From my politically conservative friends, I want to know why it's worth praising rich people for taking advantage of the system and avoiding taxes, but considered an abuse of the system when poor people utilize some of the safety nets put in place for them.

Allow me to make something clear here: I’m more concerned about what this says about our attitudes and assumptions of the poor: namely rich = good honest people / poor = lazy moochers.

Strikes me as wildly unchristlike.

So, whether you think it’s legal/wise for the rich to avoid taxes or not is not really what I care about.

It’s still troubling to assume so well of the rich for doing everything to keep more and more ungodly amounts of money while simultaneously assuming so negatively of the poor for merely trying to survive.