Altruism vs. Charity

I had a great discussion the other day over the subject of charity. Ok. Maybe it wasn't a discussion but more of a brawl. LOL! I find it to be often the confusion of what charity really is.  I hear a lot how people say that if they met a guy on the street that if he asked them for some money, they would give it to them without second thought.  I once considered that thought and found this line of thinking to be false in it's principle and reasoning.  People call it charity. I call it altruisim or a dead mind at work. 

Altruism is defined as unselfish regard for or devotion to the welfare of others.  Altruism demands that one gives to others regardless of any rational thought.  So anytime anyone comes up to you and asks for money, then according to altruism you give to them.  Well, gee, Code Pink is asking for my money and I have to give under altruism.  The thing of it is, is that Code Pink is giving all the donated money to Hamas.  That in turn is killing our soldiers and causes our hard earned money we worked for to be turned against us.  Do you see where altruism is not such a hot idea after all?

Charity on the other hand is defined as the practice of benevolent giving and caring.  This is a voluntary act and actually allows for fore thought of the individual. Individuals are allowed to decide if they can give given their individual circumstance and if the receiver of their charity is something they truly believe in.  So, when the guy walking down the street asks you for money, you have no moral obligation to give.  It is up to the individual to decide if they want to give or not.  I would expect that often times individuals would take their best interest in mind and say no because they don't know the person on the street and are not sure what they would do with the money being given.  You don't know if this guy is really a smoocher and actually has a pile of money sitting at home from begging.  You also don't know if this guy is going to use the money to buy drugs from a drug dealer who then buy the drugs from drug smugglers who then pay drug cartels who have gotten rich this way. If a person truly wants to help the homeless, imo, it would be best to give to a charitable organization that gears towards helping the homeless as they would know just exactly what would be needed to help the homeless individual and will know best how to make the donated money effective. 

Altruism is a dangerous notion as it causes for money taken from individuals to be used against them in the end. It is from this morality that has caused for government to become corrupt and it is their bases for taxing the worker to give to the poor at the same time destroying man's incentive to work.  Even today, Republicans can't morally defend what they know is right because altruism has paralyzed them from doing so. It's evident in the last spending cut charade. Republicans agree that spending cuts must be made. There are no arguments there. But they failed to make the cuts necessary because they don't have the correct morals to defend the drastic cuts needed to save our nation from certain economic doom.  Republicans are fiscally conservative in thought but in action they are actually liberals.  This is so widely confused about Republicans that no one will ever guess who said the following quote, “Contrary to some of the wild charges you may have heard, this administration has not and will not turn its back on America's elderly or America's poor. Under the new budget, funding for social insurance programs will be more than double the amount spent only 6 years ago. The entitlement programs that make up our safety net for the truly needy have worthy goals and many deserving recipients. We will protect them.”  At first, you might think that a democrat actually said this but the truth is that this was a quote from Ronald Reagan. Because of the morality of altruism, Republicans are forced to go along with lower spending cuts Dems want and to keep welfare programs in place, much worse, increase their funding.  Ever wondered why spending increases with Republicans when they touted that they're fiscially conservative in thought?  Well, now you know why. 

I believe that if we had a better understanding what charity truly is and understand the difference between charity and it's conterfeit, altruism, we would have no problem morally defending spending cuts, putting an end to redistribution of welfare and encourage more people to work instead of getting handouts.