Charity is great.
Good people recognize that sometimes their fellow peers, who are suffering, should be given an altruistic hand. It is the right thing to do.
Helping the poor is a wonderful and compassionate act that should be admired. At the same time, larceny should not be condoned under the guise of good intentions.
One should not steal in order to offer aid to his or her fellow man. Then why is it OK when the federal government does it?
The farce is deplorable, especially since it occurs in the name of support.
We, as people, have a moral obligation to feed those who starve, but we should not allow anyone to go into the business of theft.
Republicans have been calling for reform of the welfare state, yet once in power, they fail to live up to promises.
There is not any difference between the two parties. Their names could be interchangeable on almost any policy. Government coerces us to give blindly to the people, whether they deserve some form of financial assistance or if they are just individuals who cheat the system.
No one has the right to take what is yours in the name of charity. You sweat, bleed and labor for your earnings by being productive to feed the family or to invest in the future.
"It's amazing to me how many people think that voting to have the government give poor people money is compassion," said Penn Jillette, magician and fellow at the Cato Institute. "Helping poor and suffering people is compassion. Voting for our government to use guns to give money to help poor and suffering people is immoral, self-righteous, bullying laziness."
"Poor" people are not the only culprits who undermine capitalism and the foundations of the United States. Corporate welfare is just as evil, if not worse.
The big government bailouts of the auto industry and Troubled Asset Relief Fund for the banks are sinister programs that undermine the principles of capitalism.
The protesters on Wall Street present legitimate complaints about the current economic system we live in.
However, they are wrong on the causation as well as the solutions.
Capitalism would have let the losers fail, plain and simple.
The intermediate banks would have risen to the top to fill the void. Ford and other more profitable car manufacturers would have swooped to take the losers' place, reallocating resources and jobs accordingly.
Jobs would not have been lost but dispersed among various companies to meet their new demands.
Sincerely ask yourself this: "Is it better to be considered ‘poor' in a rich nation or poor in a poor country?"
Choices have ramifications allowing us to climb up or fall down the ladder. The state uses aggression to maintain the status quo.
Mandated philanthropy is a farcical phrase for force. Liberty, on the other hand, gives meaning to altruistic acts. To choose something on one's own free will is profoundly more potent in action and message to the recipients of good deeds.
The word "freedom" has often been thrown around every two to four years as rhetoric for politicians to grandly stand on "controversial" issues in order to appeal to the majority's will.
As these clowns vie for power, they tarnish the value of liberty. Our liberty will continue to erode with time.
James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, once said, "I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations."
Nicholas Butler is a journalism sophomore at UF. His column appears on Wednesdays.
