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by austinB 5612 days ago
Many people fail to recognize the social engineering aspect to taxes.
1 comments

If you tax something you get less of it, if you subsidize it you get more of it - whatever it is. Which has the obvious consequence that if you give people money who make bad decisions with their lives (e.g. getting addicted to drugs) then you will get more people making those decisions. That is why welfare is profoundly evil.
Picking on one consequence of a thing and calling it "profoundly evil" (or for that matter profoundly good) on that basis is ridiculous. On that basis you could make anything look either good or bad.

Giving money to some people who make bad decisions may very well mean that more people will make similar bad decisions, and yes, that's a bad thing. On the other hand, it may also mean that those people don't starve to death, which most of us would consider a good thing. It may mean that they're less likely to steal to get the money they need or want, which again is probably a good thing. It may mean that some of them get the support they need to fix those bad decisions and get their lives back on track, which again is probably a good thing.

Oh, and I liked the way you skipped straight from "giving people money who make bad decisions" to "welfare", as if the two are the same. As if no one ever found themselves in serious financial trouble for any reason other than having made "bad decisions".

I think you're looking for profound evil in the wrong place.

Welfare seems to be keeping USA from following Egypt with over 35 million Americans on food stamps [0]. Would you still call it profoundly evil?

[0] http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-11-02-food-stamps_N...

I'm pretty sure he'd like revolution in USA, Egypt-style (except americans do have guns).