This morning at mass the priest reminded us about how wealth belongs to God and how Catholics should actively aid the needy. This is indeed true, and I do wish more people would actively push for this. But at the same time, I’m weary about the political perspective of modern liberalism on this particular topic— raise taxes, especially disproportionately on the more well-off, and have the government redistribute wealth.

Many Western liberal democracies have a history of excellent, trustworthy civil service. As I’ve studied in my Introduction to Comparative Politics class here, France’s people, for centuries now, have been looking up to their government’s efficient, well-tuned civil service to take care of everything. The United States, however, has never had a widely-respected bureaucracy. (In my opinion, the national bureaucracy lumped under the executive branch isn’t even constitutional, since Congress “created” it without properly attempting to amend the Constitution to allow for it. Congress was never given the power to delegate powers from the legislative to executive branches of government. This, however, belongs to another discussion and is not even one that can be remedied easily.) Not even trusting the national bureaucracy, how could American citizens so easily expect the government to efficiently distribute billions of tax dollars to the poor? It really doesn’t just logically happen.

Now, if, on the other hand, you think you can trust the government with that money, and not simply organize your own method of helping the poor, then think about the morality of the issue. If a government mandates certain taxes so that it can supposedly give to the poor, people across the country are practically being held at gunpoint to help the needy. Where are the civil liberties in that one? On the other hand, if people voluntarily and passionately organize into an efficient, moral organization (or organizations) that strictly focuses on social justice— collecting and distributing (God’s) wealth to the poor, I can assure you that something would get done. Are the people who call for absolute social justice through modern liberalism actively helping those in need, or are they just demanding that everyone be forced to do so by a government backed by the most powerful military in the world?

I’m not saying that we should totally obliterate social welfare. I probably haven’t studied enough economics and sociology to make that judgment. I do, however, wish people would stop pushing for a big government to handle people’s money for them (without asking!) instead of simply using the same passion to donate and help the needy themselves. As for people who don’t care about helping the poor, let them keep to themselves, and, for those of us who do care, let’s do something on our own instead of angrily forcing everyone to follow us. Let’s have neither minority oppressing majority, nor majority oppressing minority.