[detbuch]

Originally Posted by spence

Can you really rely on individual compassion when the people are part of a system?

Paul's compassion is what I was responding to. Compassion is a highly personal response. It is the personal response of an individual to the plight of another. It is inherent in human nature, not in the nature of a bureaucracy. Though individuals may collectively create bureacracies, even with compassionate intent, once it leaves their hands it operates as an impersonal mechanism. It knows no personal choice or preference or feeling, and it is not received with gratitude, but with expectation. The "system" owes, is required by law, to dole the handout. There is no person to thank or feel beholden to. Instead of gratitude when the gift is given, there is anger when it isn't. And those that pay, rarely meet the recipients and rarely feel the warm flow of personal generosity. And, as the needy grow, in response to the legal confiscation of their substance, those that pay are told they need to pay more.

This is a result of the statist's distrust of the individual, and the continual assault on individual freedom with the excuse that the individual is not capable of solving the problems of humanity. The individual is too selfish. Only the collective can eliminate the problems that ail us.

We must be part of the "system."

I can offer the beggar a cookie, but if my neighbor isn't doing the same for others the problem will still be there.

When the needy become, as apparently they are about to do so, half of the population, then, indeed, everyone and his neighbor (if he is not needy) will have to offer the cookie.

The changing pressures of industry and population can't often be normalized by individual action alone.

-spence

Yes, the collective must decide what is normal.

Isn't it interesting that as being "our brother's keeper" becomes more a responsibility of the government, the number of needy brothers expands.