Through a glass darkly

Harold Pollock posted the following on the RBC web site yesterday:

Commenter Mike Kaplan asks the following question below my last post:

Why am I paying taxes to take care of your [intellectually disabled] brother-in-law Vincent? He is your family – why don’t you take care of him? Why do you want to force me to sacrifice my time and labor – in taxes – to do what you are not doing?

All of us need to be responsible for ourselves and our families. The federal government currently borrows over 40% of what it spends. We just don’t have the money to continue this way.

I’ve been thinking about this. It’s reasonable to ask in the direct and sincere way Mr. Kaplan does. After all, I am a full professor at a leading university. I am not an economically disadvantaged person.

I have my own views. I’m more interested in how RBC readers would answer this query. So what do you think? I hope you answer him directly, in a spirit of civility.

For me, in principle anyway, the answer is simple. It's the same as it is to most (all?) other questions of social justice. Put yourself behind Rawls's veil, and ask yourself:

1. Do you want to risk the enormous, albeit very unlikely, burden attendant on being a mentally disabled person (or the next of kin of a mentally disabled person) in a society that does not provide care for such people?
   
2. Or do you want to risk the very small but almost certain tax burden that, as a non-disabled person, you will incur in a society that provides care for the mentally disabled?

As for me, I'll take door 2 every time.

That said, . . .

. . . I don't really think that issues like this get decided by putting ourselves behind that veil and they don't get decided by rational discussion or by cost-benefit analyses. All that stuff is highly over-rated. Although we may think that we make decisions carefully and rationally, we're actually fooling ourselves.

Instead, our decisions are determined by who we are. And who we are is determined by nature or nurture or Grace (or some combination of the three). Apparently, who Mr. Kaplan is is someone who looks at Vincent and says "Whew! I'm glad he's not my problem. What's for supper?" Others look at Vincent and say "How awful! I'm glad he's not my problem, but I'm glad to have a few of my tax dollars make his (and his care giver's) life a little more bearable."

Addendum: At mass on Holy Thursday we were blessed to sit with a group of mentally disabled adults from the local L'Arche community. The wonderful wife, Katka, and I all found it a very moving experience. Maybe someday I'll drum up the courage (or, better, receive the grace) to get involved in L'Arche.