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To: conservatism_IS_compassion

Well, some of this criticism could be applied to government to support many conservative tenets.

The faux liberals do “lade men with burdens grievous to be borne.”

Charity is a must, according to God. Not an option. However the MEANS must remain free, or else we begin to enshrine evil.


15 posted on 11/11/2017 9:48:09 AM PST by HiTech RedNeck (Tryin' hard to win the No-Bull Prize.)
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To: HiTech RedNeck
Charity is a must, according to God. Not an option.
If we are only stewards, yet we are stewards - given authority to choose the particular forms and conditions of beneficence from what we have charge of.
SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.

Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one: for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries BY A GOVERNMENT, which we might expect in a country WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer. Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built upon the ruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest; and this he is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him, out of two evils to choose the least. Wherefore, security being the true design and end of government, it unanswerably follows that whatever form thereof appears most likely to ensure it to us, with the least expense and greatest benefit, is preferable to all others. - Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776)

Not everything by Paine is edifying, but IMHO that is. Very.

27 posted on 11/11/2017 12:13:30 PM PST by conservatism_IS_compassion (Presses can be 'associated,' or presses can be independent. Demand independent presses.)
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