Sorry Jack, I believe you’re wrong. Because we (both us Canucks and you Yanks) have gotten so far from the Bible and have twisted it, we don’t ‘...take care of our fellow American(s)’ or Canadians any more.
I drive a school bus and two brothers that I pick up are non-verbal autistic. They have one brother, too young for school at home, also severely non-verbal autistic. Though bright, they are so autistic that none of them will ever be able to look after themselves, let alone work.
Ma and Pa are in their early forties, escapees from Vietnam, with no family here. One works while the other takes care of the boys not at school. When pa gets home, off to work goes ma and pa looks after the three boys. They are a handful! They are both quiet like ninjas, with one boy, often every week, quietly relieving himself or quietly upchucking on the bus. I can’t imagine the work and patients of their parents! Other than autism, the boys are healthy. In another 30 years, ma and pa will be unable to take care of these boys. In 40 years, ma and pa will be dead. What will happen to these boys? If there are no government services to take care of these boys, they’ll be out on the street and soon dead thereafter, either killed in an accident or rolled by a street urchin.
I agree that it should not be the government’s role to do this, but as our society puts materialism above God, there is NO ONE to look after the misfortune, so that role falls to the government. Judeo-Christian caring for our fellow man has mostly ceased to exist in the developed world, so it falls to secular government to do a job it is unsuited to do.
You see the same thing in nursing homes. Seniors are warehoused in nursing homes, many times forgotten by their ‘loving’ children, except perhaps, for Christmas and perhaps a birthday. Those with a little extra money can provide for a better quality nursing home. Those without the resources are in government subsidized nursing homes where the standard of care is poor. My Pastor’s wife works in a nursing home and sometimes shares some of the things that go on. Attendants who don’t have any compassion for their charges, leaving incontinent seniors lying for hours in their own waste, until the attendant has completed her work, etc. Two or three generations ago, these folks would have been cared for at home, by their family. Now, its ‘ship them off to the nursing home’ so we can do whatever we want, unburdened by gramps. Our society has taken ‘youth’ and ‘vanity’ as its gods. Lord help us!
Our government at one time did not take care of people like this. People took care of people.
You think the government can love your child or your relative better than you?