Here is another reason I am pro-tax:
Charity is not more efficient when done privately than when done in unity.
There are things in this world that are worth doing: fixing cleft palates in underdeveloped countries for instance. We happily gave money. I googled first to make sure it was legit., etc. I'm pretty sure it is on the up and up. Their ratings are good.
But, why all the junk mail and phone calls? I started getting so much, that some days it was two letters! The appeals overlapped. Phone calls - I asked the lady if she was a volunteer. No? Then I do believe your company has now used the equivalent of my donation in hounding me. How does that pencil out for the 'operations'?
The moral, I think, is that even if our government wastes some money at times, it wastes much less than a private charity does. I'd rather do my charity work through paying taxes.
From Swedenborg (who will perhaps roll over in his grave to be associated with my ideas, but, so be it):
Charity (which is a book title)
No one can regard a society having one function but as one composite man. When a kingdom is regarded as a man, certain persons are called members of the government; and they constitute among them one man, whose members are the individuals therein.
Sweet.
I dunno - there are good charities and bad charities, and I do tend to think the good charities tend to be more efficient than the government. But I do think there are things the government can do that private charities can't, and I'm pro-tax - partly because Swedenborg says that spiritual people are pro-tax, and I'm trying to be spiritual:
ReplyDeleteTrue Christian Religion 430. "Public charitable duties are chiefly taxes and excise duties. Those who are spiritual feel differently about paying them from those who are purely natural. Spiritual people pay them with a good will, because they are collected to run the country, to protect it and the church, and to pay for its administration by officials and governors, whose salaries and stipends have to be paid out of the public treasury. Those therefore who regard their country and their church as the neighbour pay their taxes freely and willingly, thinking it wrong to cheat and evade them. But those who do not regard their country and church as the neighbour pay them unwillingly and reluctantly, defrauding the collector and withholding money whenever they have an opportunity. For these people their home and their flesh are the neighbour."
o Thinking and willing are spiritual, while speaking and acting are natural. DP 71
ReplyDeleteWith this in view, a natural person who thinks and wills is being spiritual, while a spiritual person who speaks and acts is being natural.
Since it is difficult to neither think nor will, it is difficult not to be spiritual. And since it is difficult to neither speak nor act, it is difficult not to be natural.
o Anyone who receives and possesses faith is constantly mindful of the Lord. This is so even when he is thinking or talking about something other than Him, or else when he is carrying out his public, private, or family duties, though he is not directly conscious of his mindfulness of the Lord while he is carrying them out. Indeed that mindfulness of the Lord present in those who possess faith governs their whole being, but that which governs their whole being is not noticed by them (except when they turn their thought specifically to that matter). AC 5130