Then what do you think about "two wrongs don't make a right?" Or "The means don't justify the ends?"
If it is good to give to the poor, it is not good to steal from other people in order to get the money with which to help the poor?
I’m honestly not clear on what you mean here by “Do two wrongs make a right?” What two wrongs, specifically? Are you referring to taxation being “legalized theft” and to that alleged Constitutional prohibition on the government being in the “charity business”? I am going to go with those two, for now. Let’s deal with both.
The assertion about taxation is one I used to agree with, but no longer do. I was taught shortly after I graduated from Bible college that taxation is legalized theft, which we as Christians may not have a choice about because force will be used against us if we resist, but at least we know that when the government takes our money, we are aware that the action is inherently immoral.
That’s the form in which I was first taught the idea, anyway, and I accepted it because, like too many Bible-believing Christians, I was eager to accept whatever teachings were plausibly based on the conviction that anything secular was inherently wrong in God’s sight. Of course, I had what I thought was a good answer for the objection “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s. . .” but I no longer agree with what I used to believe. I was mistaken back then. Now I believe that human government, even by unbelievers, is permitted by God, and that in a democratic form of government the will of the majority is a legitimate basis for rule, and taxation is a necessary attribute of government. Oh, I still agree that the only perfect form of human government would be a theocracy, but the only theocracy that I will submit to is one either with Jesus Himself in charge, or one with a man in charge who has undeniable Divine backing, such as Moses had. And since neither Jesus nor any latter-day Moses is available to fill the office of World Leader, I will place my support behind our current form of government in America.
With that established, I personally believe (no chapter and verse involved; I use the same form of logical reasoning that anybody might use to make their decision) that the money that the very rich “earn” is not necessarily “earned” to begin with; it is “appropriated.” Rather than view
taxation as theft, I view
underpaying workers as theft. I am no Marxist (classical Marxism does not and
cannot work), but the law of supply and demand is not neutral; it favors those who have greater leverage. Most of the time, business owners have greater leverage to pay as little as they possibly can, and when they
can, they generally
do. So the real problem, in my opinion, is not that the government wants to
redistribute wealth. The real problem is the
ungodly concentration of wealth in the first place. Oh, I suppose you could defend that on the basis of “survival of the fittest,” but Christians aren’t supposed to be in favor of Darwinism. So I reject the notion that those who have accumulated the most wealth are necessarily the ones who deserve to have it. And if we are not able to prevent them from concentrating too big a share of the wealth into the own hands, I have no reservations about fixing things
after that happens.
So, I approve of an adequate social safety net because I believe in the concept for reasons that are sufficient for my own conscience, and if enough other people believe in it for reason that satisfy
their conscience, then it is a simple matter of majority rule, which brings up the second possible “wrong,” which is the teaching that government is Constitutionally and
Biblically wrong when it gets into the “charity” game. It may be legitimate to
argue this point of view, because any point of view is fair game for supporting or opposing. That’s what democracy is all about. I just happen to believe that the argument is mistaken on both counts; it is neither unconstitutional nor unBiblical. To combine the points, I see nothing wrong with using tax money to fund programs that achieve at least a minimal amount of material security for all: nobody in America should starve, nobody should be homeless, nobody should have to live in wretched living conditions, and nobody should be denied reasonable medical care. Ever.
Anybody is of course free to disagree, and I will never fault anybody for simply disagreeing. By the same measure, nobody should fault me for using logical arguments for laying out my own position.
