The cost of outsourcing human welfare to political capitals has been far too high. Today we scarcely recognize communitarian acts of kindness and tough love.
Any state action for public assistance – to note emphatically, unlike charitable action – has NO MORAL VALUE because its coercion strips away the elements of personal intention and will, which are the essence of morality. Even a strictly voluntary tax has no moral value. While a voluntary tax may satisfy the WILL of the giver, in that he freely allows the state to remediate some suffering as the state sees fit, it cannot satisfy the INTENTION necessary for a moral act. Willing without intention simply abdicates the moral choice to the state, which may spend the received voluntary tax on some purpose that the individual giver would consider evil, had he known of that purpose.
First, any tax receipt, voluntary or coerced, enters a general fund where no accounting of its ultimate dispensation is possible. Second, even should the state incidentally honor the giver’s specific intention – say, that even his voluntary tax of $1000 goes exclusively toward school lunches for the poor, or exclusively toward the creation of a “bunker buster” bomb given to the Israeli army – the giver could be certain that the intention of his gift was realized only if he himself gave it to the beneficiary directly, without the expense and obscurity of the state agent.
excellent...and is a primary theme in Robert Nisbet's brilliant classic The Quest For Community. his thesis is that the Modern Managerial State seeks to be ALL humans should ever want or need...Replacing all others Esp. the FAMILY nurturing Children in a host of helpful "Communities" without the STATE!
Any state action for public assistance – to note emphatically, unlike charitable action – has NO MORAL VALUE because its coercion strips away the elements of personal intention and will, which are the essence of morality. Even a strictly voluntary tax has no moral value. While a voluntary tax may satisfy the WILL of the giver, in that he freely allows the state to remediate some suffering as the state sees fit, it cannot satisfy the INTENTION necessary for a moral act. Willing without intention simply abdicates the moral choice to the state, which may spend the received voluntary tax on some purpose that the individual giver would consider evil, had he known of that purpose.
First, any tax receipt, voluntary or coerced, enters a general fund where no accounting of its ultimate dispensation is possible. Second, even should the state incidentally honor the giver’s specific intention – say, that even his voluntary tax of $1000 goes exclusively toward school lunches for the poor, or exclusively toward the creation of a “bunker buster” bomb given to the Israeli army – the giver could be certain that the intention of his gift was realized only if he himself gave it to the beneficiary directly, without the expense and obscurity of the state agent.
excellent...and is a primary theme in Robert Nisbet's brilliant classic The Quest For Community. his thesis is that the Modern Managerial State seeks to be ALL humans should ever want or need...Replacing all others Esp. the FAMILY nurturing Children in a host of helpful "Communities" without the STATE!
Cannot to Hightly Recc.
https://www.amazon.com/Quest-Community-Background-Essential-Conservative/dp/1935191500/ref=sr_1_1?crid=KVH2OY5CS2JU&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.jQ7hPRxWebBdky4W0t6TswXNL4CXb3kG2bkk9kLtLkfDZqnzVlm4L628xcMkgU1vLwzp8bRCek4jdotGg6U-1nxxfJGzcZpgfoYB1-0JQK2cnT1eeJI_DvGiEIbmOrht.yOv0rtQeXI-yEZDIwdIqyI9uFkY7Xuana1TAF4dyBXA&dib_tag=se&keywords=the+quest+for+community+by+robert+nisbet&qid=1727273522&sprefix=The+Quest+for+Community%2Caps%2C320&sr=8-1
> Alas, the welfare-warfare state is now a bipartisan megachurch.
I believe in the separation of EVERYTHING from the State.
The wealthy who say, "Tax us" only say it because they hide most of their wealth and assets. They have nothing to lose.