The Left's assault on individual liberty, private property, and free markets extends to an insane attack on charitable giving. Part of the explanation is that leftists are totalitarians who cannot tolerate the institutions of civil society that stand between the individual and Leviathan. Here is a fine statement:
Americans are historically averse to socialism, and this helps explain their historical culture of giving generously to charity. The U.S. leads the world in private giving, donating twice as much as the runner-up (New Zealand) as a percentage of GDP.
Socialism is the enemy of charity because it outsources all compassion and altruism to the state. In an age when most Americans worry about and mourn the erosion of civil society institutions, socialism wants to supplant them all — to leave people atomized, dependent upon government from cradle to grave for material, intellectual, social, and (although it does not recognize them) spiritual needs.
But government does not and cannot truly love anyone. It is especially bad at lifting the poor out of their poverty. It has such a poor track record in dealing with true hard cases — the homeless, for example — that in the U.S. today, local governments almost universally outsource the job of caring to private charities.
Socialists believe that all meaningful human interactions are political. Theirs is a dehumanizing ideology that separates people from their neighbors. It strips human beings of moral agency. As the experience in Venezuela and in post-communist countries has demonstrated, a successful socialist system ultimately creates a contest of “every man for himself” that makes the most ruthless capitalist blush.
Excellent, except for the knee-jerk use of 'track record.' Call me a pedant! We need more pedantry, precision, and punctiliousness.
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