It's amazing to me how many people think that voting to have the government give poor people money is compassion. Helping poor and suffering people is compassion. Voting for our government to use guns to give money to help poor and suffering people is immoral self-righteous bullying laziness.
People need to be fed, medicated, educated, clothed, and sheltered, and if we're compassionate we'll help them, but you get no moral credit for forcing other people to do what you think is right. There is great joy in helping people, but no joy in doing it at gunpoint.
Amen -- no points are awarded for advocating the confiscation of wealth from others to do what you are unwilling to do yourself.
The column is worth reading in its entirety, making the excellent point that libertarianism is fundamentally humble and a recognition of one's limitations. Left unsaid is that statism is an implicit mixture of arrogance (the presumption that small numbers of individuals -- i.e. government officials -- can know what is best for the rest of society) and ignorance (the knowledge possessed by the most learned bureaucrat or politician pales in comparison with the collective intelligence of the masses).
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