I had a very interesting conversation with a good friend over the weekend and he mentioned an instance that he had that required him to make a somewhat difficult decision in regards to charity. The specifics of his situation are not the point of this post but the topic of responsible charity is.  

We as a people in this nation are the most charitable in the world; there’s no denying it. We are also a country of people that requires things happen easy and at the speed of light. You can see proof everyday. We are the first to respond when a disaster hits, we offer aid all over the world to anyone that needs it and will take it. We offer it here in this country all day every day. But are we helping? We send billions in aid to countries all over the world that are generally horrible places to be. Why is it that we give charity and it’s still horrible? I think it’s because we send charity without giving much thought as to what our responsibility is there once we have given that charity. An analogy is the people that stand at the stop lights and intersections with a bucket asking for coin. If you don’t give them money you may be inclined to feel like a pile of crap. But if you do give the change, without KNOWING where that money goes, have you helped? What if he/she is an alcoholic or druggy? They might be hungry but they might also be thirsty, or need another hit. If they count up the money at the end of the day and see they’ve got enough to go buy the 5th of wine or a meal and buys the wine you just helped make their life worse, NOT better. If on the other hand you picked them up at that stop light and took them to get a meal you HELPED. Now, how many of us make the time or have the desire to put them in the car and take them to get a meal? Really… 

You can take this thought process further. We have welfare in this country and it’s not necessarily a bad idea, at least in a philosophical sense. How it’s administered however is charity without responsibility and consequently is bad. So we have a govt that doles out charity in the form of welfare checks without responsibility to make sure the recipient gets the necessaries without abusing the system, and consequently trapping themselves in that same system. The vicious cycle starts. Here’s an example: a woman has multiple children and gets on welfare. She gets her checks for a while and finally goes and gets a job. The welfare checks stop, but another baby comes along. She then realizes that if she continues to work she will make less money than if she quits and goes back on welfare. The administration of welfare has just trapped her into staying “down”. Now I know the argument will be that she doesn’t HAVE to quit, she chose to. That’s true but because of the govt’s “charity” without responsibility it just encouraged her to NOT achieve and NOT become a productive member of society but rather to become a drain on that society. It’s that type of situation that this system cultivates. If you want to help this situation you need to give them basic necessities for life and then encourage these people to gain marketable skills so that they can get decent paying jobs. Don’t just give without requiring something from the recipients. That hurts them by not requiring some commitment from them, whatever it may be. Without knowing something’s value you can’t prioritize the things that are important.  

There are lots of old sayings I remember being told to me growing up, “anything worth having is worth working for”, “pull yourself up by your own boot straps”, etc. You don’t hear them much any more. If we are to maintain a great country and a God loving country then we will need to get back to these types of values.