Highwire walkers sometimes fall, hit the ground, and die, but not if they have a safety net. If they fall, they fall into the safety net and live another day.

The free society, it is said, operates much the same way. People fall onto hard times, are unable to pay their bills, and die of starvation. A welfare-state safety net, it is argued, ensures that they survive and live another day.

The safety-net argument, however, is fallacious, both from a moral standpoint and a practical standpoint.

First of all, what is a genuinely free society? One of the many prerequisites for a free society is that everyone has the right to keep everything he earns and decide for himself what to do with his own money. To the extent that the government forces a person to be good and caring to another person, freedom is destroyed. Genuine freedom leaves that choice up to each individual.

Let's assume that the government enacts a tax law requiring everyone to pay a 99 percent tax on his income. Whatever a person earns at work, he gets to keep 1 percent of it. The government uses the 99 percent to fund its safety-net programs for the poor, needy, and disadvantaged.