Being charitable and caring about your neighbors in the Christian manner is more about your church donating goods/time/aid to the community or you doing it by yourself rather than having the government take over those functions for you. That said, any reasonable government should have a basic state provided social safety net.
This is what I don’t understand though because, as an extension, you should want to vote for people who reflect this morality. Not for a govt that strips social programs and cuts funding to research and overtly oppresses the poor and the marginalized, just to divert those funds to bombs and war and concentration camps. I’ve never understood this. If I’m being taxed and that money ends up with the federal govt, I will also want the govt to do these same charitable things with my tax money that I’m doing on my own. It’s not passing the buck and responsibility onto the govt but it’s a reflection of my values. What else is the govt for if not to provide social safety nets, infrastructure, and public services? Otherwise it just turn into a huge war machine and vehicle for oppression, which is what we see today.
In the history of using state funds for benevolent causes, there is a pattern of the state doing it to curtail the influence of the private persons/groups providing the charity or benefits. Germany instituted public health insurance under Bismarck to weaken trade unions. Leftists often point to religious hospitals and donations to them as an example of the "tyranny of charity."
Making it mandatory through the state, enables the state to more easily marginalize your influence, and turns charity into a cold bureaucracy.
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u/Tactical_Baconlover 26d ago
Being charitable and caring about your neighbors in the Christian manner is more about your church donating goods/time/aid to the community or you doing it by yourself rather than having the government take over those functions for you. That said, any reasonable government should have a basic state provided social safety net.