Charity

A common problem with libertarianism's preachers is that they often do not explain what'd happen to people dependent upon welfare and other government programs if such programs were eliminated. Sometimes they end the argument with something like, "Instead of continuing inefficient government programs that are unsustainable in the long run and encourage dependency, we should turn to our local communities, charities, and churches for help." But this statement is not necessarily going to be convincing. In fact, it shouldn't be. An alarm should go off in your head somewhere, especially with the part about churches.

It is true that the Roman Catholic Church is one of the largest suppliers of charity money in Massachusetts, and it was apparently the largest not so long ago. Thus churches in themselves are considerable resources in the battle to provide (food, water, shelter, clothing, counseling, medical care) for people who cannot provide for themselves. But of course, when you think about the idea of church missions, you'd also think about missionaries. The world's history of missionaries is not pretty. You can very well look at it skeptically as religious organizations' exploitation of the desperate poor to expand the size of their membership. It may not have been the story everywhere, but it certainly is a common one. And looking back to today, is there not something reprehensible about fake abortion clinics that keep a woman in consultation until it's too late for her to get an abortion? These exist! So imagining the picture of an America where religious organizations provided all welfare, and government programs provided none of it, I would be nervous, and you should be too, regardless of your religious convictions. I have to ask myself the question as a libertarian: Should poorer citizens have to sacrifice the liberty of their religious convictions to obtain resources or care that they cannot afford to pay for? The answer is a no that resounds off the variously contoured inner surfaces of the skull encircling my brain.

The funny part about my mentioning the Roman Catholic Church, however, is that they apparently don't bug you about your religious beliefs if you go to them. That's obviously something I like. However, to look on the ugly side, there are probably a lot of parents who wouldn't want their kids alone with a priest nowadays, even for a minute in the confession box. Trust is a big issue here. Can you trust charities, churches, or even your local community nowadays? Could you ever have done so in the past as much as you wanted to?

But as long as there are significant economic (and social) incentives against breaking the law or doing bad things within the scope of the law, you can worry a lot less. There's another problem: this precondition is met with less frequency during a recession, such as the one we are in now (don't believe Ben Bernanke if he tells you we're not). So the argument at the start of this paragraph (which is one that libertarians make all the time!) fails during a recession. Not good. So what else is there?

There's the government. Can you trust that government? Bush 2001-2008 (and I'd say Obama 2009, although you're not supposed to say that yet because you can't criticize Obama and be respected by his supporters at the same time, much like it was for Bush during the previous period or how it is now for Palin during the same period), endgame. Well, there's the state government, which is more accountable to the people (sometimes. Not in Massachusetts) and I'd argue more trusty as a result. Nonetheless, I'm going to argue that there is an alternative to trusting the government.

Asking the government to take care of welfare is like asking Mom to wash the dishes when you know she's tired from working all day. It's neglecting a basic personal responsibility. The problem is that for the general welfare case, we often call this "social responsibility." But the CEO from Whole Foods is right to call it "personal responsibility" instead, and we need to start looking at it this way. It's easy to claim that putting the government in charge of ensuring food and water is a reasonable way of doing things when there are way too many people to take care of. However, there is at least a flaw with saying it's the only way of doing things. What if instead of asking bureaucrats to take care of welfare agencies, we empassioned ourselves to put on the shoes of the people who don't have enough, and all worked to stop it? While that sentence sounds idealistic, it in fact isn't. The strength of charity is remarkable as it is, and inspires admiration in those who aren't self-deprecating enough to be jealous of such people for what they perceive to be selfish heroism. I'm still amazed that there are people willing to go to the worst regions of the world and work for nothing but the knowledge that they are doing something good. What we need to work on is strengthening not just our confidence in the power of non-governmental charity but also our belief in genuinely participating in charity endeavors consistently ourselves. Yeah, us.

And that's something that I personally have to work on myself. I haven't done anything charity-related since high school. I think I just did it because it was right, something to do, and let's be honest, something to put on my resume. (There was plenty of stuff to put on my resume back then, though, as there is now. I did enjoy the work I was doing more than just knowing it would help me, but the resume part was there too.) But how can I claim that there can be a transition to less reliance on government programs without acting myself to help people who need something to rely on? That's something today's libertarians have to talk about. And it would help, of course, if libertarians were to establish organizations that offered help to all with full respect for personal liberty. If those Christian fundamentalists who believe in libertarianism united with those libertarians who are scared of fundamentalism to create an organization that provided services to people along with a guarantee of expecting nothing in return and accepting people without looking badly at them for who they are or their current personal situation, that would be a huge step. None of the politicians I see nowadays who epitomize libertarianism have underlined what they would personally do in situations where Americans do not have the government programs they have relied upon for so long. Yes, Ron Paul talks about putting a freeze on cuts from Social Security and so forth, but what about afterwards? Capitalism isn't perfect. No, it's not the politicians' role to start charities in the meantime, but if they're to be the only leaders, they're going to have to do everything. I guess that means political leadership needs to extend outward from politicians themselves. But that's something that our current political mess could've benefitted from anyway, with Cindy Sheehan being one of the few people I can name in the category of political leaders who aren't politicians.

And in that sense it all begins at home. We've got to have faith in ourselves, because putting it in governments is just keeping the faith further and further away from home, and sooner or later that is all gonna crash. And that faith in community I'm talking about begins with faith in oneself.