Libertarians – those strange ducks who espouse the alarming-to-some idea that no one owes anyone else any portion of the money they worked for (among other strange and alarming-to-some ideas) – oppose forcing anyone to "contribute to Social Security for just that reason. On account of the being forced to, for openers. Their money is taken from them to finance retirement "benefits" for other people who – for just that reason – have no right to those "benefits."

The government affirms this harsh fact.

Its high court has ruled – that is, decreed – that Social Security "benefits" are alms which no one has a right to – which is reasonable based on the fact that every cent of "benefits" paid out is not the "contributor's" saved-up/invested/interest-accrued money but someone else's money, extracted from them just as it was extracted from him. That is why Social Security is often referred to as a Ponzi scheme, named after a famous fraudster who lived 100 years ago. The difference now is that this fraud is both legal and compulsory.

It is also alms.

And yet, it also isn't that in that alms, properly speaking, are freely given. You know of someone who has fallen upon hard times; or you know of a charity that aids people who have fallen upon hard times and you wish to help by donating money. This is a very different thing than being compelled to hand over money, which is what occurs when you are forced to "contribute" to Social Security.

Having got all of that out of the way, the question arises: Is it immoral to accept "benefits" derived from the government having forced someone else to finance them? This question seems to answer itself. Obviously, it would be immoral to walk next door to your neighbor's home, knock on his door and demand that he hand over "benefits" because some other person had previously knocked on your door and demanded that you hand them over. It is an example of the old truism that two wrongs do not make a right.

It is the natural and normal desire of the victimized  to be made whole. This desire is as understandable as it is legitimate. The illegitimate part intrudes when someone else who had nothing to do with the victimizing becomes the victim of the victimized.

Social Security victimizes all of us.

At least, all of us who have been forced to "contribute" into it. Which is everyone who has worked because everyone who has is forced to "contribute." Our common victimizer is not each other but the government that set up this racket, this system of intergenerational robbery-parasitism. It has made the old predatorily dependent upon the young and it has made the young resentful of the old for depriving them, to a very great extent, of being able to save and provide for their own old age and for making them, in their turn, dependent upon the government for alms.