Sunday, January 02, 2005

Stinginess

Just a couple of quick points about the whole stinginess debate.

First of all, the US has never been stingy when it comes to humanitarian aid around the world. Do you want to discuss the financial and human cost of ridding the world of Hitler, Mussolini and Saddam Hussein? Do you want to discuss American expenditures in rebuilding Europe, Japan, Iraq, etc. after saving their butts from tyranny? After natural disasters aroung the world, the US has always led the countries of the world in providing aid. And most importantly, it's NOT a contest anyway.

Secondly, if you are going to make the argument that the US should provide the most aid because it is most economically able, then you must also accept that it is the moral obligation of the US to police the planet and rid it of maniacal tyrants because the US is the only country able to do so.

2 comments:

Scott said...

as a libertarian, I am opposed to the govt. using tax dollars this way in the first place.

We the people are the source of that money, and the government has NOT shown to be an efficient method of transferring monies.

Yes, they are a solid and powerful way to transfer money, but that does not make it right.

Anyway, just a few thoughts.

Scott

thc said...

Scott: I agree with many libertarian philosophies and, you are right, government has not proven to be efficient at distributing aid. But let's not forget that nearly half of American voters are registered Democrats. We cannot realistically expect to remove government from this process in the foreseeable future.