I. ADVENT

If you don't like the weather around the Great Lakes, wait.  Early November again featured above normal temperatures and not much rain.  A few lakeside communities got hit with serious snow in the first of the Weather Channel's named storms.  That bought a few counties respite from the drought, but inland it was more of the same.  After Thanksgiving came the second named storm, complete with serious snow.  The neighbors who bling out their houses mostly got their outdoor lights up ahead of the snow.

There will be pictures of the illuminations in the snow for your viewing pleasure during the Festive Season.

Winter has historically been the season of hoping what's put up after the harvest will last until the next growing season, and charitable works are a big part of North American life from Thanksgiving well through Christmas.

The Samaritan's Dilemma, though, is with us, and it's provoked Town Hall columnist Mark Lewis, Bible scholar.

There is no decent person on this earth who denies that those who have the financial ability should help the “needy poor.” Nearly all religions are replete with commands and examples to help the “poor” and less fortunate. I’m not going to waste space arguing human decency.

Who, though, is truly needy?

The “poor” are a mixed lot—even defining WHO is “poor” is not always easy. Some “poor” people will always be poor for the simple reason that they are lazy and refuse to do what is necessary to get themselves out of poverty.

Most intelligent people aren’t for helping the “lazy bum.” Most of us don’t have the money to flush down a human toilet.

Most sane people wonder if a person is capable of taking care of themselves, but simply won’t, then why should society do it? We owe them nothing and that is exactly what we should give them.

Some people are poor through no fault of their own.

For "society," substitute "government," and note that any government service must be delivered without preference or prejudice: thus poor relief implies means testing, but no fault finding.  And "no fault of their own" is fraught with all manner of complications involving who has agency or not.  Thus there are well-meaning people who would call out the Rescue Mission or Salvation Army for asking a few things of people receiving assistance.  Make assistance available without qualification, though, and step right into the Samaritan's Dilemma.

Alexis de Tocqueville wrote this great truth about human nature: “Any measure that establishes legal charity on a permanent basis and gives it an administrative form thereby creates an idle and lazy class, living at the expense of the industrial and working class.” There are the noble, who will always work and don’t want government welfare. There are the shiftless who will refuse to take care of themselves and are owed nothing. But there is that broad middle, some who will use a “handout” to get back on their feet, but others who simply do not have the nobility and excellence of character necessary to use a helping hand to re-establish themselves. How many “people in poverty” has our government created, and KEPT THERE, through their “war on poverty” programs?

Some people get on welfare and they remain there, even though they, physically, don’t need to be. Their character—or lack thereof—would simply rather parasite off other people than work. They are incentivized into the “lazy bum” class and their number is legion.

That might not be the most charitable meditation going into the Festive Season.  Advent, though, is supposed to be a time of contemplating a fallen world awaiting redemption, and the ways in which that world falls short are manifest.