Posted on 02/02/2003 5:15:50 AM PST by RJCogburn
If the $15 billion African AIDS package Mr. Bush proposed in his State of The Union speech was intended to appease the critics of his impending attack on Iraq, it won't work, says Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute.
"Mr. Bush's altruistic giveaway of our money," says Dr. Brook, "will not buy the world's approval nor stop the condemnation of the morally justifiable action that he is about to take against Iraq. As evidence, consider how Nelson Mandela, former president of South Africa, the country with the highest number of AIDS cases in Africa, has countered Mr. Bush's list of Iraqi atrocities: 'If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America. It is the one power with a president who has no foresight, who cannot think properly, [and] is now wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust.'
"As Ayn Rand observed, 'The givers are never blessed; the more they give, the more is demanded of them; complaints, reproaches and insults are the only response they get for practicing altruism's virtues (or for their actual virtues). Altruism cannot permit recognition of virtue…. If the giver is not kept under a torrent of degrading, demeaning accusations, he might take a look around and put an end to the self-sacrificing.' If Mr. Bush needs more proof that altruistic giveaways will not buy him world approval he should compare the staggering sums of foreign aid we have given away in the last fifty years to the number of 'friends' America has today.
"If individual Americans voluntarily want to give their money to fight AIDS, they can do so privately. But when $15 billion is forcefully expropriated from taxpayers for Mr. Bush's appeasing altruistic gesture it is outrageous and immoral."
If anyone understands Altruism, I am sure President Bush does. It isn’t virtue the President seeks, it is a cure. Americans are well aware of the hostility from those who have received American generosity over the years for one reason or the other, the hostility doesn’t stem from the people, it comes from their governments who loath us because they need us.
But when $15 billion is forcefully expropriated from taxpayers for Mr. Bush's appeasing altruistic gesture it is outrageous and immoral." If Mr. Brook thinks the amount to be given is immoral, then perhaps these “forward thinkers” of the ARI and others of us who feel the same, should come down hard on those who continue to spread the AIDs virus via pleasure and the women who continue to give HIV to their unborn children. AIDs is indeed a preventable ‘affliction’ and no child should be born with it. I could go a step further and speak my mind about those that carry the virus and what to do about them, but I would get flamed.
No it isn't. Your largesse with other peoples' hard earned dollars is amusing, but wrong.
If individual Americans voluntarily want to give their money to fight AIDS, they can do so privately.
Right on target. If $15 Billion is "chump change", then certainly it will be easy for private donations to raise that, right?
Heck, in SA they say HIV does not cause AIDS but poverty and whites, so 15bilions will go to this AIDS "prevention" program. Will it save a life? I think it will kill some unwittingly.
Nonsense. Medicine never saves life. It merely delays death.
1) The US, as the richest nation on earth, has an obligation to help the poor. Randians may disagree but, thank God, most Americans do not.
2) The $15B will be spread out over a few years and so represents less than 1% of our annual budget (that's chump change)
3) Many charities do contribute to the AIDS disaster, as well as other disasters, in Africa. The problem is obviously greater than private groups can address
and finally,
4) There are many things the gov. spends money on that I disagree with, this is not one of those cases.
This level of idiocy does the conservative movement no good whatsoever.
It does, however, appear to be a valid libertarian position.
I certainly agree here, but that does not mean that the government has the right to take from me without asking to give to the poor. That is my job, not the government's job. The government is not charity and it is not compassion. It is raw force, and I resent being told that I must be more "compassionate" with the barrel of a gun shoved against my head.
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