Quote:
Originally Posted by ADL Colin
You don't have to let anyone suffer. You are free to do as you wish with your money.
What if someone can't afford their rent?
What if someone can't afford a car?
What if someone can't afford their electric bill?
What if someone can't afford a yacht?
What right does one group of people have to take someone else's earnings and give them away for any of these things? Why not a yacht? Buy some serious dignity for the homeless.
What if someone is dying of AIDS in africa?
What if someone is dying of malaria in South America?
Should more money be taken from us to pay for these things? How abut a UN tax?
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Dude, seriously? You're comparing life-saving medical treatment to cars and yachts?
"Needs" and "wants" aren't so confusing that normal people can't easily tell them apart.
But yeah, I also believe shelter and warmth should be considered a basic human right in the most prosperous country on earth in the 21st century. If civilized society makes you rich, the least you can do is be civil back. You don't have to take this libertarian capitalist thing to the extreme, because like any ideology it breaks down when you get all absolutist about it.
Even if you don't have a moral bone in your body, do it because you still have to live surrounded by these poor/unlucky people and they're less likely to rob or murder you if they're not stuck living in some social darwinist's wet dream.
And sure, eventually we can hope that all the people of the world will do their best to care for eachothers basic needs (though that obviously goes against our selfish natures) but for now our government covers the geography it covers and until we've got that under control we can be excused from not solving the whole worlds problems all at once.
If I could provide everybody with enough to eat, a place to sleep, and care when they're sick by giving away everything I own, I wouldn't hesitate. But alone it would do little good and then I'd be just another needy person myself. Advancing civilization requires everybody working together; in some cases through the sort of organization that only a government can provide.
Signed,
a reclusive atheist who personally can't fucking stand most people most of the time, but somehow I retain some empathy for those suffering the human condition alongside myself.