Bill's Comments

As part of my readings for "Skeptics and Believers" I am reading Christopher Hitchen's "God is not Great." This is much like Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion," a collection of all the horrors he can find executed in the name of religion being used as the single exemplars of religion and then condemning religion and the belief in God based on this extremely biased sample. What created the realization was the constant repetition of "Religion poisons everything."

I suddenly realized that both Hitchens and Dawkins are using exactly the same logic as the gun-grabbers. Gun-grabbers blame the gun not the person pulling the trigger for the damage or death caused by gun-fire. Hitchens and Dawkins blame the religion not the person using it to justify their horrific behavior. Religion is simply a formal or informal statement of beliefs that can be used to justify behavior, and depending on the person using it, the behavior can be either evil or beneficent. Unless, like the Quran, there are explicit directives to perform evil acts, religion and religious doctrine is of itself neither good nor bad. It is the uses to which HUMANS put it that create good or evil.

Of course, in addition to misplacing the blame for the evils done in the name of religion, both these atheists refuse to acknowledge that there is good coming to the world in the name of religion. Then the issue would not be so clear-cut.

I have been watching a DVD course from The Teaching Company, called "Skeptics and Believers." This is a historical study of the various versions and criticisms of Christianity since the Enlightenment. I also am doing all the readings that go with the lectures. We are currently on the early 19th century, and specifically Friedrich Schleiermacher. He is considered the founding of the Romantic school of theology, and has influence still today. In Claude Welch's book, "Protestant Thought in the Nineteenth Century", Vol 1, on p. 63, is this quote from Schleiermacher:

"...to create an eternal covenant between the living Christian faith and an independent and freely working science, a covenant by the terms of which science is not hindered and faith not excluded."

With the exception that I have no pretensions of creating something eternal, this is the most concise statement of my aims with my religious studies and writings that I have seen.

What I am doing is even in keeping with his ideas. He believed that religious ideas had to be restated with succeeding generations to keep their meaning. So I am working to restate them to have meaning for our times.

Until they published Obama's long form birth certificate, I was skeptical of birther claims and willing to let them have their say. Now that the long form has been published.... I have become a birther. The thing is a fake. This is a rerun of the Dan Rather letters controversy in the Bush years. Bloggers had the thing exposed in less than 12 hours.

I don't believe that Obama has a true Hawaiian birth certificate. The only question I have now, is why does it matter? I thought his mother was an American citizen, which should make him a citizen.

For those who ask, Yes, I do think it is possible to have that big a conspiracy to cover up his birth and for it to succeed long enough to get him elected, mainly because the MSM was a silent part of it to begin with. When it comes to Obama there will be no Robert Woodward and Jason Bradlee. First, the MSM loves him and hated Nixon, and second, Obama is every bit as vindictive as a Mafia Don. He has sufficient friends to be completely deniable.

In watching the course of the controversy, I have seen circumstantial evidence that people have been threatened to shut them up, and I have heard a number of disconnected stories that if true, indicate this has been going on for BO's entire life.

We certainly live in interesting times.

I have not seen Atlas Shrugged, nor do I intend to. I have, however, read the book several times, each time finding something or understanding something that was not clear to me before. I am not an Objectivist, as Ayn Rand's followers like to term themselves. I do, however, think that I understand what has happened here better than most of the commentary I have read so far.

I have read conservative commentary that points out that successful movies need to have some art in them, not just ideology. I have seen conservative commentary that is basically gloating over its failure and deriding Ayn Rand's devotion to radical individualism as adolescent. It is clear that the commentor had little or no real understanding of her writing.

To me the surprise is more that they were even able to make a movie from the book. The book tells a story, the first requirement, but it does it so broadly and complexly, that to create the necessary simplifications for a movie guarantee distortion and even misrepresentation. As long as Ayn Rand was alive, she would not sign over movie rights without script control. Since this is something that Hollywood does not grant, it was a stalemate. Had Hollywood agreed, there might have been some chance at a decent movie since Ayn Rand made her living as a movie script writer for a number of years. My conclusion is that whoever in the Objectivist Society that had sign-off on the rights got rolled--big time. He/she was probably given lots of promises that were not honored.

Second, from the few tidbits of the plot I have read about, the writers had no understanding of the book at all. They simply approached it as a standard love-story/conquer-hardship story, with no understanding that it was the character of the protagonists that counted.

Example, the struggle is to build a high-speed railroad using Reardon Metal. I can pretty much be sure this is in reference to the John Galt Line. I can just see a writer seeing the issue over 100 mph speeds translating into high-speed railroad. No, the 100 mph was only because regulators wanted to restrict the speed, so Dagny thumbed her nose at them and said, "Restrict this." The actual railroad in the book was a standard freight railroad to replace the one regulated out of existence. To even bring high-speed railroading, a liberal crusade that is uneconomical, into the world of Atlas Shrugged is to show total ignorance of the basic priciples underlying Rand's beliefs.

There is a great misunderstanding about Rand's individualism. It does not tell anyone else what to do. It simply says that the individual should answer to themself first and only. If they then chose to help others or to work with others or submit to other's values, that is their choice. However, it says that other people have no right to coerce an individual to do something they believe is against their self-interest. The book has examples of what we could call charity on the individual level, but they are earned and selected charity that has meaning to the giver, not the blind,(or not-so-blind)random give-away of government.

One can speculate on what motivated the final creation of this film. I think Hollywood saw a ready, huge market of millions of viewers, since the book has been a steady seller for fifty years, and has a large and loyal fan-base. As for the Objectivists, I am totally at a loss. What has been accomplished is to damage the image and reputation of Rand's book and views by trivializing them. The apparent failure of the movie will actually be a blessing. It will prevent parts 2-n from being produced, and will quickly receed into obscurity, so that the quiet revolution can continue.

Afterword: I have always thought that The Fountainhead was a much better told story than Atlas Shrugged. The politics and ideas were presented in the behavior and situations of the characters, not as explicit lectures. Atlas Shrugged suffered from being more an ideological vehicle than a story to be told. The book does appeal primarily to adolescents and young adults, as it is written at that emotional level, where the world is still black and white, good and evil, not the shades of gray we deal with as adults. That is not to condemn it. Such an approach makes it clear what the values are to be chosen.

One commentor accused Rand of promoting free love. I'm not sure what he meant by the phrase, but in my understanding, it implies promiscuity, non-judgment as to the value of sex partners, and multiple, concurrent sexual relationships. If he meant that the partners were having sex outside of marriage, then that is not the same thing. Yes, the protagonists in Rand's book do have sex outside of marriage, but she tries to make it clear that there is a powerful interpersonal commitment based on common values before the sex is consumated. In effect, it is a non-formal form of marriage. This is probably one of the more difficult ideas to grasp, and probably is seen as being skipped by the adolescents reading the story.

To survive and succeed in society requires a healthy balance between one's love of oneself and one's willingness to cooperate with otheres and contribute to their well-being. In Rand's world this is an exchange, not a coerced transaction. With the constant squashing of individual excellence in the schools and society these days, the individualism of Atlas Shrugged is an important contribution to the development of healthy adults.

This movie, however, not so much.

A friend of mine sent this information to me in an email. Based on what I remember of what I have read of Charles Krauthammer, it rings true. Dr. K does not see the President quite the same as most of us conservative/libertarians. He ascribes to him more ability and intelligence than we generally do. Perhaps he is right, and what the rest of us focus on is the emotional immaturity of the President which would easily be confused with incompetence and lack of intelligence. Regardless, read and decide for yourself.

Dr. Charles Krauthammer Brief summary

Fast Facts
1. Born: March 13, 1950
2. Birthplace: New York City, New York
3. Raised in Montreal, Canada
4. Attended McGill University and Harvard Medical School
5. 1972 diving accident left him a paraplegic
6. Directed psychiatric research for the Carter administration
7. Began writing career in 1981 with The New Republic
8. Helped develop the "Reagan Doctrine" in the 80s
9. Appointed to Presidential Council on Bioethics in 2002

Dr. Krauthammer is on Fox News . He is an M.D. And a lawyer and is paralyzed from the neck down. A friend went to hear Charles Krauthammer. He listened with 25 others in a closed room. What he says here, is NOT 2nd-hand but 1st. The ramifications are staggering for us, our children and their children.

Last Monday was a profound evening, Dr. Charles Krauthammer spoke to the Center for the American Experiment.. He is a brilliant intellectual, seasoned & articulate. He is forthright and careful in his analysis, and never resorts to emotions or personal insults. He is NOT a fear monger nor an extremist in his comments and views . He is a fiscal conservative, and has received a Pulitzer Prize for writing. He is a frequent contributor to Fox News and writes weekly for the Washington Post.

The entire room was held spellbound during his talk. I have summarized his comments, as we are living in uncharted waters economically and internationally. Even 2 Dems at my table agreed with everything he said!

Summary of his comments:

1. Obama is an intellectual, charming individual. He is not to be underestimated. He is a cool customer who doesn't show his emotions. It's very hard to know what's behind the mask. The taking down of the Clinton dynasty was an amazing accomplishment. The Clintons still do not understand what hit them. Obama was in the perfect place at the perfect time.

2. Obama has political skills comparable to Reagan and Clinton ... He has a way of making you think he's on your side, agreeing with your position, while doing the opposite. Pay no attention to what he SAYS; rather,watch what he DOES!

3. Obama has a ruthless quest for power. He did not come to Washington to make something out of himself, but rather to change everything, including dismantling capitalism. He can't be straightforward on his ambitions, as the public would not go along. He has a heavy hand, and wants to level the playing field with income redistribution and punishment to the achievers of society. He would like to model the USA to Great Britain or Canada ..

4. His three main goals are to control ENERGY, PUBLIC EDUCATION, and NATIONAL HEALTHCARE by the Federal government. He doesn't care about the auto or financial services industries, but got them as an early bonus. The cap and trade will add costs to everything and stifle growth. Paying for FREE college education is his goal. Most scary is his healthcare program, because if you make it FREE and add 46,000,000 people to a Medicare-type single-payer system, the costs will go through the roof. The only way to control costs is with massive RATIONING of services, like in Canada ..

5. He has surrounded himself with mostly far-left academic types. No one around him has ever even run a candy store. But they are going to try and run the auto, financial, banking and other industries. This obviously can't work in the long run. Obama is not a socialist; rather he's a far-left secular progressive bent on nothing short of revolution. He ran as a moderate, but will govern from the hard left. Again, watch what he does, not what he says.

6. Obama doesn't really see himself as President of the United States , but more as a ruler over the world.. He sees himself above it all, trying to orchestrate & coordinate various countries and their agendas. He sees moral equivalency in all cultures. His apology tour in Germany and England was a prime example of how he sees America, as an imperialist nation that has been arrogant, rather than a great noble nation that has at times made errors. This is the first President ever who has chastised our allies and appeased our enemies!

7. He is now handing out goodies. He hopes that the bill (and pain) will not come due until after he is reelected in 2012. He would like to blame all problems on Bush from the past, and hopefully his successor in the future. He has a huge ego, and Dr. Krauthammer believes he is a narcissist.

8.. Republicans are in the wilderness for a while, but will emerge strong. Republicans are pining for another Reagan, but there will never be another like him. Krauthammer believes Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty & Bobby Jindahl (except for his terrible speech in February) are the future of the party. Newt Gingrich is brilliant, but has baggage. Sarah Palin is sincere and intelligent, but needs to really be seriously boning up on facts and info if she is to be a serious candidate in the future... We need to return to the party of lower taxes, smaller government, personal responsibility, strong national defense, and state's rights.

9. The current level of spending is irresponsible and outrageous. We are spending trillions that we don't have.. This could lead to hyperinflation, depression or worse. No country has ever spent themselves into prosperity. The media is giving Obama, Reid and Pelosi a pass because they love their agenda. But eventually the bill will come due and people will realize the huge bailouts didn't work, nor will the stimulus packages. These were trillion-dollar payoffs to Obama's allies, unions and the Congress to placate the left, so he can get support for #4 above.

10. The election was over in mid-September when Lehman brothers failed, fear and panic swept in,we had an unpopular President, and the war was grinding on indefinitely without a clear outcome. The people are in pain, and the mantra of change caused people to act emotionally. Any Dem. would have won this election; it was surprising it was as close as it was.

11. In 2012, if the unemployment rate is over 10%, Republicans will be swept back into power. If it's under 8%, the Dems continue to roll. If it's between 8-10%, it will be a dogfight. It will all be about the economy. I hope this gets you really thinking about what's happening in Washington and Congress. There is a left-wing revolution going on, according to Krauthammer, and he encourages us to keep the faith and join the loyal resistance. The work will be hard, but we're right on most issues and can reclaim our country, before it's far too late.

Much has been written to discredit the birthers, those who don't believe Barack Obama is a natural born citizen, and much was written to discredit the Kennedy assassination conspiritorists,those who did not believe that John F. Kennedy was killed by Lee Harvey Oswald.

What keeps both issues alive is that the information is fragmentary and it is the nature of humans to want to create coherent narratives from information, regardless of how fragmentary. I don't believe that the Kennedy issue will ever die, because 1) Kennedy probably was not killed by Lee Harvey Oswald acting alone, and 2) the Warren Commission did its job extremely well. It confused the data and testimonies so thoroughly that it is impossible to learn the truth. It was never convened to learn the truth, but to obscure it. Motivation to squelch the truth in the Kennedy assassination was to avoid some extremely nasty political fallout, and to possibly prevent a withdrawal into national self-examination and controversy in a time of external threat. An act of both self-service and, in the minds of the perpetrators, an act of national service. "Earl, you have to cover our a****. It is a matter of national security."

The birther controversy has much the same flavor, though the motives and players are diffferent. Part of the problem with the birthers is that at first only what would be considered a lunatic fringe would suggest such a scenario. However, as time has gone on, I have read in various places, information, if true, that is circumstantially very damning. However, birthers don't know how to build a case and for the most part are so rabidly anti-Obama that they give away all the pieces of their case piece-meal, allowing them to be defeated one at a time, when the collective whole might be convincing.

The motives to suppress such information and make its expounders look foolish is powerful. First there is the question of ego, we will look like fools for supporting without question BO (the MSM). Second is the Constitutional mess that will follow if BO were not a natural-born citizen. If we say it is too messy to clean up and we will simply disallow anything he says or does from this point forward, we have abrogated part of the US Constitution without amendment. (Not that we aren't doing this already) If we find that BO is not a natural-born citizen, then he is not Constitutionally qualified to be the President of the US, and everything he has done in the name of the Presidency is null and void. In effect, we have operated as a country without a President for over two years.

Much as it might be a conservative wet-dream to see all of the laws enacted in the last two years and all the Presidential orders declared null and void, the chaos would be tremendous. It is fear of this consequence that the Supreme Court claims that the birth issue is political and not an issue for the Court. (Please explain to me why the qualifications of the President of the United States as spelled out explicitly in the Constitution are not a constitutional issue.)

In addition, political careers have been destroyed supporting the policies of this incompetent. To find out that they were destroyed supporting an imposter would be a major blow to many in the Democratic Party. In fact, it most likely would destroy the Democratic Party. They would become a laughing-stock and be seen as more unethical than most politicians.

The fear of the chaos that would follow has even conservative columnists denying problems with Obama's birth record and falling back on his incompetence as sufficient grounds to defeat him. Ideology and political correctness keeps the MSM from properly investigating any of this in adequate detail. Where are Bob Woodward and Jason Bradlee now? The press did a brilliant job of bringing down Richard Nixon, but won't even try to investigate Barack Obama, and they started with less cause.

We have become a nation of cowards and craven liars. Rather than face the truth, regardless of consequences, a value we once held high, we hide from it in every way. We have lost all sense of honor, not even those who claim to be honorable act in that way. They have become masters of spin, or simply, liars.

Just as there are conspiritists, those who claim there is a concerted effort to hide Barack Obama's true birth records, there is a conspiracy to maintain a particular narrative at all costs, avoiding any dissenting discussion. It makes one suspect they are indeed hiding something.

The so-called Civil War was not a true civil war, it was a war between the states. Today, we are seeing the start of a true civil war, the revolt of the oppressed against those in power. The so-called trial of Terry Jones in Dearborn where the powers that be used the usual public safety issues to prevent Pastor Jones from exercising his free speech rights peacibly in a public location that happened to be outside a mosque, is a continuing salvo (Ruby Ridge and Waco were the first battles). Whether one agrees with Pastor Jones methods or not, he has the right to do what he does. Public safety is a coverup for the politically correct who don't want to be seen putting down a muslim-led riot that is, in the face of it, illegal. Therefore prevent the riot by stifling Pastor Jones.

Another soldier on the civilian side of the coming civil war is Ann Barnhardt. This is one dedicated lady, who is afraid of nothing. She dares the muslims to come and get her and publishes her address. She also points out she is well armed, a custom AR-15 with thirty-round magazine, a 12-guage semi-auto shotgun, and a 9 mm with a 30 round extended magazine. You may not agree with everything she says, but you damned well should respect her. As one of my friends has said, "A pretty lass with balls of brass."

It is always the extreme fringes that are the first to be seen, but over time others join for various reasons. We might consider the TEA party as another part of this. Civil wars are never fought by the majority of citizens. My guess is that the American Revolution was joined at most by a third of the members of the colonies, but the other two thirds either were uninvolved, afraid to do anything, or Tories. I suspect that a dedicated third of any population can control events. The elitist, blue-state types have no idea of what is coming, and in the final denouement will have the deer in the headlights look as they are either killed by muslims or forced into obscurity by the winning freedom fighters. For those who don't believe me, spend some time at Gates of Vienna. Find out what happens when muslims reach a certain percentage of the population. They understand concerted action by a minority. It is our task to prevent it from happening.

We are being warned.

Gen. "Black Jack" Pershing had the right idea back in 1911 or 1912. He captured 12 Muslim terrorists and made one watch while the other 11 were shot with bullets dipped in pork fat and blood and then buried with the hog carcasses. The remaining terrorist was released to spread the word. The MORO insurrection ended because the terrorists believed that such treatment would render them unclean and thus unable to enter paradise. Pershing effectively out-terrorized the terrorists. If you're going to fight a war, fight to WIN. If America's enemies want to use our system against us (think TSA), then we should certainly be willing to use their system against them, politically correct wishful thinking be DAMNED.

Comment from Side Lines in American Digest.

The above named book is one that I had on my low priority reading list for a long time. I remember it made a big splash when it was published and, according to the cover of the 20th anniversary edition that I purchased at a closeout sale, it was awarded a Pulitzer Prize. Having read it, I am rather underwhelmed. The book is very witty and creatively written. But I have a hard time finding a strong purpose. It strikes me as a book that wannabe intellectuals would read and expect anyone that pretends to know anything to read. I found considerable weaknesses in the book from my background.

Dr. Hofstadter was attempting to intellectually bare his soul, so to speak, and as a result some of the incoherence cannot be avoided. I think he was attempting to show that thinking, as he understands it from his studies of Artificial Intelligence, is very tangled within itself and that one must step outside any one level of thinking to describe it. The problem he faces is that in human thinking one does that with the same processes that are being examined. This is where Gödel comes in with his proof that no system can prove its own self-consistency. Hofstadter spends much of the book trying to create a sort of intuitive understanding of this theorem using various computer languages that he creates and number theory systems. Along the way he attempts to illustrate the concepts with very entertaining and creative sketches between imaginary characters, Tortoise, Achilles, Crab, Sloth, himself, Alan Turing, and Charles Babbage. He is successful to a great degree, but I am left with a feeling at the end of , “So what?”

I think the real purpose is to present his ideas of Artificial Intelligence, where it is and where he thinks it is going. This is where I have the most disagreement with him. The greatest deficiency that I see in his discussion is that he apparently has little understanding of how human brains are constructed and operate, and seems to consider them simply larger rat brains. This is a problem I have with Daniel Dennett as well.

The most notable difference operationally between human and rat brains is that a rats experience seems to be distributed and averaged over the entire cortex, whereas human brains can access specific memories. The anatomical equivalent of the rat brain cortex is buried deep beneath the surface of a human brain as a structure called the archecortex and forms part of what is referred to as the limbic system. This portion of the human brain appears to behave similarly to the rat brain in that it responds in a general rather than specific way to events and stimuli.

One of my first objections is that intelligence is never defined, nor is an attempt made other than intelligence is what human brains have. There was a rather sardonic note that whatever computers are made to do that resembles functions of the human mind it is not accepted as intelligence. And perhaps that is quite accurate. Computers perform their computational tasks deterministically. One of the characteristics of human intelligence is that it does not appear to be deterministic.

One of the recurring themes throughout the book is one of hierarchies and levels of hierarchies. This seems to work sufficiently well for simple things, but when it comes to describing human thinking it becomes extremely strained with levels within levels. The massive interconnectedness of human brains, when treated hierarchically, becomes unwieldy. Hofstadter also seems to find it quite difficult to account for human thinking to think about itself. This is one of the apparent thrusts of Gödel’s theorem, that formal systems cannot describe themselves.

Hofstadter is trying to compare computers to minds and mind function to algorithms. I think he is doomed without a proper grounding. Brains and nerves are not binary in the same way computers are binary. The connectivity in a computer is sparse compared to the simplest of brains. Nerves fire on the basis of summation, up to a threshold, nothing happens, after the threshold only a single amplitude response occurs. More inputs than enough to trigger a response have no additional effect. The human brain is probably mathematically chaotic, and no AI machine would ever be allowed to be, nor do I think it can be constructed. It is in the non-algorithmic tasks that human brains excel, and I have grave doubts that any machine that is not essentially a human brain in structure can ever do the same.

One suggestion that I would make is to create an operational definition of intelligence—intelligence is what is measured by intelligence tests. To the degree that a computer program can pass an intelligence test, it is intelligent. That is the same standard we use for humans. Of course the one major discrepancy is that humans use the same skill sets in everyday tasks that a computer does not or else cannot do.

The other suggestion I would make is to approach it all from the standpoint of networks. Every nerve cell in the brain is connected to hundreds to thousands of other nerves, and to and from all areas. One can roughly delineate four major levels of the brain, the brainstem which is reflexive and determinate in nature, the midbrain, which has a degree of networking and integration of inputs and outputs, the limbic system, and the cortex. Each of these parts has a high degree of interconnectivity within its area, and also to higher and lower areas. Higher areas also can feed back to the lower ones, in some cases partially controlling responses, e.g. holding one’s breath, or holding back tears. (Or possibly overriding the response rather than directly inhibiting it.) My own observation of the way my brain works and misfires is that it would be best considered as a massive relational database, where most things were indexed hundreds or thousands of ways, and the ultimate unit of data is extremely small, e.g. smaller than a single letter in a word. I know from the way malapropisms and spoonerisms are created and the way I sometimes have momentary aphasia, that words are built up a letter at a time, and the letters may be built up in turn. It would appear hierarchical, but I think it actually happens in a massively parallel manner. Anyone who has dealt with neural networks has seen the phenomena occur even in simple networks. What appears to be hierarchical functioning is simply networks of networks, and the apparent distance down the hierarchy is actually the functional distance in the number of links required to reach or assemble the appropriate network. The implication of all this, and it is not new with me, is that intelligence is in the connectivity of the brain.

From my viewpoint, we will never truly create an intelligent mechanical device. We will, just as we do with robots, create computational equipment that can do certain skills much better than humans. We already do that, and we will continue to do so, creating more and more complex manipulations. From my own observations, part of human thinking depends absolutely on physical experience. Physical experience provides primary referents for many ideas. That kind of experience cannot be given to computers, and therefore they will not be able to do things that depend on such experience.

Unlike the science fiction writers of fifty years ago, I am not threatened by computers. Part of it is possibly the contempt of familiarity, since I make my living with them. But I think it is grounded in a full appreciation of the differences between computational machinery and programs and human brains. The differences are just too great.

The following appeared in the Letters to the Editor in “The Lutheran” for April, 2011.

In “A better way” (March, page 49), the writer says Christians should “help the poor” but contends philanthropic groups are better at it than a government, which is “sinful” with waste. If, indeed, voluntary giving were all we needed to cure world hunger, the problem would be solved – but isn’t. A government can make the world a better place to live through development programs and working with charitable organizations to cure world hunger. We can do better than the “Peter Pan” philosophy that amounts to “I’ve got mine – you’ll get yours if I feel like it.”

The writer cares about world hunger. That is obvious. To that degree he/she may be called benevolent. However, in discussing the desired remedy, the writer commits errors of fact, and at least two moral errors.

An obvious area where hunger can be fought is in better crops and crop production. People seem to ignore the fact that better crops through genetic modifications are adamantly fought by various environmentalists, who often are the same people that will bewail the hunger of the poor of the earth.

This writer displays considerable ignorance about what is required for people to have enough food. Most death from famine today occurs not because of bad weather, but failures of third-world governments to provide for their people. We seem to forget all the cases where food was provided by voluntary organizations and was impounded by corrupt governments to give to their cronies or political allies. We forget all the aid that never reached its destination because countries were so undeveloped that there were no transportation routes. We never seem to get the lesson that the countries that suffer the most from natural disasters are those that have the most oppressive governments, and the least protections of individual rights. The writer fails to acknowledge that the regulations and red-tape of the governments of the free world get in the road of providing aid to others. After all, it has to be done by the “right” organizations in the “right” ways, so the “right” people can get credit.

Private foundations and philanthropic groups do provide development programs, when allowed. However, our government doesn’t just try to break down the barriers in other countries to those efforts, they try to horn in on them. The charitable organizations don’t need the government, but the government certainly needs the charitable organizations to get anything done. But it has to be done the government way. To see the effectiveness of government or government working “with” charitable organizations vs. charitable organizations simply doing their thing, look at the results of Katrina relief. It was not government’s shining hour and, despite the wishes of the writer above, is typical of government efforts. Bureaucracy does not and cannot exercise effective judgment, and the results show it.

The moral errors are far more problematic in the above letter. I have never understood how it is morally correct for the government to take money from people by coercion and then give it to beneficiaries as an act of charity. Despite all the rationalizations, all money that the government has is obtained by overt or covert coercion. Once taxes have been established, all people must pay them under penalty of law. If the money goes to programs that they don’t support, especially ones that run counter to their personal moral code (think abortion, fetal stem cell research) then the money has in effect been stolen or extorted from them. It has been taken and used for purposes of which they do not approve. By the same principle, money taken through taxation that is used to support charitable efforts with which someone does not agree, is money extorted.

The second moral error is directly related to the first. Only at a personal rather than governmental level. There is no morality in coercion. The main reason we discuss Free Will has to do with morality. One must be able to chose to be moral. Where is the morality when one is giving away other people’s wealth that was obtained by coercion? That one obtained it through a government does not sanitize it. That would make an armed robber moral because he/she took the money and gave some to a beggar.

The final error the writer makes is to accuse those who want private individuals to provide philanthropy of not truly being interested in doing so. It is a matter of public record that individuals that believe in personal giving donate far more than those who espouse government programs as a means of charity. People such as Bill Gates give millions a year, and liberal politicians that make great noises about the suffering of others give almost nothing personally. However, they are more than willing to spend tax dollars to do so. It is very tempting to consider that the writer is displaying the attitude that he/she would have when faced with a choice of voluntary giving. It is often easy to accuse others of what we don’t wish to acknowledge in ourselves.