Fake Solidarity is not Charity

While some are “philosophizing ‘til it hurts”, others are being generous with their time and earnings:

Gaudiani said Americans give twice as much as the next most charitable country, according to a November 2006 comparison done by the Charities Aid Foundation. In philanthropic giving as a percentage of gross domestic product, the U.S. ranked first at 1.7 percent. No. 2 Britain gave 0.73 percent, while France, with a 0.14 percent rate, trailed such countries as South Africa, Singapore, Turkey and Germany.

Bloated governments try to convince their taxpayers that their usury goes to something they imagine is some sort of “collectivized compassion”. The more the government sells people on this, the less people give of themselves, and beyond handwringing, to less actual empathy itself. If it isn't someone else’s problem, it's the state’s problem.

This passive form of “humanism courtesy the state” is a delusion and a sort of placebo to make up the difference between the ‘humanists’ they think they are and the emotionally needy people they really are.

- with thanks to Martin