<p>okay, so maybe that's a stretch. but honsestly: think about it.</p>
<p>the government is taking money away from rich people by force to give to the poor people. a lot of these poor people are homeless and too lazy to get a job. why can't they just go work at mcdonalds or something? </p>
<p>i'm not against donations to people who are less well off, but i don't see it as rightful for the government to take away money from people who earned it. </p>
<p>donation to charity is a moral value the people do or do not have. if someone legitimately earned their money, he or she should not be forced to give it away. that's like a violation of that person's autonomy.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>What you're referring to is not even close to being a communist phenomenon (if you're trying to refer to the more marxist versions of communism anyways). Try socialism, social democracy, or even reform liberalism. Adam Smith, in his "Wealth of Nations", even suggests that the government should provide for people in specific cases. He's usually seen as the one of the founders of classical liberal economic thought, but there's a lot more to him than that.</p></li>
<li><p>Government takes money away from people who "earn it" (through taxes) and uses it in all types of ways. They pay bureaucrats' salaries, they subsidize industry, they give to welfare programs, etc. The basic idea behind welfare programs is raising or maintaining a minimum standard of living. The distribution of income can be an important measure of the standard of living of a society, and it is often thought that having people live in conditions of poverty is morally unacceptable. Taxes are not a violation of people's autonomy because they fuel the institution (government) that protects a people's rights to autonomy in the first place. The government can then spend the tax revenues in a number of ways. If somebody doesn't think that their money should be spend on welfare programs, I could just as easily argue that I don't want my money spent on the military or subsidizing industries.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>
[quote]
a lot of these poor people are homeless and too lazy to get a job. why can't they just go work at mcdonalds or something?
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</p>
<p>For one, many of these people aren't simply lazy, but also have mental illnesses. Those that are mentally healthy usually do not have the opportunities even for a job like fast food, as they don't have an address, records (such as an SSN), or a place to keep clean and healthy enough to work.</p>
<p>Another factor is minimum wage laws. There is a wide gulf between minimum wage and living wage. Certainly we can debate the problem of single mothers with multiple children and the degree to which they are responsible for their own circumstances, but that doesn't do anything to address the problem. In addition, I'm sure that a not so small percentage of them are women who have been abandoned by the husbands/fathers or have ex-husbands/fathers who fail to pay child support. It is not possible to raise a family on today's minimum wage, even with the pending increase.</p>
<p>Many (not all) of these women have either not completed high school or only have a high school diploma. That means for most of them the only jobs they can get are those that are either at or below minimum wage. Then you further complicate the situation when states reduce a person's welfare subisidies when they go to work.</p>
<p>If you have a child, or children by the time you go to work under these circumstances your family is worse off financially than if you do not work. Failing to provide some financial support would actually only increase the likelihood of even more social problems i.e. homelessness, crime, etc.</p>
<p>cowgirlatheart:
1. ok, socialist
2. sure, taxes are used to fuel the government. but since when is free money if you don't work a person's right? the way taxes are used isn't 100% effective and correct -- i doubt anyone here agrees completely with their usage. i mean, sure a military protects us all, and the government keeps the country in tact. but how does social welfare fit into this category?</p>
<p>wharfrat2: part of life is taking responsibility. if you aren't responsible enough to have a kid, get an abortion. if you want to keep your kid, you should have been responsible in the first place. it's not other people's duty to pay for your messups. </p>
<p>pugfug90: yea, i don't like my parents taxes going to the hobo who stands next to 7-11 and tries to get even more money off of me.</p>
<p>but anyways, the only person who actually replied to my point at least a bit was cowgirlatheart. thanks for actually reading what i had to say. i wasn't arguing that homeless or poor people are bad/ don't need money, but that forcing money out of taxes to give to them violates the rights of the people who pay the taxes.</p>
<p>The rich people wouldn't be able to get as rich as they are without the environment that they grew up in. they weren't able to become rich and successful all by themselves, so they really owe it to society to give away some of their earnings. you might argue that if someone gets a certain salary, that person in entitled to that entire salary because he earned it. but when you think about it, there were other people that helped him get to that position or job, and the environment that he lived in also helped him succeed. There's a report that recently came out about this called ""I Didn't Do It Alone: Society's Contribution to Individual Wealth and Success" Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, and other really rich people are highlighted in the report, and they all state that they did not get to where they are now by themselves.</p>
<p>Now that I look over this post, I'm not so sure I really stuck to the topic. oh well</p>
<p>"The rich people wouldn't be able to get as rich as they are without the environment that they grew up in. they weren't able to become rich and successful all by themselves, so they really owe it to society to give away some of their earnings."</p>
<p>Oh god. Don't.</p>
<p>Without the merits of that single person, could society have what it does today? You can charge for manual labor, but where does the idea come from, but from the mind of a thinking individual. Certain individuals may have gotten help from others -- but help does not warrant charity on society as a whole. Yes, they have earned their money. They do not owe anything to society, but by sharing their ideas and accomplishing whatever it was that made them rich -- they've repaid any debt that they did not have.</p>
<p>though I do enjoy painting, sketching, and the like.</p>
<p>ayn rand's atlas shrugged. I don't dare call myself an objectivist, but it's the closest I've come to defining myself by any sort of collective term.</p>
<p>I typically despise welfare, though there are certain exceptions.</p>