Is every government expenditure of confiscated property a good and righteous act, so long as it is diverted toward some noble end?
Your view of 'property' is not a reasonable one, given that the State allocated and vouchsafed all the property their is. If it takes a small amount of it back from those it privileges for its running and a few public health programs, it seems a bit much for those privileged to complain.
Your public/private dichotomy is blindly unrealistic, Philip. And besides, we know very well what this would have been spent on had it remained with the privileged - more $10,000 sofas, $150,000 bathrooms, multiple face-lifts.. maybe a few boats, etc. Just a bunch of ticky-tacky.
Haha, go drive around your city's richest neighborhood and continue this line about 'scarce resources'. This society has enormous resources, they're just almost all allocated to the top 1%.
My friend, under your system of extreme politically imposed inequality, the deaths of hiv sufferers who have no money has absolutely no 'societal cost'.
Perhaps you will admit that the power lies with the owners, Philip. Why would you think it lies anywhere but with those who recieve the most?
[quote[I would allow free people to decide what portions of their incomes to devote to charitable purposes, as well as the proper object of that charity (AIDS, cancer, poverty, whatever). The incentives of the natural market order are undoubtedly "imperfect" in some sense or another, but God alone has enough information to improve upon it with any reliability.
[/quote]
No such thing as 'free people', Philip, 'the market' is just a politically imposed set of power relationships, and regardless no one is going to donate much. Why should they if they've got theirs?
