Jump to content
Objectivism Online Forum

Uncle Sam's Charity

Rate this topic


edward j williamson

Recommended Posts

I wrote, and had published, this article three years ago in response to the President's call for the so-called "Faith-Based Initiative". I noticed a thread here dealing with religion and politics, and it has become a hot button issue, and I imagine, a bone of contention for objectivists. It is also viewed the same by libertarians as well. Anyway, I was going to post this in the essay forum, but since this issue has come front and center in the current political arena, I thought I'd post it here. Feel free to comment and critique.-EJW

Uncle Sam’s Charity

By Edward J. Williamson

Scarcely days after President Bush was sworn into office, he signed an initiative that greatly changed the scope and character of what was once a wholly voluntary and private endeavor, charity. Commonly known as the Faith-Based Initiative, it was formulated on the platform espoused by George Bush during his campaign, that of ‘compassionate conservatism’. We hear slogans being thrown around by politicians, in an appeal to sound caring and sympathetic to the plight of those who are somehow ‘less fortunate’. Empty platitudes such as ‘not a hand up, but a hand out’, or ‘give the people the tools so they can succeed,’ are blown around like so much chaff in a swirling breeze. So just what is this ‘Faith-Based Initiative’ and what are its implications for the future? How exactly does it conform to the Federal Government’s constitutional mandates as enumerated in the Constitution? Lastly, how should we, as freedom loving independent individuals, react and respond to this new ‘caretaker’ initiative?

On January 29, 2001 President Bush submitted to the nation his declaration to implement his ‘Faith-Based Initiative’ program. Nary a word had been uttered previously as to this program, so I was quite taken aback when this initiative was being lined up to be signed that very day. In his remarks to those in the audience at the Indian Treaty Room of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Executive Building, President Bush harkened back to his inaugural address:

“As I said in my inaugural address, compassion is the work of a nation, not just a government. It is more than the calling of politicians; it is the calling of citizens. It is citizens who turn mean streets into good neighborhoods. It is citizens who turn cold cities into real communities.”

In this quote he tips his hand when he insinuates that compassion is the work of the government, along with the work of the nation, as in all of us. This is said in an attempt to establish the fact that we as Americans are responsible to take care of those less fortunate. What is happening here is that charity and charitable giving is being promoted as a collectivist entity, being removed from its proper place of the individual’s contributions through voluntary choice. In essence, in order to appear to be legitimate, the government is attempting another social remedy via the ‘back-door approach’ by legislating voluntary giving through the auspices of religious organizations. Through religious organizations, which are essentially private enterprises, the government, by proxy, seeks to control the distributing of monies given voluntarily by individuals, with the intent to serve a specific group of people or causes.

Another problem with the idea of the ‘Faith-Based Initiative’ crops up again in this same speech:

“It is one of the great goals of my administration to invigorate the spirit of involvement and citizenship. We will encourage faith-based and community programs without changing their mission. We will help all in their work to change hearts while keeping a commitment to pluralism.”

So it can be inferred that if an individual chooses not to voluntarily donate his hard earned money that he is not a good citizen. In this and the former quote, one can deduce that it is inherent and necessary to be imbued with a sense of altruism in order to be a good and worthy citizen of the United States. When governments use schemes such as this, in order to justify using tax money to further a political agenda, we are no longer in complete charge of the hard-earned fruits of our labors. We are then required, either by insinuation and innuendo, or by force as in taxation, to provide an avenue for the government to redistribute the money of the people.

Again, on Thursday, December 12 in a speech to thousands of religious leaders, Bush stated,

“When the federal government gives contracts to private groups to provide social services, religious groups should have an equal chance to compete.” In other words, by omission, it is the right and duty of the federal government to disburse these funds to any private group in the first place. What is being intimated here is that the government has a right to add new mandates authorizing it to use the people money in order to provide funding for social services. What is this then other than a conservative version of ‘The Great Society’? We all know how well that worked, don’t we?

Society’s gullible and duped point out that the government is just providing an avenue to make it easier and more efficient to distribute the funds to where they will do the most good. Governments traditionally rely upon the naivete of this kind of thinking. Since when has anything the government ever proposed, or any government program ever been a model of efficiency. How is it that now, after 226 years of providing food, clothing, shelter, and comfort, our private institutions like churches are no longer capable of providing these services without government interference? Why is it that churches and other charitable agencies need to fill out paperwork for grants in order to provide help for the ‘downtrodden’ amongst us?

“I approach this goal with some basic principles: Government has important responsibilities for public health or public order and civil rights. Yet government -- and government will never be replaced by charities and community groups. Yet when we see social needs in America, my administration will look first to faith-based programs and community groups, which have proven their power to save and change lives. We will not fund the religious activities of any group, but when people of faith provide social services, we will not discriminate against them.

As long as there are secular alternatives, faith-based charities should be able to compete for funding on an equal basis, and in a manner that does not cause them to sacrifice their mission. And we will make sure that help goes to large organizations and to small ones as well. We value large organizations with generations of experience. We also value neighborhood healers, who have only the scars and testimony of their own experience.”

I don’t know about all of you, but contained within these two paragraphs of the President’s speech is some very noticeable contradictions. Juxtapose the last sentence in the first paragraph of the above quote with the first sentence of the second paragraph. He says, “we will not fund the religious activities of any group” then he says, “ faith-based charities should be able to compete for funding”. Last I checked, religious activities of churches included charitable services. Right here is an example of government seeking to become the ‘benevolent caretaker’ of all its many children. Here we have one of the last vestiges of voluntary, no strings attached institutions, our religious organizations, and the nefarious fingers of government are inextricably weaving their way into them, and ultimately into our pocketbooks, once again.

We, as a people, can not allow this invasion into the private sector to take place. The future implications of allowing government to decide and dictate how private charities should give and to whom is a slippery slope that we can not allow ourselves to slide down. With government, the old adage, give ‘em and inch and they take a mile’ is most apropos. Allowing government to fund charitable endeavor defeats the spirit of charity. Charity is not mandated; it is a wholly voluntary enterprise. Let’s fight to keep government out of our daily and private lives. Refuse to allow them to get a foothold into one of the values that we cherish – the right to determine if, when, and how we support charitable foundations. Most of all say no to Uncle Sam’s charity.

Edited by GreedyCapitalist
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...