Template:Private alms

The Solution Seen

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

What binds a free society so that it may remain free?

Those who have an eye for their neighbors freedom as much as they have for their own may be free. But, those who have eyes for offices of power over others 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

This theme of loving power like loving the mammon of unrighteousness has repeated itself throughout the testaments since money is just a form of power. Even Christ was tempted with power.

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.

Public and private alms-giving

“The measure of a man is what he does with power.” ― Plato "

Every man has power, power to choose. Men in their vanity and sloth will imagine they have a better idea than God about what is righteous and what is not. They can choose this way or that. We see this distinction in the altars of the good shepherd Able and the impatient plowman of mankind by Cain.

Long before Cain clubbed his brother he coveted what he saw as favor resulting from his sacrifice. We all have to sacrifice to create and provide for our family and friends. Sacrificing on an individual basis is a matter of daily choice but on a collective basis the choice of the individual may already be vested in another.

Nimrod, Pharaoh and Caesar would all offer their benefits of free bread to the people but they all had the power to exercise authority one over the other for they could decide what was good and evil for the people When men began to become slothful in the ways of righteousness and love for their neighbor or become just slothful but greedy for gain at the expense of their neighbor society begins to be changed.

Legal Charity

• "It is at this stage that ‘public charity’ or ‘legal charity’ (relief or welfare as we now say) begins to supplement the private, voluntary charity that was the traditional form of assistance to the poor. And it is here that we confront the ultimate irony of history:the unforeseen and unfortunate consequences of good intentions." Alexis de Tocqueville’s Memoir on Pauperism translated by Seymour Drescher page 30.

Since, religion included your duty to your fellowman, not just what you thought about God, ‘public charity’ or ‘legal charity’, is like public religion. Public charity is the antitheses of Pure Religion. To be pure your charity must be "unspotted by the world" which uses force like Cain. 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".

Progressive movement

• "Let us summarize in a few words. The progressive movement of modern civilisation will gradually and in a roughly increasing proportion raise the number of those who are forced to turn to charity. What remedy can be applied to such evils? Legal alms comes to mind first—legal alms in all forms—sometimes unconditional, sometimes hidden in the disguise of a wage. Sometimes itis accidental and temporary, at other times regular and permanent. But intensive investigation quickly demonstrates that this remedy, which seems both so natural and so effective, is a very dangerous expedient. It affords only a false and momentary sopto individual suffering, and however used it inflames society’s sores. We are left with individual charity. It can produce only useful results. Its very weakness is a guarantee against dangerous consequences. It alleviates many miseries and breeds none.But individual charity seems quite weak when faced with the progressive development of the industrial classes and all the evils which civilisation joins to the inestimable goods it produces. It was sufficient for the Middle Ages, when religious enthusiasm gave it enormous energy, and when its task was less difficult;could it be sufficient today when the burden is heavy and when its forces are so weakened? Individual charity is a powerful agency that must not be despised, but it would be imprudent to rely on it. It is but a single means and cannot be the only one.Then what is to be done? In what direction can we look? How can we mitigate what we can foresee, but not cure?" Alexis de Tocqueville’s Memoir on Pauperism translated by Seymour Drescher page 37.

• "Any measure which establishes legal charity on a permanent basis and gives it an administrative form thereby creates an idle and lazy class, living at the expense of the industrial and working class. This, at least, is its inevitable consequence if not the immediate result. It reproduces all the vices of the monastic system, minus the high ideals of morality and religion which often went along with it. Such a law is a bad seed planted in the legal structure. Circumstances, as in America, can prevent the seed from developing rapidly, but they cannot destroy it, and if the present generation escapes its influence, it will devour the well-being of generations to come." Alexis de Tocqueville’s Memoir on Pauperism translated by Seymour Drescher page 30.

---

Moral test

"Moreover, society is better served by private than public charity. Where individual, voluntary charity establishes a ‘moral tie’ between the giver and the receiver, legal charity removes any element of morality from the transaction. The donor (the tax-payer) resents his involuntary contribution, and the recipient feels no gratitude for what he gets as a matter of right and which in any case he feels to be insufficient." Introduction Gertrude Himmelfarb, Alexis de Tocqueville’s Memoir on Pauperism translated by Seymour Drescher

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, the American social safety net and therefore its greatness arose, not out of government institutions of power and force but it was all done through charitable association.

"Private charity may seem weaker than public charity because it provides no sustained and certain help for the poor. In one sense, however, this is its strength, for it is precisely its temporary and voluntary character that enables it to alleviate many miseries without breeding others. But it is also a problem, for the private charity that was sufficient in the Middle Ages may be insufficient in the present industrial age. This is the question that now confronts society. If public charity is unsatisfactory and private charity inadequate, how can this new kind of pauperism be averted so that the working classes do not ‘curse the prosperity that they produce?’" Introduction Gertrude Himmelfarb, Alexis de Tocqueville’s Memoir on Pauperism translated by Seymour Drescher

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 healthcare is because some of them still understand that universal healthcare 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 compass of history calls these benefits]] the wages of unrighteousness.

This American movement toward socialism over the last 100 years has allowed the nation to be divided 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 healthcare because there will be an increase in taxation and some also know that the quality and availability of care will go down.

Unquestionably, statistics show that conservatives are far more generous when it comes to giving to charity out of their own pockets and liberals are far more generous in giving out of someone else's pockets.

The United States ranks in the top three countries of the world on the charitable index with Myanmar and Australia. Sweden and Austria ranking in at 25th and 30th respectively 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 respectively show us what direction societies and nations are headed in when they go the way of the socialist State.

Others like Dr. Nesbit associate professor of public administration and policy at the University of Georgia will argue that “The evidence shows that private philanthropy can’t compensate for the loss of government provision.” While she will readily admit 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 philanthropy." But what the good Doctor and people fail to realize is that government only puts into universal healthcare what it takes by force from others. This makes the State stronger and the people morally weaker. And because all governments of the world borrow from future generations to provide a plethora of benefits these system of "legal charity" curse children.