So if we look at it from a “community good” point of view, let’s say I have voted for a representative to divvy up the tax dollars and that representative takes a chunk of that money and puts it in his pocket, or spent it on prostitutes, or paid off rich buddies. Are you saying that the Bible says I shouldn’t speak out on that? I’m not sure that’s what Paul meant about not complaining.

I’m not speaking out about what I think I deserve; I’m speaking out about what I see as behavior by my elected representatives that could tend to encourage more bad behavior, or at least a big temptation to do so. It’s why I speak out against abortion and state-sponsored gambling. Speaking out politically can indeed be a case of “give me what I want/deserve/etc.”, but I don’t think this is what’s happening with the speech that Campolo is, well, complaining about.

It’s all intent, so you can never say for sure, indeed. I just haven’t heard complaining of the kind that Campolo describes, and I think it’s a straw man. Being a hands-off capitalist simply does not mean that you let your brother wallow in his poor choices or circumstances. We, as individuals, or corporately with charities of our own choosing, can work in that area. But what the government is doing is directly, specifically, letting people profit from, in some cases, poor choices.

I just don’t see that as something we should be encouraging. Aid in their overall situation, indeed. Erasing consequences, not so much. I could possibly even cast this as speaking out against an injustice, which many on the Left seem to value. Yeah, it might be a stretch, but injustice is injustice, even if the target of that injustice doesn’t happen to be poor or destitute.

In essence, I don’t think the proper distribution of money for the common good is a privilege, and so I don’t think that I’m artificially raising anything to a “moral right” that should already be there, or at least be just a little lower that an overarching moral issue.