Society should have no obligation to those who won't help themselves. We should aid those who can't help themselves.
the premise of this statement is inherently and fundamentally flawed, because it ignores the fact that "society" makes it impossible for someone to help themselves outside of the framework of "society" in the first place; for which you could make a very valid argument that it becomes society's duty to help everyone who is unwillingly a part of the system.
for example...
there is no fundamental right (human, national, or local) to decide to go "off grid" and fully revert to a pre-civilization state and live like a caveman, being a fully self-sustaining lone hunter-gatherer.
you might be able to get away with it for a time, even groups might be able to, but assuming the rest of the country still exists as it does today, sooner or later someone is going to get a bug up their ass about you being on their land, or some government agency is going to get shitty about you not paying taxes, or declare you a public health risk, or something... checking out of the human condition simply isn't an option.
so, if you can't shuffle off into the woods and fully sustain your own life without the input or assistance of the broader context of society, for 99.9999999^9% of us, existence is having to equivalent of 'hunter-gather' within the context of modern society - getting a job, paying bills, buying food.
now, if civilization A. takes away your power to live totally independently and B. restricts your ability to live independently within the rules of the society in which you live, i think that makes for a very strong ethical case about the inherent responsibility of that society to correct either one or the other of those conditions.
making it impossible to care for yourself by yourself, and then making it impossible to care for yourself within the framework of the society that you live in is rigging the game, when you get down to it.
and while you can certainly argue that the universe isn't fair so there's no inherent moral imperative to NOT rig the game, if you're going to bother discussing social morals at all it's a pretty legitimate point to make.
isolate and trod-down a sub-class of people long enough that the basic tenants of the social contract no longer apply to them (ie: that they are no longer acquiring life-enhancement from the collective) and i see no reason for other tenants of the social contract (ie: that they murder you and take all your shit to sustain themselves) to be expected either, so i really have a hard time understanding the kind of hubris required to declare that the central thesis of the collective will to form society's in the first place simply doesn't apply to the poor.
