A meme has been circulating around, discussing empathy. Really?
This post made the rounds recently:
‘Here’s the difference.
I don’t a minimum wage, I make more than that.
I don’t need Medicare for all, can afford my insurance.
I don’t need to go to college tuition free, I have made it perfectly fine without that.
I don’t need marijuana legal.
I don’t need equality, I was lucky enough to be born a straight, White male, in a society made to work for me.
But I WANT these things for other people.
The people who don’t have these things, but NEED them. I don’t mind paying a higher tax rate to provide these things to others.
So no, I’m not some broke bum liberal, looking for a handout.
I want my taxes to serve the less fortunate, not the people who make more than they’ll spend in their lifetime.
And I will vote, post, volunteer, and fight like hell to make sure they get it.
That’s the difference. Love your neighbors. Empathy is a big deal.”
Sounds good, right?
What could possibly be wrong with such empathetic, good intentions
towards others? These positions actually
sound kind of noble and virtuous. But I
have a different take, point by point.
Let’s dig.
Minimum wage, as has been expounded upon by myself and others, is a barrier to
entry level employment. If the job has
less value than the imposed wage rate for the employer, fewer folks are hired
at that rate. Is it empathetic to remove
an entry-level job from the works because the employer won’t hire someone at a
loss? Probably not to the person that
didn’t get hired.
‘Medicare For All’ is financially completely unworkable. Period.
With the 320+ million residents of the US, the cost factor alone is
massive, especially with any attempt to retain the current quality of the medical
system. As I’ve written elsewhere,
trying to implement cost ceilings to control costs will likely damage the US
health care system from top to bottom, including providing a negative incentive
for the high achievers to even pursue medicine as a career. Is it charitable to destroy the quality and
innovation of the best system in the world to provide insurance for those that
do not have it?
I’ve also written elsewhere regarding ‘tuition-free’ college. Colleges will still impose tuition and fees,
professors will still get paid, etc. The
only difference is who pays—the actual user of the colleges, or everyone
(taxpayers). So, all of the people that
saved or paid for school for themselves and/or their children, possibly even
retiring massive student debts, you were foolish—we’re going to raise your
taxes to provide that same funding for everyone else, that did not do those
things. You should’ve saved your time,
effort, savings, and cash—it would be handy to have that to offset your new
taxes. Empathetic to those folks?
Why marijuana legalization is in this list is beyond me. Even as someone that doesn’t really care if
it is a legal thing for adult consumption, I hardly think it rises to the level
of any charitable or empathetic need.
OK, maybe the medical, pain relieving usage could be the focal point—but
that’s all I can think of.
‘Equality’ for anyone that isn’t ‘straight, White, male’? I hear this drum beat, yet I can point to not
one specific law that discriminates against any sexual orientation, color,
religion, what have you. In the
past? Absolutely. Now?
This country has the freest, highest level of opportunity for literally
ANY minority in the history of our planet.
The goal of ‘equality of opportunity’ has already been achieved. Minorities of any type can vote, start
businesses, own homes, rent apartments, work in any field they are qualified
for, and get married. What they do not
have, and should not have, IMHO, is ‘equality of results’, or PREFERENTIAL
treatment. The first is impossible
without government-assigned wages (holy cow), and the second implies superior
treatment for any real or perceived minority status. How that can be empathetic to the population
as a whole is a mystery.
Finally, let’s slay the dragon of ‘charity’.
Charity is something given freely, to the benefit of someone else. Forcible charity is an oxymoron: if it is not voluntary, it isn’t
charity. There is zero virtue in
enacting governmental programs to take tax dollars from everyone
(involuntarily) to give to anyone for no work, effort, or product, in
return. While the champions of such
programs may pat themselves on the back for them, those programs are NOT
charity. Reasonable people can agree to
support the truly disabled, mentally or physically, but that is such a small
percentage of those receiving tax largess.
Supplementary arguments can be made to support poor children and the
elderly, but those are also sideline issues.
The concern is the support of able, lazy folks, that work the
system—either thru fraud or misapplication of the system. Removing the incentives to work (or even how
to find work or keep a job) or improve oneself is hardly empathetic. One may even draw an analogy to a different,
but just as terrible, type of slavery.
Not empathetic or charitable at all.
