C'mon, now. Your assertion is a burlesque of what dlj wrote.
Of course, as a civilization, we have responsibility to (not for) the poor. Your words.
We have a responsibility to help those who cannot help themselves.
We have a responsibility to provide opportunity for those who can help themselves.
And we have a responsibility not to enable those who would prefer to be helped by others, rather than do anything to help themselves.
You might call this social triage.
To date, we have spent over $5 trillion dollars over four decades on "the poor". These expenditures have failed to move the dial on the percent of Americans "living in poverty". It remains around 14% today -- essentially unchanged since 1965. Indeed, unchanged since de Tocqueville observed the same percentage (1 in 7) in colonial America.
The only times that have seen a decline in the percentage of Americans in poverty since 1965 were a.) after the Reagan tax cuts and b.) after the Bush tax cuts.
That should tell us something.
No conservative would object to government (or charitable) assistance to two legs of the social triage. But we should all object to those who form the third leg: they are poor, because they wish to be. They neither deserve, nor appreciate, our help. Indeed, we (nor government programs) aren't helping them at all, only enabling them.
Charity needn't -- indeed, shouldn't be -- indiscriminate.
Sorry- I completely disagree. I would not wish to live in the sort of world you describe.
>>No conservative would object to government...assistance to two legs of the social triage.<<
Actually, I do object. It is not the government’s job and it violates the spirit behind the Biblical concept of giving and receiving. The core spirit is the giver gives voluntarily. The government takes the funds as taxes via the power of the gun. As a taxpayer I have lost all choice in the matter.
Everything is about WHY. Why do we give?