by Rayne Britt

Created on: May 14, 2008

Charity originally was defined as "giving out of Christian love to other Christians" (and, contrary to popular belief, it is not synonymous with the word love). Much like the definition of the word "celebrity", it has since been degenerated into a cheaper meaning. Now it insinuates something more along the lines of mere giving without thought of return compensation.

Using the original definition, you should be able to see that it is impossible to compel someone to commit an act of charity. To do so you would have to force them to be a Christian. The last time a group of Christians tried that, it led to the Dark Ages. You can compel a person to give up something but you cannot coerce them into a charitable act.

With the denigrated definition, you could compel, or even force, someone to give up time, possessions, money, etc. But that only cheapens the word even further. At the least, the modern definition still implies an act of free will. If we extended the meaning to include forced giving, it would make the word completely unconnected to its original connotation. The English language is falling apart well enough by itself that it doesn't need help from people who want to devalue its words into hollow shells of their former selves.

Furthermore, forcing someone into giving something up (especially "volunteered" time) is tantamount to slavery. It's also a socialist ideal. Those that have being forced to surrender it for the "greater good" of those that have not is something they did/do in Marxist governments and does not belong to the freewill ideology of our nation or to our free market, laissez-faire laissez-passer, economy. On any level, forced acts of kindness are simply not to be done in this nation. You work for your money and you give Uncle Sam his cut. The rest is yours to use as you see fit.

Our national ideology has always been, if you have you should give, but never, if you have, then you have to give. My pursuit of happiness should never be encroached upon for someone else. If I feel like giving a hundred dollars to the widow with seven children that just got laid off from her minimum-wage job that is my choice and no one else's. If I feel that I can't give up those hundred bucks because my family needs it too, then I should not be goaded into giving it up.

If you want to give out of love, by all means please do. If you want to force other people to give up what they earned then go somewhere like Cuba to live. They still do that there. But in the good old US of A, we give because we feel like it, not because some bleeding heart says we have to.

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