Why is welfare moral?

Well I've been to and lived in countries where they just let the blind, the disabled, their veterans and so on, just die in the streets. I like America better.
Can anyone name a country they've lived in, that has no social programs and is a place they would like to live permenently? I can't.

 

It's the same argument the Nazi used in the Nuremberg Trials. 6 millions Jews killed and their defense was that killing Jews was the law of the land.

Evil is evil no matter how much you try to dress it up.

 

Unfortunately for you Abraham Lincoln is not the ultimate what words mean, what is moral, and he believed in welfare.

 

It is not the same argument.
One is about the taxation powers granted by the people to an elected representative government in a democratic republic.
The other is about a defense of genocide.

 

False analogies are not very convincing. The Power to Tax is delegated to our elected representatives.

 

There is a big difference between parenting and slavery. You choice to be a parent. No one choices to be a slave. You have to participate in the welfare state regardless if you want to or not. Just like slave brought here from Africa against their will.

 

So you equate mass genocide to making sure that a Marine Corps Sergeant who had his legs blown off by an IED, doesn't starve to death or perhaps even gets mental health benefits. Or the waitress who barely gets by and has a special needs child. Or the children whose parents were killed in a car accident.
How about the Libertarian who just found himself unemployed through no fault of his own? Like our neighbor in Houston. Worked for a utility company his whole life. Wife had Hodgkin's disease. Saved through company 401K and options. Then ENRON went under two years before he was going to retire. Lost everything. Couldn't get a job because he was 60. Medical bills went through the roof because this was before that horrible ObamaCare and so she couldn't get coverage.
Were you the one yelling "Let him die" in the audience during the GOP debates, by any chance?

But it's people who disagree with you in any way, who are evil eh? Okay.

 

The argument still holds water.

Throughout this thread people keep hiding behind the law of the land argument. The "promote the general welfare" is in the constitution. So what happens when the law of the land is evil?

Back in the day, Whites owning Blacks was the law of the land. Was it right then? Because it was the law? History is full of men hiding behind "laws".

 

Having to participate in our warfare-state should be considered worse than having to participate in a welfare-state.

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Our supreme law of the land cannot be "evil" since its objective is to secure the Blessings of Liberty.

 

It is irrelevant if other people are arguing as I was addressing your statement in the context of the back and forth provided below where it looks like you completely ignored what I wrote and just repeated yourself. You did not address what I wrote.

Now, whether or not a law is morally right or not it is still the law of the land no matter morality. If you want moral right and wrong do not look to the law, join a religious or spiritual sect, or some fraternity.

"Promote the general welfare" is not a law.

The sale and trading of slaves in Colonial American and the United States as well as in other parts of the world was evolving http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_United_States so nothing is as simple as you portray it out of context.

 

Yes it's called forced altruism.

 

There is no such thing as forced altruism. LOL

 

Its from Ayn Rand. Read up.

 

Provide for the general welfare is the law.

 

Ayn wrote fiction: one great (Fountainhead); one tedious (Shrugged). She was an author and not an economist.

 

Fiction is often used to illustrate philosophy. The question of forced charity is a philosophical one.​

 

What if, I postulate that the only reason we need "public charity" is because we are not moral enough to solve poverty through private charity?

 

Terrific.

Meanwhile, Ayn's Objectivism (Laissez-faire raised to the level of a moral imperitive / religion) indeed has some dire consequences, such as Alan Greenspan buying in whole hog, and even being one of Ayn's most distinguished followers, leading to a gutting of post-Great Depression protections in Glass Steagall. Astonishing, since I would have thought Greenspan a more informed and intelligent man. But to his credit, he did say, simply, "I was wrong."

Thus, the philosphical can have real impacts, such as bringing the world economy to the brink of collapse.

 

If, as is claimed by some that welfare may be immoral, then warfare must be worse due to the hellish conditions on Earth engendered by such policies.

 

Yes, choices made in public policy -- for philosophical or other reasons -- have real impact. Forced altruism may well have brought the world to the brink collapse.​

 

Ridiculous. Social welfare is perhaps one of the best ways money can be redistributed. I'll explain, but first let's be real about what was the cause of the Great Recession:

Glass Steagall protectons were gutted in service of a novel idea, which in fact was built on noble objectives: reduce risk. (credit default swaps) However, banks suddenly, and wrongfully, assumed they had no risk, and went hog wild lending to anyone with a pulse, and maybe even some without. Homes sold like hotcakes and went up in value so quickly that many familes saw greater income from home equity than they did from their shrinking paychecks, which were no prob since creditcards were handed out like candy, which when hitting their high limits could easily be paid off with a bill consolidation loan, based on their inflated home "value." The result was banks buying loan packages with over 70% of the mortages not meeting their own credit requirements. But no prob since credit default swaps allowed them to buy them without sufficient liquidity backing them up, and investors were easily hoodwinked into buying them up in mortgage-backed securities, believing the home market was a never ending pot of gold at the end of a perpetual rainbow. Then the home market went in the toilet, and it all came crashing down.

Now back to "forced altruism" (social welfare). Economies are nothing more than money moving around. And the poor are the absolute highest monetary velocity point in our economy. The very well-off are in contrast very low monetary velocity. They spend only a tiny portion of their income buying goods and services. So tax them and pumping the money into the economy at high monetary velocity points gets things going. Stuff is bought. Business scale to meet demand, and over invest in anticipation of continued growth in consumer buying, creating more growth. And the money does not stay with the poor. It perculates right back to the top, gaining momentum on its way back to the top in the growing economy which benefits the wealthy in parallel. Bear in mind, the wealthy increase in income with economic growth. The poor keep getting the same checks. Workers keep getting the same pay, mostly, and only new co-workers. But the owner / stock holder get paid on the profits, which rise signficantly when money is redistributed in the economy -- and not taken from them and given to the poor to keep and hoard, as the rich will, if we do not mobilize the capital via taxes and reinvesting into the economy.

 

The best way to redistribute wealth a man has earned is to offer him compelling value in trade, so he voluntarily spends the amassed wealth.
​

 

What can you offer to Bill Gates that will compell him to spend his income for goods and services in the US?