That applies to individuals, not governments.
Charity at gunpoint is not charity.
The commandment is "Thou shalt not steal", not "Thou shalt not steal unless you're a government".
Excellent point, but I also think that money you donate to charities only for income tax purposes are not really charities.
That applies to individuals, not governments."Our faith tells us that the moral test of a society is how it treats the poor."
Charity at gunpoint is not charity.
The fallacy was already decried, and deconstructed, during the Revolutionary War: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.”Liberals” never want to use the correct word for what they mean. They mean socialism, but they say “liberalism.” They mean government, but they say “society.”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
(And, I would add, they mean wisdom but they say “objectivity.” They don’t dare claim wisdom, but I submit that that is precisely what they mean when they say that journalists are objective).