In Response to a Comment

I received a comment to the recent blog about HIV statistics.

"I wonder if you'd feel the same way about someone who gets heart disease or becomes morbidly obese from eating fast food, or someone who develops type two diabetes. What about alcoholics? Would your compassion extend to someone injured while driving too fast?

Unless we want to turn people away from emergency rooms, we pay for health issues one way or another, and emergency care is the most expensive type of care there is."

I can't afford to send my own kids to college, and they aren't eligible for government assistance, but my taxes go to send the children of others (even illegal immigrants) to college. How can that be right? Is that justice? I'm not rich. But I pay.
Should I be responsible to pay for the care of some morbidly obese person that has sat on the sofa for so long that their skin has grafted to the fabric? Under what rule of justice?

Why should my life energy be extracted at the point of a gun (enforcement of tax code) to repair the damage that a person does to themselves through self-destructive behaviors? It's not about a lack of compassion. It's a realization that some people don't take responsibility for their own lives and those people will shift as much of the cost of their own lives to me as they can. When I pay their way, I steal their self-esteem. When I enable destructive behaviors, I help them destroy themselves. The survival instinct is a good thing. I have seen the transformation that occurs when someone is put in a "sink or swim" situation. It's a glorious, inspiring thing to behold.

Human beings are at their best when they do and create, not when they leech and beg. Turn of the faucet, the survival instinct kicks in, they begin to perform. I've raised kids, And I've seen what happens when you stop doing things for them and make them do for themselves.

As for the simile about driving too fast - insurance premiums are based on risk. And that insurance should cover that E-room care. We all should be held responsible to do everything for ourselves we can, and there are luxuries that we don't deserve if we don't earn them. Should a doctor be forced at a point of a gun to give care to someone who can't pay? Under what rule of justice?

Should a human that has done nothing and created nothing be entitled to the same care as someone that has invented free renewable energy or found a cure for HIV? Under what rule of justice?

Let charity be charity, but do not put any program in place that makes people dependent. It destroys their soul. If you are going to destroy souls, you'll do it without my approval. My version of compassion is based on self-reliance and economic success, not dependence and subsistence. I believe the human spirit and human accomplishment matter. I believe in people more than they believe in themselves. But I also know that some people will take as much as they can for free.

By eliminating the subsistence society, we'll help more people than we'll hurt. If somebody chooses to sink, that's their choice. The truly helpless will get charity from traditional sources. We are a generous people.

Sorry for the long answer, but it's not simple, is it?