It is commonly believed that a proper function of government is to “level the playing field” by ensuring that the rich pay their “fair share” of taxes, and that the poor and disadvantaged receive extra help from government in the form of subsidies, grants, and “welfare.” (Originally called the “dole,” welfare was given its current name in the 1930s, as a way to sell FDR’s “New Deal” program to the American public. The term was intended to confer constitutional legitimacy, since the preamble proclaims one of the purposes of government to be supporting the “general welfare.” But in reality, “welfare” is just a new name for the dole — the traditional term for using the government in order to rob Peter to pay Paul.) All such policies have as their stated aim creating greater equality. Originally scorned as “the leveling impulse,” wealth redistribution has come to pervade much of what the federal government does.
But is there anything wrong with government “leveling the playing field”? Consider what this practice entails in reality. Whenever government takes from one class of people in order to give to another, it is taking the property of some and giving it to others. The fact that some are wealthier than others is mere sophistry, an argument designed to distract from the real issue of government redistribution: It is theft, pure and simple.
Along with the right to life, the right to property ownership must be deemed among the most important God-given rights conferred upon fallen man. But whereas the people almost always raise an indignant hue and cry whenever government unjustly deprives men of their lives (as, for example, when an officer of the law kills a citizen without just cause, or when government dispatches its military forces to wage war for unjust purposes), the voice of the people tends to fall silent when government commits legal theft (or “legal plunder,” in the phraseology of French economist and statesman Frédéric Bastiat). One reason for this inconsistency is that a life, once taken, cannot be restored, and state-sanctioned murder thus becomes a crime that cannot be ignored. But stolen property can be given to someone else under the false color of social justice, a fact that dishonest politicians have ever taken advantage of to portray their depredations as a form of charity.
http://www.thenewamerican.com/reviews/american-principles/item/23907-what-s-wrong-with-the-redistribution-of-wealth
But is there anything wrong with government “leveling the playing field”? Consider what this practice entails in reality. Whenever government takes from one class of people in order to give to another, it is taking the property of some and giving it to others. The fact that some are wealthier than others is mere sophistry, an argument designed to distract from the real issue of government redistribution: It is theft, pure and simple.
Along with the right to life, the right to property ownership must be deemed among the most important God-given rights conferred upon fallen man. But whereas the people almost always raise an indignant hue and cry whenever government unjustly deprives men of their lives (as, for example, when an officer of the law kills a citizen without just cause, or when government dispatches its military forces to wage war for unjust purposes), the voice of the people tends to fall silent when government commits legal theft (or “legal plunder,” in the phraseology of French economist and statesman Frédéric Bastiat). One reason for this inconsistency is that a life, once taken, cannot be restored, and state-sanctioned murder thus becomes a crime that cannot be ignored. But stolen property can be given to someone else under the false color of social justice, a fact that dishonest politicians have ever taken advantage of to portray their depredations as a form of charity.
http://www.thenewamerican.com/reviews/american-principles/item/23907-what-s-wrong-with-the-redistribution-of-wealth
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