If not submitting to having my income expropriated at the barrel of a politician's gun means I lack empathy then you are using a very strange definition for the word "empathy".
This is the problem. There is this assumption that taxes are used to care for the destitute. Absolutely, some amount of taxes do go to that end.
However, I've worked enough government contracts to know that the vast majority of that money goes to providing middle-class incomes for people in government who otherwise would not be making that sort of money because of a distinct lack of intelligence, competence, or diligence.