| HappySqurriel said: After reading this debate on charitable donations and volunteerism and how it relates to political ideology I can’t help but think that you all have this relationship completely backwards. There is a certain group of people who hold the personal value of charity in very high regard, and it is one of their defining characteristics; and from a very young age they tend to have been volunteering their time and donating their money to charities. Quite often the charities they choose to support are those that are designed to help the same people that many people who (supposedly) are liberals claim to exclusively care for; and this tends to give them first hand experience with the problems, and with how ineffective or detrimental government solutions are. Consider someone who joined the Big-Brothers & Big Sisters club to be a mentor for a child. Now, the child they’re mentoring comes from a single parent family where the mother is on welfare and is a drug addict. While the combination of subsidized rent and financial support should be able to provide her and her child with a poor but adequate lifestyle while giving the mother the opportunity to train and find a decent job, with the exception of money for basic survival every dime is going to feeding the mother’s drug habit; and when that money isn’t enough she turns tricks, or uses her government-subsidized drug plan to scam prescription-narcotics to sell on the street, in order to get the money she needs. To what extent do you think that this person would think that welfare was a really good system? |
The consequence of taking financial support from the mother would further harm the child. No one would argue that the current system is perfect, but the problem is that people can't think of anything better. I, for one, would rather pay to keep that mother and her child in a house while supporting her selfish acts rather than to put the mother and child on the street, or I would argue for the removal of the child from the mother's care. As a liberal, I also advocate birth control so that children aren't born into such a mess, whereas conservatives would argue against birth control, and some even forbiding its use.
I asked the same thing from someone else, and I'll ask it again. Please provide me of an example where a private charity could do a better job than the government at bettering the lives of the mother and child you mentioned, and the millions and millions of others just like him. You talk of government inefficiences, yet you praise something just as inefficient.
Essay Pro