John Williams wrote:
On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 6:01 PM, Bruce Bostwick<lihan161...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
Beyond proposals, though, there is a very strong argument to be made that
it's inhumane to simply leave people to die if they can't find insurance
coverage to pay for medical care that costs hundreds of times what they
could afford on their own.
And what are you, personally, doing about it? Are you living in the
cheapest apartment you can find, with no computer or TV or automobile,
so that you can give more money and save several more people from
dying?
If you take money from me, you are leaving people to die:
http://www.weforum.org/pdf/whitepaper.pdf
| A child born in Niger today is 40 times more likely to die before
| her fifth birthday than a child born in the United Kingdom.
...
John--
Not that I don't trust you personally, but I'm sure
there are people who claim to be giving money to worthy
charities but aren't. (Anyway, aren't charitable
contributions tax-deductible?)
For all I know, you could actually be spending all your
money on things that hurt the common good. So the above
is not a very convincing argument.
I think we both want things to be "fair" as we perceive
it. You're worried about your money being spent on
people who don't deserve it. I'm not that concerned
about that, and am prepared to accept a bit of waste.
I'm more concerned about people who won't contribute
to efforts for the common good, so I'm prepared to use
the government to make them contribute. I do not
perceive letting people opt out of paying for the needy
as fair. To me, it rewards those who are heartless,
since they'll keep their money. I see that as very
unfair.
This may in fact mean that I'm less likely to contribute
to charity. When people in my community take up a
collection to pay someone's medical expenses, my reactions
tend to be:
1) Why doesn't the government provide a decent social
safety net so this doesn't happen?
2) What about all the other people in similar straits
who don't have a network of family and friends to organize
a charity drive for them?
3) This is an obvious draw, which will probably get a
fair amount of money since it tugs at everybody's emotions--
I can use my charitable donations more efficiently somewhere
else.
---David
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