Those of you paying close attention will notice that I have a new blogad running on the site, which points to Command Post’s very helpful directory of agencies and charities that provide ways to help in South Asian relief efforts.
I created the ad in response to a request from Miklos at Blogads to donate the space to run an ad submitted by Unicef. I liked the idea of donating ad space for the relief efforts, but didn’t like specifying one single charity — particularly Unicef, which hasn’t exactly had a squeaky clean record in the past.
So, I created the generic ad you see as an alternative. If you are a blogger and want to run it yourself, it is a simple matter to re-create the ad to run on your site using your BlogAd offer code (if you don’t know how, ping me and I’ll help). Or just create your own ad and point it to the Command Post’s directory page.
However you can help to put those who want to help in touch with the groups that will let them do so is a good thing. So go do it, and thanks!
Day: December 30, 2004
Ayn Rand Institute on South Asia: Selfishness as Stupidity
I occasionally get “op-eds” sent to me from the Rand Institute, and generally ignore them (like I do most of the low-grade think-tank spam I receive). But today’s submission caught my eye:
U.S. Should Not Help Tsunami Victims
By David Holcberg
As the death toll mounts in the areas hit by Sunday’s tsunami in southern Asia, private organizations and individuals are scrambling to send out money and goods to help the victims. Such help may be entirely proper, especially considering that most of those affected by this tragedy are suffering through no fault of their own.
The United States government, however, should not give any money to help the tsunami victims. Why? Because the money is not the government’s to give…
Sigh. The piece continues on in quite predictable fashion to decry the government for “doling out money that they have no right to and that does not belong to them” and declaring the altruism that justifies such confiscation as “a vicious morality that demands that we sacrifice our values instead of holding on to them.”
Really, you couldn’t have written a better satire of classic Randthink if you tried. (Actually, you could: this piece would be rejected as too over-the-top if it wasn’t for real).
Okay, here’s a quick slice and dice:
First, “the government” is elected, and if the taxpayers don’t like their money being spent on charities, they have every opportunity to vote them out of office. So stop bitching about “the government.”
Second, Mr. Holcberg seems completely oblivious to the notion that perhaps it is in the selfish best-interest of the citizens of the United States to help ensure that the people of South Asia are not starving, dying, and generally living in misery. Might we entertain for a moment the idea that large populations of destitute, desperate people (as opposed to healthy, properous ones) are just a bit more likely to lash out at the United States and the rest of the world? You don’t have to accept a poverty-causes-terrorism argument (which I don’t) to grant that the United States would be safer and better off in a world rid of desperate, miserable populations who can be easily swayed by radical and dangerous ideologies of hatred against America.
Anyway, that’s about all the time this one is worth. The piece doesn’t appear to be online, so I’ll put the full text after the break. Read if you dare.
PS: Irony alert: why does the Ayn Rand institute have a page asking for volunteers?
Continue reading “Ayn Rand Institute on South Asia: Selfishness as Stupidity”
Bush Pledges Relief for South Asia: But Not Through the U.N.
I didn’t catch remarks yesterday on relief efforts to aid victims of the horrific earthquakes and tsunamis in South Asia. But Papa Bear drew my attention to a phrase that was conspicuously absent from Bush’s speech: “United Nations”.
Bush spoke of “building an international coalition”, and having “established a regional core group with India, Japan and Australia to help coordinate relief efforts.”
No mention of working through — or with — the U.N. at all. Not even a little bit.
The President of the United States doesn’t make such an omission by accident, especially in a prepared speech like this one. And while we’ve certainly seen some obvious disdain for the U.N. from Bush and his administration before, this is about as blatant a snub as I can think of short of actually telling Mr. Annan to pound sand.
Good. I’ve expressed my problems with the U.N. before, and since then, the Oil-for-Food scandal has been exposed to such a ghastly degree that it should make any thinking person pause before deciding that the U.N. is an effective or honest organization through which humanitarian aid should flow.
The United States is generous both as a government and as a people, and we will most certainly help where it is needed in South Asia. But there’s no reason why we have to provide false legitimacy to a failing, corrupt bureaucracy by allowing the U.N. to act as a intermediary between American generosity and those in need — particularly given that the U.N. has proven time and again that doing so would endanger, rather than improve, the chances that aid would truly reach and help those who need it most.
Update: Captain Ed points out that British minister Clare Short noticed the omission as well, and isn’t happy about it. Damned shame about that…