Too proud for charity ~ By Patrice Lewis

Commentary from WorldNetDaily

By Patrice Lewis Posted: January 16, 2010 ~ 1:00 am Eastern © 2010 "Mom," asked my older daughter this week, "what does 'surreal' mean?" "It means something is so wild and crazy that it's hard to grasp," I replied, and used the following example to illustrate. A couple of weeks ago, I posted an article by James Turk on my blog that was one of the best analyses of socialism I've ever read. Ever. It was lean, no-frills, easy to understand, and absolutely true. The article prompted an English reader to post the following comment: "I am not sufficiently familiar with U.S. politics to know exactly what aspects are worrying James Turk. If he has in mind the president's proposals for health care, it is surely not 'socialism' to help poor people with insurance payments. I would call it charity." The comment left me sputtering. To me, this reader's definition of "charity" was surreal – something so wild and crazy that I could barely grasp how anyone could believe it. Naturally other readers couldn't let this comment go. "Charity requires the money being spent to be volunteered, not forcibly removed from the donators," someone replied. In other words, if a thug points a gun at you in a dark alley to steal your money for someone else, are we supposed to congratulate him on his charity because he didn't keep the money for himself? The English reader added: "I would say it is a democratically elected government acting charitably on your behalf. The population of the U.S. acted charitably en masse by voting in a government who had this particular policy. Don't you approve of democratic government?" (I feel compelled to point out that the U.S. is not a democracy, which is governed by mob rule; but a republic, which a smart reader defined as "a government of representatives of the people bound by a law higher than themselves." But don't worry, politicians don't know this either.) READ FULL STORY >