The Conservative Myth of Social Safety Net Built on Charity

[MrJonno]

The local disturbance next to the police station where the officers involved was based and involved about 10 people , is obviously political

The robbing of my local sweet shop 300 miles away was not, nor was the 100% sale on new TV's by 3000 people across the country was not political

[FBM]

Like, I'm sure the police never abused anyone outside a 1-mile radius of that particular incident. Right. Straw that broke the camel's back, more likely.

[Tyrannical]

A charity is often volunteer based, does not have the bureaucratic expense of a government agency

Aren't a lot of charities funded by the state but without the level of accountability? Oxfam is a big British charity and generally a pretty good one but the biggest slice of its income is from the taxpayer

Level of accountability? Or as I said that requires laws, regulations, bureaucracy and lawyers.

Now I don't know much about OxFam, thought it was a foreign charity and not a social safety net. But I bet the tax payer dollars given it are spent more efficiently spent to deliver aid than a government agency would..

[MrJonno]

Isn't the National Rifle Association a charity?, so you could choose to give 10% of your money to that or 10% of welfare to the poor?. That's going to work well isnt it

[Svartalf]

The NRA is a non profit, if that much. Being a non profit organisation and being a charity are not the same thing at all. In France we have a lot of non profit associations that are there to advance an agenda other than making money for the member, most of them have nothing to do with charity, or extremely specialized charity (say, an association gathering money for the preservation of a site)

[FBM]

I think some people are still stuck in a pre-Darwinian, 17th-century understanding of the way species survive, like Hobbes:

"Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of Warre, where every man is Enemy to every man; the same is consequent to the time, wherein men live without other security, than what their own strength, and their own invention shall furnish them withall. In such condition, there is no place for Industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain; and consequently no Culture of the Earth; no Navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no Instruments of moving, and removing such things as require much force; no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is worst of all, continuall feare, and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short."

[MrJonno]

The NRA is a non profit, if that much. Being a non profit organisation and being a charity are not the same thing at all. In France we have a lot of non profit associations that are there to advance an agenda other than making money for the member, most of them have nothing to do with charity, or extremely specialized charity (say, an association gathering money for the preservation of a site)

According to wiki it has charitable subsidiaries, maybe it hands out free guns to the poor or something

[Svartalf]

The NRA is a non profit, if that much. Being a non profit organisation and being a charity are not the same thing at all. In France we have a lot of non profit associations that are there to advance an agenda other than making money for the member, most of them have nothing to do with charity, or extremely specialized charity (say, an association gathering money for the preservation of a site)

According to wiki it has charitable subsidiaries, maybe it hands out free guns to the poor or something

I'll check, but I find this strange and... unlike the NRA's main goal.

[piscator]

...more like handing out checks to starving Legislators...But hell, take a Democrat in the White House and toss in a few school shootings on top of a fake 'ammo shortage', and the NRA's main problem becomes one of being able to spend all that fucking cash sent in by a fearful lower middle class and a burgeoning American plastic rifle industry.
Nonetheless, since NRA is a 501(c), donations to that particular lobby/SuperPAC/religious affiliation may well be included when the great generosity of Republican charity is tabulated and lauded to all. Same as when witless Liberals get sheared en masse by the "Goddamn ACLU"...



As to the OP, I'd wager some conspicuously absent Conservative members may well offer the moral argument, to wit that it's immoral to pick one's pocket (taxes) to provide a social safety net to another (yet somehow not immoral to pick the same man's pocket to provide courts and police and beef subsidies and Defense of Marriage Acts).

[Drewish]

Who needs courts and police? Courts exist to fool the people into thinking that their society is just. Police are there to keep the people in line, while fooling them into thinking that the state is there to protect them. The only argument against anarchy is that governments will invariably arise and conquer territory. So the only justification for government is to defend its citizens from other governments. So essentially government, at its best, is a protection racket.

[piscator]

Who needs courts and police? Courts exist to fool the people into thinking that their society is just. Police are there to keep the people in line, while fooling them into thinking that the state is there to protect them. The only argument against anarchy is that governments will invariably arise and conquer territory. So the only justification for government is to defend its citizens from other governments. So essentially government, at its best, is a protection racket.

So the best you can do is demand something for your money, amirite? Oh yeah, "currency"... shit

But I got it worked so my firm collects $0.80/$1.00 from one sort of damn Government institution or another. Let me tell you things started going well for my surveying business when I took a friend's advice and started adding an extra zero or two to those Government bids!

[FBM]

The people in that riot were pissed off. Got an example of people rioting just for "fun and profit"?

Well, fuck me. Iowa State University Students Riot On A Tuesday For No Apparent Reason.

[rainbow]

The people in that riot were pissed off. Got an example of people rioting just for "fun and profit"?

Well, fuck me. Iowa State University Students Riot On A Tuesday For No Apparent Reason.

Uncivilised brutes.

[JimC]

Perhaps Tuesday is a reason...