It's a more than adequate response, Kay, and I appreciate your taking the effort to digest the information and reply thoughtfully.

Interestingly, one of the most common pro-government arguments is that people cannot be trusted to take care of themselves. The come-back, of course, is "Why should we give some people power to govern others, then?"

I totally agree with you that forced generosity is not generosity. It reminds me of Milton in his "Treatise on Education," in which he lays out the basic idea that morality cannot exist in a vacuum, meaning God gave us the ability to make bad decisions because, if we had no choice, doing the right thing would no longer be a virtue.

I guess Lewis also discussed this in "The Problem of Evil":

Anyways, "people are always better left to take care of themselves where possible, and to be directly supported by people who know and love them in some capacity where not" sums it up well!

Talk to you soon!