Caring By Proxy

I saw another of those "Jesus Was A Socialist" memes the other day. If you're unfamiliar with the genre - and, yes, it's grown to "genre" size - they consist of trying to guilt, con, or otherwise beguile people who embrace Christian teachings into accepting socialism into their lives. Let's call this trope “JWAS.”

Not all JWAS will mention Jesus by name, but the message is the constant. So is the tactic. Saul Alinsky's Rule for Radicals #4 reads: "Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules."

The problem, as many of you already recognize, is that socialism is not "caring about others." It pretends to be that, and that's what makes it so alluring to so many. In fact, it's about the opposite. It's about abandoning that caring, and instead authorizing the State to use force to take Other People's Money to provide that care. It is, as David Mamet noted in his book The Secret Knowledge:

Caring and charity are not transitive functions. Giving away someone else's money against his will is not charity. Voting for politicians who promise to look after the needy on your behalf is not caring. That would still be the case if government was good at doing so, which it most assuredly is not.

Socialism, in its various forms, is an assertion of personal will over one's fellow citizens. It appeals to three sorts of people: The lazy, who either see it as a path to an easier life or as a way to "care" without doing anything; the idealistic, who either don't understand or are willfully blind to the immutable realities of human nature; and the power-hungry, who happily leverage the first two sorts for personal benefit. Its siren-song allure to those three groups is why it remains popular.

The sharers of JWAS memes reveal the shallowness of their understanding of Christian doctrine. Jesus was not a socialist, either in the strict "state owns means of production" definition or the vaguer "welfare state" iteration that is at the heart of JWAS gotcha-ism. He did not urge people to subordinate themselves to the State, he did not say "give the power government to take care of others," he urged individuals to do so directly.

You don't even need to be a Christian, or believe in a God, to understand or embrace this underlying truth.

You also don't need any sort of faith, but just some common sense, to appreciate that this sort of "caring by proxy" is a copout. The Catholic Church had a bad bout of such behavior in its selling of indulgences a few hundred years ago. Good-hearted sorts have fallen prey to the notion that "if we pay more taxes, and give more power to the government, the poor will be better tended" since at least LBJ's Great Society. Green-minded carers figure that voting for those who'd force everyone else into electric cars and who'd stop domestic drilling for oil and gas will be them doing "their part" to save the planet.

It goes beyond caring by proxy, of course. Show me someone who embraces transitive charity, and I'll show you someone who's happy when other people's lives are managed by that same government.

The rich guy who complains that his taxes aren't high enough? Nothing's stopping him from giving more to the government, either by not taking all the tax deductions he's entitled to, or simply by writing a check. You never hear about such people doing so, however, and I assure you that someone who did would be trumpeting it to the moon and stars.

Guilt trips are rarely an effective means of winning hearts and minds. Unjustified guilt trips (aka gaslighting) are even worse, and they can have opposite outcomes. Just look at how racism accusations land like a sack of wet cement when unjustly levied. If you want to hold someone up to his own rules, I do suggest you actually take the time to first understand them yourself.

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