On Morality and the Rule of Law, briefly

Is it wrong to put a leash on a dehydrated dog and drag him to water if the dog is half crazed from thirst and is trying to drink antifreeze?

There are places on this Earth where taxes aren't as burdensome. Many of these havens happen to be the same places that don't have potable water.

If you point a gun at someone on the street and force him to buy food with the dollar and then force him to hand deliver it to the bum, you very well may have committed a moral act.

If you point a gun at someone on the street and take the dollar and put it in your pocket while assuring this unfortunate stranger that the dollar is going to be used to feed someone who's starving, keep a portion of the dollar for yourself in compensation for your trouble and use the rest to help subsidize the taxes of the grocery store chain that you shop at claiming and possibly believing that said subsidy will allow the store to hire more workers thus allowing the bum to get a job and feed himself, then a question of morality arises.

Over simplification of these issues must be avoided, unless your trying to rile up a mob. If the system was simple, everyone would do it.

Is it wrong to put a leash on a dehydrated dog and drag him to water if the dog is half crazed from thirst and is trying to drink antifreeze?

No, but dog != man. The dog doesn't know the antifreeze will kill it, and has no responsibility to know that. A man would have a responsibility to know that antifreeze is bad for him (assuming he even knows what it is). Hell, the dog doesn't have to be half-crazed -- antifreeze is sweet. Nothing wrong with dragging the dog away. We can argue the case of an invalid(of whatever sort) another time.

There are places on this Earth where taxes aren't as burdensome. Many of these havens happen to be the same places that don't have potable water.

There are also places with low/non-existant taxes, where it is possible to get potable water. But I'm not even so much interested in international/humanitarian aid, so much as aid within the US (the original title referenced the welfare state, but I changed it at some point.)

If you point a gun at someone on the street and force him to buy food with the dollar and then force him to hand deliver it to the bum, you very well may have committed a moral act.

So, the bum has a claim to some of my property, by virtue of being a destitute? The property (let's say a Federal Reserve Note) is something that I have traded a portion of my past for(I worked to produce something, which I received the money in exchange for -- something along those lines.) The money is a portion of my past; it is a representation of my effort. To steal it from me to give to a bum means that the bum has a claim to some of my past. Does this mean that anyone has a claim to some of my past? Or only those who have less than a certain standard of living? Either way, it means that the bum owns a portion of me, and I don't own myself. I am beholden to the bum because he is incapable of or does not want to be successful. I'd say that him having a claim on me is the immoral part of this, not even worrying about how he satisfies that claim (theft, even by proxy, is still theft.)

If you point a gun at someone on the street and take the dollar and put it in your pocket while assuring this unfortunate stranger that the dollar is going to be used to feed someone who's starving, keep a portion of the dollar for yourself in compensation for your trouble and use the rest to help subsidize the taxes of the grocery store chain that you shop at claiming and possibly believing that said subsidy will allow the store to hire more workers thus allowing the bum to get a job and feed himself, then a question of morality arises.

But what if your family doesn't like bread, they like ciggarettes?

Ahh, good old Fat Tony.

I posit that to steal a loaf of bread, even to feed your starving family, is still morally wrong. It may well be less morally wrong than letting your family starve, but it is morally wrong.

Over simplification of these issues must be avoided, unless your trying to rile up a mob. If the system was simple, everyone would do it.

But reductio ad absurdum is fun!

If an arguement doesn't pass the smell test at such a simple, low level as one person stealing from another on the street/is it moral, how can it possibly work at a much larger level?

The oversimplification is necessary, it brings home what a policy like the welfare state means. It necessarily means that the laws that make it happen are immoral. That's all I'm arguing for here.

And besides, maybe I am trying to rile up a mob.