by Caroline Breeze

Created on: September 25, 2008

Compelled disbursement of one's money is called payment, holdup (as in robbery) etc. not charitable giving. It's also called taxes, levies, fines, penalties etc. and the list goes on to describe ways in which people can be compelled to relieve themselves of the contents of their wallets and can, in no way be qualified as charity. Don't people feel that they already pay enough taxes as it is?

Charity comes from empathy towards others in need and a true desire to help them. It's a desire to share one's good fortune with others less fortunate. It comes from an urge to contribute somehow in alleviating a fellow human being's pain, suffering, and misfortune.

It is a gesture that should be 100% voluntary otherwise it defeats the purpose. Someone who is forced to give can become resentful towards the beneficiary. Resentment breeds other negative feelings that can eventually lead to willful misdeeds and negative action/reactions towards beneficiaries as a means of (at times passive-aggressive) retaliation. A person who is compelled to give may come to feel that he/she has been treated with injustice, robbed in some way and rightly so; they may have had better things or more important things to do with their money - it's their money isn't it? So why can't they spend it the way they want to?

To be compelled to give time and effort toward any given task is called forced labor, a job that one doesn't really like but needs the pay, school homework, doing one's part around the house, servitude and many other varied terms but it is not charity.

Take for example all of the volunteers who set out on a moment's notice to help out after the Tsunami hit. Granted some did it just for the money they could quickly earn in such an emergency situation, but many others did it because they had a deep heartfelt desire to help out people in distress. There are many others who would have gone had they had the opportunity to do so.

The ravaged landscape made working conditions extremely difficult and often frustrating for everyone there. Imagine for just one minute that the people who went had been compelled to do so. What kind of work would they have produced and how would they have treated the local people in the process? What would have happened?

People gave their time and elbow grease willingly and had this not been the case, we would probably have been faced with a different type of disaster with local people pitted against strangers in their land.

So often at the approach of winter, I've

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