America is known as a great charitable country, to wit, we provide humanitarian aid to nations big and small all over the world. So too does America provide aid and a safety net to the impoverished here at home. All of this is to the basic good, as anytime that you see in the face of your fellow man, a reflection of yourself, your treatment of that man, will be better for having seen the common humanity that all men are inherently endowed with.
There are however, situations that a man must do for himself rather than having others do this for them. For instance, there comes a time, when your child has to go to pre-school or kindergarten or whatever, and not too surprisingly or too infrequently, the small child suffers from separation anxiety, but anxiety or not, the child needs to be amongst other children of its age, and the child needs the opportunity to engage in activities that will expand its field of knowledge and thereby to learn with its peers. Additionally, when your child is in school at whatever stage of life, that child must take the tests that will demonstrate whether they have learned and comprehended certain knowledge or not, and thereby it would be self-defeating if said child cheated or if the tests were actually taken by somebody else.
In the workplace, no matter your job, how responsible it is or is not, there are some responsibilities that will be put onto your shoulders, so that, you as an employee, must do your part to perform those responsibilities in a competent and professional manner. While there is something to be said about teamwork, working together, and collaboration, it is imperative that each member of that respective team contributes to it, as opposed to only a select few, pretty much doing all.
No doubt, there have been times in your life in which you have done something for another, wondering perhaps, or possibly knowing that, the other person probably could have done what you just did for them, without the actual need of your aid. It is these times that truly separate, good actions, from actions while good, which would ideally be more appropriately filled by somebody else. That is to say, it is difficult to criticize someone who out of the goodness of their heart helps another, however it must also be recognized that there are times, when that help probably should not have been offered, asserted itself, or have been accomplished.
In actuality, the real purpose of a mentor to a student, a parent to a child, is to teach and engage the other, thereby providing the basis so that these individuals can one day think properly and to become self-reliant. Any society in which a significant portion of the population becomes dependent upon the government or its substitutes for its daily subsistence, and does not make their own effort to wean themselves off of such a dependency, are creating at a minimum a two-tiered society, of those that do, and those that don't.
The fundamental problem with not doing for yourself, when you do have the innate capability of doing something for yourself, is that, because you are not self-sufficient nor self-reliant, you are almost for a certainty, not self-governmental, because you have failed to demonstrate that capacity, and therefore because you have ceded your sovereignty to another, your destiny is in another's hand, for better or for worse.