You are a caring person, aren’t you? Sure you are! You give to charity, you volunteer in your community, you post encouraging things on facebook to people who are having a hard time, and you show your love to your friends and family. You are a good person.

But if I put you together with a group say the size of a city are you still caring? With a group the size of a province or state? How about as a country? The reality is is that while you show many excellent qualities as an individual when we become a collective, we are not nearly so nice.

What are you talking about you ask? Well in my little city there is a 20% child poverty rate. In Sri Lanka, there are thousands of Rohingya killed. In Europe and In North America there is a growing exclusion of immigrants. In the UK between 2011 and 2017 homelessness shot up 60%. There is a shrinking middle class as a small number sit comfortably amongst the elite or much more likely in the ballooning serving classes. Thousands of children are starving to death in Yemen, and South Sudan and the planet is warming to such an extent that unless we cut out world emissions by half, then the world will descend into climate chaos that will make millions homeless and kills hundreds of thousands.

So while YOU are a kind person WE, collectively, are so cruel that we allow these crimes against our fellow humans to happen unimpeded.

Well fine, you think, but what the hell am I supposed to do about that? I’m only one person. I don’t have any power.

But this is where you’re wrong. Every 2 to 4 years you vote for people that allow this to happen. Every 2 to 4 years you vote for lower taxes for yourself. Every 2 to 4 years you vote for those who are suffering to receive less, for corporations to receive more, and for the service that would alleviate many of the worlds problems get fewer and fewer dollars.

“Well, I give to charity!” I hear you saying. Well yes, you do but charities, both global and local, are a way for you to do a little to ease your guilt or to reinforce your good impulses. Charities are the single best way to justify governments ( which you voted in) to not pay for the service we need in our nations. We donate to charities so we don’t have to pay increased taxes for poverty, education, mental health, homelessness, or refuge services. Charities are a stop gap, a cheap, ineffective fix, that allows us as citizens to avoid our responsibleness to our fellow citizens.

Governments should pay for poverty, for refugees, for health, for education, for end of life care, for infrastructure, for all the services that charities or private businesses have no business being in because that business is our collective responsibility. Let business sell us phones and cars and presents to put under our Christmas trees, but take them out of the care of our fellow citizens. In a world of governments that take care of its citizens we don’t need charities. They become irrelevant.

“But we can’t afford all that,” you say. Well, more wealth is traveling across our globe now than in the history of our entire planet combined. Yet we, as citizens, chose not to pay for these issues to become solved once and for all. We as the wealthy, middle class, the poor, decide not to pay to address the growing needs of our fellow citizens or our planet. We choose to allow corporations to pay as little toward the well being of our fellow citizens as possible. We decided to enable the Über wealthy not to pay; we chose as the middle class to spend as little as possible, we decided to do this every time we go to the ballot box to vote. We decided to allow this growth in suffering to keep growing.

But I thought you said I was a nice person? You are. As an individual, you are a very thoughtful and kind person. But once I put you into a group that votes then you’re not very nice at all. You’re selfish. You, collectively, chose to turn your backs on your fellow citizens and allow suffering across the globe to increases.

So during this time of good will on earth and people of good will I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy, kinder, and more thoughtful New Year.