It takes a community

When reading Chris Muir's daily webcomic Day by Day the other day, I discovered that the author of the blog Electric Venom, who goes by the moniker Venomous Kate, had suffered a rather severe injury. Given her financial situation, she put out a reluctant request for some help paying for the dental work she now has to undergo.

I don't read her blog regularly but other bloggers that I admire do, or else know her personally, so I decided I would kick a few bucks her way. Even with the new house and all, I had some to spare so I shared.

Now that a couple of days have passed since her initial request, the response has been staggering. She has received donations totalling about three-fourths of the total she needs. I have seen this before. The Blogosphere, specifically the more conservative/Libertarian/Republican/right-leaning side, is incredibly generous, as opposed to the stingy, selfish characterizations that we are often smeared with by those who hold opposing political views.

Some critics on the Left might say that we're only helping Kate because she's "one of us." After all, aren't we the ones that want to do away with welfare, Medicare, Medicaid, and all other entitlement programs, thereby causing massive starvation and disease? Not at all. You see, we understand that there's nothing wrong with helping people out when they find themselves in a tight situation. What we have a problem with is the government confiscating our property (the income we earn by working and investing) by force and giving it to other people. Kate and her family are normally self-sufficient and they take responsibility for themselves. When we donate to her "Fang Fund" so she can get her teeth fixed, we know that she only asked because she was really up against the wall. We also understand that, were it someone else who needed help, and Kate was in a position to provide it, she would do so. In fact, I fully expect that this will happen in the not-to-distant future, as Kate "pays it forward" by helping out someone who is in trouble with some cash or other assistance. I don't know her personally, and haven't read enough of her blog to get a feel for what kind of person she is. Nevertheless I can say with confidence that she will feel obligated to help out others as she was once helped. And this is a one-time shot, not an ongoing process. Once she has the money she needs, she will stop taking donations and refund any excess. Should anyone refuse their refund, she will donate it to charity.

By contrast, if the government just gives handouts to people, they become dependent on it and lose the incentive to become self-sufficient. If the government provides enough to live on, even if it's just at the subsistence level, someone who doesn't know any other way to live will likely be content to live off the dole as long as they are able to. They become a drain on society and fail to achieve their full potential.

Of course there are those who are simply unable to provide for themselves, no matter how willing they are to do so. Obviously we should provide for their needs and enable them to have a decent quality of life. Still, I would much rather that this is done by private charities rather than the government. And I'm sure they would much rather receive assistance from actual people who care about them than some nameless, faceless bureacrats in Washington DC and/or their state capitol.