolonel 13y ago

>What if you could take the percentage of taxes that you spend every year and choose whom to help with it. Kinda like just spending your own bloody money. The great thing about this alternative is that 100% of it goes where you want it, rather than the low tens of percentiles. P.S. "ala the grinch" doesn't really make sense, it should be "a la grinch" since la handles the "the".

Symmetry 13y ago

mandate that people take care of people. Use the government only to enforce this. That sounds far more difficult, subject to corruption, and less efficient than having the government care for other people directly. Sure, having everybody be good to each other could be much more efficient than government aid, but having the government mandate and define "good to each other" is so very difficult.

goggles99 13y ago
I encourage you to become more familiar with the IRS and the Dept of Welfare and Social Services, the cost they ensue, and the level of fraud/corruption/waste. I also encourage you to personally meed and observe those being served by WSS, see the ineffectiveness and vicious cycle these people are trapped in.

ctdonath 13y ago

Charities existed, in robust force, for a long time before the government stepped in and confiscated so much money from people they didn't have much left to care for others as they saw fit. We had charities all over the place competing for this money, and did produce far better results than the abysmal record of the state/federal social services, until the government stepped in and made it terribly difficult to provide such charity - on the grounds of closing the inevitable gaps which government still fails to close (and never will). The competition to provide charity is being destroyed by a government regulating competitors out of existence. I leverage an opportunity to provide food to the poor. It's amazing how many places can't take bushels of bread for distribution thereto because of governmental regulations. In requiring better donations (vanishingly small improvements at prohibitive cost), nothing gets donated and the food all too often gets trashed. Just change tax code to allow 1-1 deduction of charitable donations from tax liability (instead of taxable income), without limit, along with relaxing burdensome regulations on charities (realizing that something done poorly is better than nothing, and requiring something better leads to nothing).

consonants 13y ago
Gubbamint is keeping the hungry from these bushels of bread not fit for human consumption, why can't they see the harm they're doing? Isn't bad food better than nothing? >realizing that something done poorly is better than nothing and requiring something better leads to nothing Oh my god you actually typed it. Or we can adequately fund our social programs so that they are held to a certain standard and don't depend on the whims of the middle and upper classes.
- ctdonath 13y ago
  Socialism works great until you run out if other people's money. ...which we have; the pipeline just hasn't emptied out yet.
- goggles99 13y ago
  I would think one day even those like you would realize... Money is rarely the answer. Same with our prison and criminal justice systems, education, ETC. Spending has ramped up dramatically in these areas and yet the results are either not improved or worse... What would you consider "adequately funding" our social programs. More government(especially federal) is not the answer. Your type is always saying, just a bit more, just a bit bigger, even when things get even worse you think a bigger government can fix it. How blind you are not to see that the government often caused the problem to begin with.

dragonwriter 13y ago

> Here is a wild concept, mandate that people take care of people. Use the government only to enforce this. > [...] > That is something that no government could ever accomplish. I think there is an inconsistency in your argument. You've just suggested a mode of action by government, not something government cannot do. As to the particular mechanism, however, it is unlikely to work. The basic idea... > We would have charities all over the place competing for this money, competition would produce far better results than the abysmal record of the state/federal social services. ...is fundamentally flawed. The theoretical efficiency of competitive markets is intimately tied to the assumption that both the benefits and costs are known to and born by the participants in the decision making processes, aligning rational self-interest with efficient decision making. In the charities competing for money from givers to provide services to those in need, the features which make markets theoretically efficient do not apply. > All we ever see from the media is bad news. We never see lives being turned around from welfare or other social services. That's because bad news is good for selling media (the perception that the world is a dangerous place and you need to keep consuming the media source from which you got that impression to know where the next imminent danger is very useful to holding an audience, independently of any connection it has to real circumstances), not because lives aren't turned around by welfare and other social services.

goggles99 13y ago
>I think there is an inconsistency in your argument. You've just suggested a mode of action by government, not something government cannot do. You have a logical point but I think everyone understood what I was saying just fine - so your point does not apply to the reality and context of the situation. Some might say you are "trolling" myself, I think that you are just very anal. >...is fundamentally flawed. The theoretical efficiency of competitive markets is intimately tied to the assumption that both the benefits and costs are known to and born by the participants in the decision making processes, aligning rational self-interest with efficient decision making. In the charities competing for money from givers to provide services to those in need, the features which make markets theoretically efficient do not apply. Your argument may again carry weight by logical reasoning, but that is your fallacy. The competition would be maintained by the citizens emotional and humane (these are not logical things) drive to see the money coming out of their pocket actually directly and effectively help someone in a meaningful and lasting manner. That is what the competition is all about. >That's because bad news is good for selling media (the perception that the world is a dangerous place and you need to keep consuming the media source from which you got that impression to know where the next imminent danger is very useful to holding an audience, independently of any connection it has to real circumstances), not because lives aren't turned around by welfare and other social services. You missed my point. I was merely stating this example because the majority of people never see any tax dollars taken from their paycheck helping a fellow citizen. They never see any emotional or inspiring linked good come of it. The majority see what is in their local community and what is on the news. They have no natural connection to the needy. This is a very bad thing IMO.

lbrent 13y ago

> The government is full of corruption and waste, they are innefective in matters that require an actual soul. Something totally unheard of in charities or churches for that matter? > What if you could take the percentage of taxes that you spend every year and choose whom to help with it. I cannot see how this would not lead to a very disproportional distribution of welfare. Very few people, I guess, would rather give their money to rehabilitated murderers or sex offenders than to orphans or abused women for example.

goggles99 13y ago
>Something totally unheard of in charities or churches for that matter? The difference here is that charities can easily be replaced or you can choose a different one. There would definitely be oversight to expose problems and shut down fraudsters. >I cannot see how this would not lead to a very disproportional distribution of welfare. Very few people, I guess, would rather give their money to rehabilitated murderers or sex offenders than to orphans or abused women for example. You would be surprised. Sure those like you would give it to orphans and widows. Also, charities generally don't "turn down" people because they just got out of jail. If fact, I suppose that it could be mandated that they don't. There are easy common sense rules for all these types of concerns.
- lbrent 13y ago
  > Also, charities generally don't "turn down" people because they just got out of jail. No, but there are many charities that serve a very specific purpose. And I would bet that there are far more who are involved in work with children than with convicts. Actually I know there are (I have my own limited experience in this specific area), but more to this later. > Sure those like you would give it to orphans and widows. I would be very surprised if "those like me" would not turn out to be in the vast majority. By the way, I picked rehabilitated criminals for a reason. During and for a while after university, I was living in a self sustained formerly occupied house and we has decided to reserve one floor for former prisoners to offer an easier start back into a regular life outside of social housing. Yet over the years due to people moving out and new people moving in and lost romantic ideas (who could have guessed that most people serving long time sentences are not highly educated and politically left-leaning) of how this living together would work, a majority of the house voted the former convicts out. Some of us tried to help to set up an alternative and work together with local welfare organizations or churches, but again they either lacked funding or met resistance of their members (mainly on the side of the churches). This experience let me to doubt your plans. But something I would really love to see, and something you might probably be able to agree on too, would be some kind of mandatory community service. Maybe one or two weeks per year in an area of choice. I think that could result in more compassion and social cohesion than "just" giving money.