"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."
Let me start with the fact that I find this to be so simplistic that it is meaningless. Political arguments that fit on a bumper sticker usually shouldn't be taken too seriously. People say it, and they feel like they have been deep and profound, when they haven't really said anything at all.
But the bigger thing is that, if you put any thought whatsoever into it, it quickly becomes apparent that this is an argument FOR welfare, not against it. It posits two options, one of which is a direct program, like food stamps, which feeds people directly. The second, better, option describes an educational social program, which is also welfare. In this proverb, doing nothing (the libertarian choice) isn't even an option.
We can also tack on that the two choices aren't mutually exclusive. It's pretty hard to learn how to fish when you are starving to death, so I would suggest that it might be most effective to first give a man a fish, and then teach him how to catch more. Of course, if he doesn't have a net, this might still be a problem, so we might need another welfare program to help with that.
In conclusion, if we were to apply this proverb to real life, the idea that the left wants to give a man a fish and the right wants to teach a man to fish is patently ridiculous. The left advocates giving fish and teaching people how to get more. The right advocates telling people to fish, regardless of how possible that is for them. I suggest that instead the right adopt, "the best way to teach someone to swim is to throw them into a lake," as their new meaninglessly simple argument. At least it somewhat accurately represents their position.
