As you may have already gathered, I have little empathy with the faith of those who profess religious certitude. I respect them as people, but not their views. They separately and collectively, by their disagreements, have shown the object of their faith to be a myth.

Hope springs eternal, but passive hope is not much different from fatalism, regarding life as if it were a slot machine. Active hope is another matter. We should all respect ourselves, and each other, actively hoping that all will eventually realise its mutual survival value. What of those who remain disrespectful, or otherwise fall by the wayside? To whom should we extend the hand of charity? What is charity in an aptious society?

It is the function an aptious nation to take care of its citizens when untoward events occur, which either could not reasonably be foreseen, or over which they have no control. That is National Insurance. Citizens should insist that their government’s tax expenditure includes providing such care. Politicians will debate, or determine when in government, what aspects of life are not covered by National Insurance.

For example, a brain tumour operation would prima facie be a nationally borne expense, but cancer of the lungs for an active smoker may well not be. Such smokers would have been expected to take out private insurance, or depend upon charity. Another example might be where one were injured when innocently involved in a motor accident, but had been wearing a seat belt. This would be covered by National Insurance. If you were not so innocent, or had not been wearing your seat belt, then you would have to rely on your own resources. You would not, I hasten to add, be left at the roadside to die, but, expenses involved in your hospital treatment would eventually have to be paid for by yourself, your insurance company, or a charity.

In our aptious nation, because National Insurance would cover most of the uncontrollable hazards of life, the rôle of many of the present-day charities would change. I shall call them "Old Charities". The law of the land would enjoin governments to assist those in need through no fault of their own. "New Charity", I would say true charity, begins when people are in difficulty because they have neglected or ignored their own responsibilities. These are the folks with whom neither the law, nor government, can sympathise, but other people can: "There but for the Grace of God(sic) go I". There would be "New Charities" for, say, criminals who found it hard to reform, hence being under perpetual sentence for their crimes. As hinted above, uninsured smokers with lung cancer would also need charity.

It may be thought that placing the bulk of financial support for so many "Old Charities" under government control would be expensive for the taxpayer. Just consider, however, some examples of how much of the money for today’s charities is raised. A common source is the "profit" from a function, or procedure.

A charity ball, for example, may appear to raise a considerable net sum, but it sends a remarkably small proportion of its overall expenditure to charity. It is even smaller when you take into account the expense to individuals of preparing to attend. Little of this money ever reaches the charity.

A Blue Peter appeal, many years ago is reputed to have raised twice as much as it expected from the sale of parcels of woollens sent to the BBC. When the postage cost was analysed, however, it became clear that the cost to the public of posting the parcels was tenfold.

A tiny part of general direct taxation would provide more cost-effectively all the money presently received by today’s charitable organisations, even though it is billions of pounds. To make charitable giving more personal, however, there could be ways of allocating an extra percentage of one’s own taxes to a specific aspect of National Insurance cover. "New Charities" could also participate in such voluntary-giving programmes, somewhat as covenanting already operates.

It would be a government decision as to which aspects of living were covered by National Insurance. Though moved to encompass many of the "Old Charities", the line would have to be drawn somewhere, if only for resource constraints. Yet there would be many people, I’m sure, who would wish to remain associated with these "Old Charities", even those that were taken under the wing of National Insurance. The services and funds of these people would still be of value to the relevant government department. A Ministry of Health, say, could co-ordinate 1000s of volunteers more efficiently and effectively than the multitude of today’s mini-charities.

There would also be people anxious to lobby for the inclusion under National Insurance of some of the causes that were outside the scheme. Money would need to be raised privately for this, and for those "New Charities" which, by their nature, stood no chance of ever coming under a National scheme. Wherever the government drew the line , there would always be the need for charitable people on both sides of it.

It would be relatively easy to delineate among those various hazards and causes, old or new, that were concerned with people. People are deemed to have responsibility for much of their own lives. It would be harder for animal or environmental charities. Neither animals, nor trees, pay taxes. Most of them may fall outside National Insurance, but their concerns could still be covered by the law. For example, the RSPCA, or RSPCB, should not have to go to the expense of mounting a private prosecution against a person who has broken a law about animals or birds. Charities may well have to spend money from their own resources in collecting evidence, or protecting creatures of concern, but the government, hence the taxpayer, should initially pay for all applications of the law. The accused, if found guilty, may well have to reimburse the taxpayers and the Charity’s costs.

To summarise: the nation would look after the deserving, (a mugging victim, say). "New Charities" would look after the undeserving, those who could have avoided mishap themselves, but did not. This would include those who failed to take out private insurance for misadventures for which they were deemed responsible, (say, injury in a motoring accident caused by their ignoring a red stop-light).

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