Good question. Let me cite a comment I just pointed.
I'd define it the way people in the Middle Ages and Early Modern period did. They made a sharp distinction between the deserving and the undeserving poor, the latter being poor due to their own laziness and misbehavior, the former due to no fault of their own.
I can see how someone would be poor through their own laziness, but you can only be rich in spite of your own laziness ("through no fault of your own"). The two situations are different.
Voluntary charity to care for the involuntarily destitute is entirely different from the state taking money under threat of force to distribute as it sees fit.
I disagree, you can be rich through inheritance. Often some of the worst, laziest people in the world. Point taken though, I only talked about what the words mean for the poor as opposed to the rich as well.
The rich who are deserving, in my view, are those who provide actually useful goods and services. Even something like Tesla would count, but not Facebook. Just my own arbitrary judgments.
I understand that you don't oppose voluntary charity. I don't like to strawman people as "OMG YOU LOVE TO SEE PEOPLE STARVE". But just to give you an example, I just scrolled through Twitter and one of the conservatives I follow was raising money to end medical debt. Very good, and voluntary charity as you call it, but one of the few blessings of living in Europe is that we don't have such a thing.
The rich who are deserving, in my view, are those who provide actually useful goods and services.
In a free market (which I accept that neither the US nor Europe has) 'useful goods and services' are determined by market forces. I'll agree that there are lots of 'useless' products and services on the market, but they're either there due to market forces, or government manipulation of market forces, and increasing the amount of government manipulation probably isn't the solution to the problem.
And to answer your original question, I'll suggest it's always theft to use force or the threat thereof take something from one person simply because they possess it and give it to someone else simply because they would benefit from it.
[O]ne of the few blessings of living in Europe is that we don't have [medical debt].
Because the US taxpayer and consumer subsidizes your medical system. If the US drops out of NATO and/or mandates that drugs not be sold at a lower cost overseas than they are sold to US consumers, your government medical system(s) would collapse. Not that our system of insurance cartels is good, but it allows your system of government controlled pricing to exist.
I'd like to see how you define "undeserved"/"deserving" there.
Good question. Let me cite a comment I just pointed.
I'd define it the way people in the Middle Ages and Early Modern period did. They made a sharp distinction between the deserving and the undeserving poor, the latter being poor due to their own laziness and misbehavior, the former due to no fault of their own.
I can see how someone would be poor through their own laziness, but you can only be rich in spite of your own laziness ("through no fault of your own"). The two situations are different.
Voluntary charity to care for the involuntarily destitute is entirely different from the state taking money under threat of force to distribute as it sees fit.
I disagree, you can be rich through inheritance. Often some of the worst, laziest people in the world. Point taken though, I only talked about what the words mean for the poor as opposed to the rich as well.
The rich who are deserving, in my view, are those who provide actually useful goods and services. Even something like Tesla would count, but not Facebook. Just my own arbitrary judgments.
I understand that you don't oppose voluntary charity. I don't like to strawman people as "OMG YOU LOVE TO SEE PEOPLE STARVE". But just to give you an example, I just scrolled through Twitter and one of the conservatives I follow was raising money to end medical debt. Very good, and voluntary charity as you call it, but one of the few blessings of living in Europe is that we don't have such a thing.
That's rich in spite of your own laziness.
In a free market (which I accept that neither the US nor Europe has) 'useful goods and services' are determined by market forces. I'll agree that there are lots of 'useless' products and services on the market, but they're either there due to market forces, or government manipulation of market forces, and increasing the amount of government manipulation probably isn't the solution to the problem.
And to answer your original question, I'll suggest it's always theft to use force or the threat thereof take something from one person simply because they possess it and give it to someone else simply because they would benefit from it.
Because the US taxpayer and consumer subsidizes your medical system. If the US drops out of NATO and/or mandates that drugs not be sold at a lower cost overseas than they are sold to US consumers, your government medical system(s) would collapse. Not that our system of insurance cartels is good, but it allows your system of government controlled pricing to exist.