Just a friendly reminder to well meaning philosophers with such big hearts that they become generous with other peoples money: I’m not scolding you, I’m just pointing out that desires for the well being of others doesn’t lift your moral credentials and taking from people makes you worse, not better.
The inspo for this Public Service Announcement stems from this proclamation shared with me on social media that wags a digital finger at people who point out what many think is obvious – that advocating theft from people makes you a bad person (even if it’s for reasons you think are noble redistributions) – but an increasing number of people think is virtuous:
“Wanting everyone to have healthcare and food does not make you a communist, socialist or unpatriotic. It just makes you a good person.”
That is almost mostly true. Accuracy rating of 20% to a maximum of 49%.
Wanting vs Doing
Wanting good things for people makes you nothing but just a sort-of “nice” person in an abstract theoretical way, because of course, “wanting” things can’t make you good any more than wanting to be healthy makes you lose weight or wanting to be bilingual makes you fluent in Bengali. To be those types of persons you have to do things, not “want” them.
In the past couple years from the time of this writing, a trope has cropped up in social media punditry that mocks and derides people saying that they are extending “thoughts and prayers” in the wake of something terrible happening instead of doing something more tangible to help the people you are proclaiming to psychically benefit by thinking things and mentally saying things about the poor state of affairs that has befallen them. I’m inclined to agree with the philosophy when used in the context of “instead of virtue signally a broadcast about your compassion and empathy, you should do something about it by donating, volunteering, or one-on-one helping an affected person”. But that usually only applies to contexts of natural disasters and most commonly the anti-thoughts&prayers trope is most commonly used by authoritarians in response to murders committed with guns in the context of “instead of ‘thoughts and prayers’ why aren’t you supporting more government legislation to curtail law-obeyers 2nd amendment rights in ways that wouldn’t have prevented this act of evil that you’re broadcasting ‘thoughts and prayers’ about??”. Either way, the point is the same that you can “wish” and “want” all you want but “wanting” others to be aided isn’t helping any individual lives.
Back to the meme: Wanting people to have their health cared for and to be able to eat is a great thing to want. What makes you a communist, socialist, or unpatriotic bad person is when you take steps to initiate violence (support for state force) in order to confiscate/steal other people’s representation of their labor (their money) in order to fulfill your utopian “wants” instead of use your own capital and non violently convince others to voluntarily do the same for the same purpose.
Anti-Choice is Anti-Good
You might think it’s the best thing to give $100 of your money to a homeless shelter while I might think it’s the best thing to give $100 of my money to St Jude’s Hospital and the only thing you can do to get my $100 away from kids with cancer and toward your adults without a place to live is to convince me with logical or emotional or rational appeals.
As soon as you say “I want this thing to exist, thus my want overrules your wants, so I support the use of force to take what is yours to go towards the things I want”, you are an unpatriotic bad person.
Whether you prefer communism or socialism as your preferred method of State control is your own business.