Floyd Brown Loc: Milwaukee WI

What I had hoped you would say what your view is on what the governments role should be on this issue.

slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas

:thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: :mrgreen:

Searching Loc: Rural Southwest VA

Amen.

Tasine Loc: Southwest US

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In MY view, government has no role in benevolence. Only people can be benevolent. Government is not a person and has no benevolence to give. In order to be "benevolent" to one party, government must first take what belongs to another and hand it off to the person who receives the "benevolence". In no way can this be considered benevolence as it is not something given by the owner to a recipient. Benevolence has synonyms such as: good, kind, humane, generous, liberal, benign, philanthropic, altruistic. A government cannot possibly be any of those things to one set of citizens while stealing it from another set of citizens. That makes a government a biased government as the government has no money of its own. ALL of its money comes from the pockets of citizens.

If citizens see the need for benevolence, it has the sole option of being charitable, which is NEVER mandated. Once mandated, it ceases to be charity and becomes something else altogether.

NONE of those definitions listed above can be attributed to any gift that is taken by one party acting against the will of the person who owns it, then given to a third unknown party. It can be called theft, it can be called graft, it can be called redistribution, it can be called any number of things, but benevolence it cannot be called. And it is not charity - it is a payment for doing nothing, thereby making the recipient beholden to the government whose money it didn't even produce in the first place.

Whenever government takes money by force from one citizen then unilaterally chooses to hand it to another citizen, would you not call that partiality, bias, unequal treatment? I thought all Americans wanted an impartial government. Well we don't have an impartial government. What must be concluded is that we have a government that is partial to those who NEED the government so that the politicians can profit by receiving v**es from the recipients.

lpnmajor Loc: Arkansas

I learned a lesson from my Granddad years ago. I was helping with the Optimists club Christmas distribution. A women, with three children, came in to get her kids stuff. They had requested bicycles. The women threw a fit because the bikes were not new ( they were in perfect condition ). I was ready to throw the women out on her ass, but Granddad stopped me and told me to wait outside.
When he came out he told me that other peoples ingratitude is THEIR problem and that charity is not dependent on the other persons reaction. He said " the best acts of kindness are those that the recipient never knows the source and the giver never knows the result. ". I've never forgotten that and have tried to do things that way. I walk away with my own reward in my heart and I never look back.

Searching Loc: Rural Southwest VA

:thumbup: You go girl!! Well said. :thumbup:

Searching Loc: Rural Southwest VA

Yep. It all does come down to what's in your heart. Your granddad was a very wise man indeed.

Searching Loc: Rural Southwest VA

At the risk of opening up a can of worms -- just curious as to "why" you wish to include the government as a part of this discussion. I think, judging from everyone's responses thus far, some things just transcend the political arena, matters of the heart being one of them, and in my opinion, deserves to be at the top of the list.

Searching Loc: Rural Southwest VA

bmac, I second slatten and hope you know a standing ovation.

Tasine Loc: Southwest US

Thank you. Guess it was my rant for the day. :-) :-)

bmac32 Loc: West Florida

That was the best I've felt in a every long time and everyone won. All happened by accident!

alex Loc: michigan now imperial beach californa

if the gov't didn't steal so much from us there would be more charity

Searching Loc: Rural Southwest VA

Merry Christmas, Alex. If you think about it, while it presents a real challenge, we still don't have to sink to a level of "Scroogeness". Lots of ways, taking money out of this equation, even if "you" were speaking strictly in the monetary sense, that we all can show charity in our hearts. My opinion, mind you. Safe journey during the coming week.

Tasine Loc: Southwest US

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Absolutely! Before "welfare" became the great Messiah, our people weren't starving. Many of us were born into or immediately after the great depression. One day when my dad was offered a Coke by a groceryman, he asked if, instead, he could have 1-2 potatoes. We were dirt poor, and we never were homeless, never starved. And we weren't alone....MANY people need an extra potato or two. No one I knew whined and wailed about their circumstances - they were too busy trying to solve their problems. There was abundant assistance - NOT government type assistance, but human type assistance. Most grocery stores offered credit because most didn't have money until payday. I have no doubt whatsoever that most of those bills were paid and paid on time. At least some doctors would take a chicken or a meal as payment for services rendered, often in the patient's home. If people couldn't get permanent jobs, they relied on part time jobs, and most never c***ted the lender, the employer, etc. My dad would have literally died before he would have taken a "handout", a dirty word in my household.

Most of us wore feedsack dresses and shirts to school. Most of us had one pair of Sunday shoes and one pair of school shoes. We had Sunday dress and we had school dresses. Most of us in the country, not in cities, had no phones and no electricity or running water. None of us had health insurance or government assistance, nor did we want it. My parents lived until almost 80 years of age without ever having health insurance, never reneged on a debt, and never had any medical care except 1-2 emergencies. None of us had regular dental exams or treatments. I am now 75, my sister is now 71, both have our own teeth (not dentures), both of us are up and about, neither of us have any serious disease or condition, and both of us are overweight and to a degree sedentary. What by today's standards is wrong with this picture?

Several things are wrong with today's picture that wasn't wrong back then. 1. Too many people have lost all moral authority, and are pushing the envelope. 2. Too many people are so greedy that they live on debt and when it gets too much, they simply file bankruptcy and c***t the vendors out of their money. 3. Amoral lawyers encourage people to sue over minor events, thereby making both the shyster AND the client immoral and making the vendor poorer. 4. Government do-good programs encourage people to lie and c***t in order to get freebies. 5. Our government officials create dissention between groups of citizens because dissenting people do not make for majorities and are easily ignored - unless they get really rowdy, and even then the politicians don't pay attention.

Floyd Brown Loc: Milwaukee WI

What I asked was:

"What should the governments role in this be."

From the founding of this country it has been that the role of government to see that people have the rights to life, liberty & the pursuit of happiness.

Are you removing those things from this debate?