Template:Private alms

Public and private alms-giving

Neither the Constitution nor the government it created made America great.

Those who have the eyes for the offices of power cannot see where they are going for they do not understand that "the love of power is the demon of men".

"Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch." Matthew 15:14

Almost 200 year ago the solutions to liberty were well practiced and known if not understood by all. This was because 2000 years ago Jesus gave us the answer which was living by love, not force and many who made it to America could not have survived with out submission to His Way. While all the prophets told us the same thing more recently Alexis de Tocqueville expressed clearly that at least one thing was key to the American greatness he observed:

• "[I]ndividual alms-giving established valuable ties between the rich and the poor. The deed itself involves the giver in the fate of the one whose poverty he has undertaken to alleviate. The latter, supported by aid which he had no right to demand and which he had no hope to getting, feels inspired by gratitude. A moral tie is established between those two classes whose interests and passions so often conspire to separate them from each other, and although divided by circumstance they are willingly reconciled." Alexis de Tocqueville, the author of "Democracy in America".

Moses' nation of Israel was supported by freewill offerings of the people through a network of voluntary actions and contributions to ministers, called Levites, who met basic requirements laid out in the scriptures. There were no compelled taxes until after the people went against the wisdom and warnings of God and elected a ruler in 1 Samuel 8.

The free nation generated by the unselfish generosity of the people in a daily ministration of charity can maintain liberty because society is united by their unselfish practices and remain strong and viable. Strangers and pilgrims tried a common warehouse according to the socialist ideology of from each according to their need and to each according to their need. They quickly understood that "legal charity" they tried at New Plymouth and Jamestown undermined society and brought famine and death. Fortunately, they quickly applied the principle of 2 Thessalonians 3:10 "For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat."

Alexis de Tocqueville continued clarifying the important distinction between individual alms-giving and what he calls legal charity or Public alms:

• "This is not the case with legal charity. The latter allows the alms to persist but removes its morality. The law strips the man of wealth of a part of his surplus without consulting him, and he sees the poor man only as a greedy stranger invited by the legislator to share his wealth. The poor man, on the other hand, feels no gratitude for a benefit that no one can refuse him and that could not satisfy him in any case. Public alms guarantee life but do not make it happier or more comfortable than individual alms-giving; legal charity does not thereby eliminate wealth or poverty in society. One class still views the world with fear and loathing while the other regards its misfortune with despair and envy. Far from uniting these two rival nations, who have existed since the beginning of the world and who are called the rich and poor, into a single people, it breaks the only link which could be established between them. It ranges each one under a banner, tallies them, and, bringing them face to face, prepares them for combat." Alexis de Tocqueville, the author of "Democracy in America".

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Moral test

Only a moral society can remain a free society. The most ancient test for morality is do the people equally care about their neighbor as much as they care about themaelves?

In America back the 17' and 1800s the top schools, like Harvard and Princeton,  were available for rich and poor. It was written into many college charters that no one was turned away because of poverty. Alexis Tocqueville came to America in the 1800 s to discover the cause of its success.

"Americans group together to hold fêtes, found seminaries, build inns, construct churches, distribute books, dispatch missionaries... They establish hospitals, prisons, schools by the same method." He also wrote, "I have seen Americans making great and sincere sacrifices for the key common good and a hundred times I have noticed that, when needs be, they almost always gave each other faithful support" (Tocqueville 1840,).

So, America rose not out of government but it  was all done through charitable association.

Local schools, roads and hospitals and asylums were built by the militia and through charitable contributions. The militia was "every able bodied male between 17 and 45" both rich and poor.

There was little or no class struggle in most of America. At the beginning of the twentieth century Americans began to move away from those moral practices of charity that brought them together in many areas of life and either through apathy or ambition looked more to government and less to one another.

Without the daily practice of charity a move toward force as means of a social safety net will be inevitable.

If Austria or any people were already in a moral decline with a divided educational system and resorting to government force was the only path they were willing to select they have already sealed their fate. It may have been comfortable but not righteous. It may satisfy today's needs but things will change and the prophecy of Polybius, the historian of historians, will repeat itself.

Choose Charity

The reason  Americans vote against universal health care is because some of them still understand that universal health care is universal force and the centralization of power and the loss of individual choice. They know this leads to despotism and tyranny by appealing to our own beast nature so that we become willing to take a bite out of our neighbor's or even our children's future paycheck to obtain benefits today.

The Bible, which has been one of the great moral compas of history calls these benefits]] the wages of unrighteousness.

This American move toward socialism over the last 100 years has allowed the nation into two divisions, those who have eyes to see and ears to hear and those who do not.

Like Polybius correctly foretold over 2000 years ago it degenerates the people over time into "perfect savages" once they become accustomed to living at the expense of others.

Obviously some do not want universal health care because taxes will go up and some also know that the quality and availability of care will go down.

Unquestionably conservatives are far more generous when it comes to giving to charity out of their own pockets. The Americans rank in the top three countries in the world on the charitable index with Myanmar and Australia. Sweden and Austria ranking in 25th and 30th place because they have turned to accepting the covetous practices of Socialism over private and individual charity. Venezuela  and Russia who take the 117th and 126th places show us what direction societies and nations take when they go the way of the socialist State.

Others will argue that “The evidence shows that private philanthropy can’t compensate for the loss of government provision,” Dr. Nesbit associate professor of public administration and policy at the University of Georgia said that Republicans prefer to “provide for the collective good through private institutions."

Dr. Nesbit went on to say, "It’s not equal. What government can put into these things is so much more than what we see through private philanthrop." But what people fail to realise if that government only puts in what it takes from others and because they all borrow from future generations these system of "legal charity" curse children.