Signs of Contradiction

There is something I’ve been wondering for a while.  What’s with all the wealthy democrats? I’ve encountered them and heard stories of them for quite some time- from wealthy democrats of Newport to petite blonde mothers driving big SUVs with Obama stickers on the back.  Why are they democrats? why do they support Obama-care? Don’t they have money to lose in all of this…

Well one obvious answer is that these democrats simply use the poor minorities as numbers and pawns to win their game.  Isn’t that reminiscent of their sudden embrace of African Americans during the civil rights movement, when civil rights had historically been a republican platform?

My guess is that these wealthy democrats use their political party as charity.  Instead of acting charitably, they count on their government to provide charitable acts instead.  They ease their guilt by reminding themselves that they are democrats, and not republicans who hate poor people.

My problem is this: Charity should be a voluntary act, committed out of love of others.

By participating in wealth redistribution, the government is taking away from charitable giving.  Taking care of the sick of the poor is the responsibility of individual citizens, not the government.

The other problem with wealth redistribution is that by taking money that someone else has earned you are essentially forcing them to work for you for free.  This is a form of slavery, and it is not a right of the government.

Take the words of President Grover Cleveland in addressing welfare, “I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and duty of the General Government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering…Though the people should support the Government, the Government should not support the people.  The friendliness and charity of our country can always be relied upon to relieve their fellow-citizens in misfortune. “