"Fostering the good-for-nothing at the expense of the good is an extreme cruelty. It is a deliberate storing up of miseries for futute generations. There is no greater curse to posterity than that of bequeathing them an increasing population of imbeciles and idlers and criminals. To aid the bad in multiplying is, in effect, the same as maliciously providing for our descendants a larger host of enemies. It may be doubted whether the maudlin philanthropy which, looking only at direct mitigations, ignores indirect mischiefs, does not inflict more misery than the extremist selfishness inflicts. Refusing to consider the remote influences of his incontinent generosity, the thoughtless giver stands but a degree above the drunkard who, absorbed in today's pleasure, think not of to-morrow's pain, or the spendthrift who buys immediate delights at the cost of ultimate poverty. In one respect, indeed he is worse; since while getting the present gratifivcation caused by giving gratification, lie leaves the future evils to be borne by others-escaping them himself." Herbert Spencer


Are public and private charity both evil?

Didn't the King James version of the Bible equate the words 'charity' with 'love'?




The goodness of anything is defined through a prism inherently based on indivdual experience. It may also be defined by the intent of the giver. If the intent is to keep the receiver in a state of psychological servitude, then the intent can be decidedly negative. If the intent is to lift the receiver from a state in which charity is needed, then the intent may be said to be positive.

That being said.....heaven forfend I should live in a world bereft of charity.

No.

What signifies, says some one, giving halfpence to beggars? they only lay it out in gin or tobacco. "And why should they be denied such sweeteners of their existence (says Johnson)? it is surely very savage to refuse them every possible avenue to pleasure, reckoned too coarse for our own acceptance. Life is a pill which none of us can bear to swallow without gilding; yet for the poor we delight in stripping it still barer, and are not ashamed to shew even visible displeasure, if ever the bitter taste is taken from their mouths."
Samuel Johnson

The charitable man has found the path of liberation. He is like the man who plants a sapling securing thereby the shade, the flowers and the fruits in future years. Even so is the result of charity, even so is the joy of him who helps those that are in need of assistance: even so is the great nirvana 
Buddha 
 
The charitable man is loved by all ; his friendship is prized highly; in death his heart is at the rest and full of joy, for he does not suffer from repentance; he receives the opening flower of his reward and the fruit that ripens from it 
Buddha 
 
Charity is a duty unto every Muslim. He who has not the means thereto let him do a good act or abstain from an evil one. That is his charity 
Prophet Muhammad 
 
The kingdom of Ahura Mazda is for him who helps the needy 
Zararthustra 

Charity never humiliated him who profited from it, nor ever bound him by the chains of gratitude, since it was not to him but to God that the gift was made.
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Is the lack of charity, public or private, evil?

Only public charity is evil.

Perhaps I am not understanding this correctly.......

Does the above statement mean that when the US government delivers food to a starving people, or sends food and medicine to an area (here or abroad) that has been stricken with a famine/earthquake/hurricane/pick a disaster......that's evil?

Yes, to take money, by force, out of one person's hands and give it to another is nothing more than legalized theft.

Evil is a pretty strong word, hugo. But, I totally agree with you: the huge government subsidies given to corporations and industries - evil, all the way. Some examples? How about the S&L bailout? Billions of dollars, when over 80% of the money was covering malfeasance on the part of the S%Ls. Our government pays for corporate advertising in foreign countries. Not a tax write off or anything, we just pay for them to put up billboards or make commercials for foreign markets.

Wait, did you mean welfare? Oops. Even before Clinton's welfare reform act, less than 40% of those receiving AFDC and Food Stamps were on welfare for more than one year continuously. And since the money spent on means-tested welfare (for the poor) is a pretty small percentage of our GDP, I figure you must mean the kind of aid that's going to people and companies that already have millions of dollars...

I meant any form of transfer payment. It matters not if it goes to a corporation, or an individual, it is still legalized theft.

Of course, welfare payments are the greater evil.

hugo: May we assume that you do not associate with any religious denomination?

Well, I am beginning to feel kind of lonesome here - but when our country sends food and medicine abroad to another country that has suffered some kind of disaster like an earthquake - I feel pretty good about that.

Yes, religious and other groups can help too, but not on the scale that the government can. And there are times when that kind of scale is necessary - like when an earthquake hits somewhere.

Yes,you may.

Basheva: You're not alone. Disaster relief is the very least a country as wealthy as the US can do. Of course, it would be nice if we could sort out some of our own disasters as well - like our educational system. But there's no reason, as a nation, that we can't afford to do both. Frankly, I would much rather my tax dollars go into providing a meal for someone who has lost their home to an earthquake than into the Bush administration's war machine.

This is a sucker's button pushing debate. The alternative is a return to the English poor house. Spencer was a social Darwinist. In this theory (and that of Edmund Burke) the disservice is done to the society because the payments out to the poor will result in their procreation. If a poor person's standard of living is raised in this theory, because that poor person is a social darwinistic loser he will waste the money and procreate more. Thereafter more poor people are in the world and thus the number of people living in misery. The only loser is the donor of charity.

Additionally under a similar theory, The Iron Law of Wages (David Ricardo I believe) an employer is doing society a disservice by paying laborers any more than a subsistence wage. The overpaid worker will waste the money at the pub and procreate until there is no excess income and increase the number of people living in misery.

Yawn. (from the button pressee)

Evidence refutes the theories of Ricardo and Malthus that led to economics being called the dismal science. Only in societies where capitalism is in it's infancy or government controls the means of production do people still live at barely a subsistence level. Spencer, as far as his stand against public charity goes, has been proven correct.

Now bore me with your failed socialist ideas. (yawn)