CONELY COMMENTARY (WSAU) – We are going to learn a lot about China from horse racing.
China is steadily asserting more control over Hong Kong, where the largest charitable organization is the Hong Kong Jockey Club – the group that runs horse racing there. Horse racing is wildly popular in Hong Kong. Their Wednesday night races are like Monday Night Football here. Huge crowds, and huge amounts bet on winning and losing horses.
But the Jockey Club is a not-for-profit charity. The money they raise goes to the poor. Last year they donated $2.2-billion, mostly towards building housing for the homeless and running soup kitchens.
But in communist China, gambling is forbidden. And individual charity from private groups is unheard of. In Red China, the government, and only the government, meets the needs of the people.
Forced confiscation of labor or wealth, and redistributing it to the poor is not charity. It’s theft. And the same thing is happening in the United States, where we hear if only Group X, the wealthy, “paid their fair share” then Group Y, the poor, could have whatever (like free prescription drugs, or subsidies for electric vehicles, or universal kindergarten).
Christians are told to be charitable. And we have been given instructions on how to give from II Corinthians: “Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”
Government confiscation, in whatever form it takes, crowds out charitable giving. Givers would be more generous and receivers would take sparingly if the government was out of the charity business. God knows this. If only our leaders would catch-up.
Chris Conley
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