Americans..."stingy"? That's it...I've had it!
Admittedly, I've been a little out of the loop over the holidays. I have watched with great sadness the news of the tsunamis catastrophe. The carnage is, as my brother observed, "of Biblical proportions."
As usual, the American people have stepped forward, as have untold millions of other citizens across the world. And as usual, the impotent U.N. got caught in its inept response, looking like a deer in headlights. So King Kofi has weighed in, as have his minions, on how the U.S. isn't helping "enough" or is undermining the U.N.'s efforts. Efforts...at what?
Uh, Kofi...remember the Oil-for-Food scandal? Money intended to feed Iraqis was diverted to the pockets of UN other-way-lookers, including King Kofi's own snot-nosed son. King Kofi has steadfastly refused to cooperate in the investigation of this scandal, and he now has the gall to demand more money?! How shameless!
This idea that the U.S. is somehow giving less than it could/should is ludicrous. According to Neal Boortz, here is a partial list of contributors:
And these figures do not even begin to represent the true level of giving. Boortz nails this one, too, with the following observation:
Some French-based (what else?) organization has drawn up some figures on the ration of charitable giving compared to a country's gross domestic product (GNP). These figures show that America only gives 0.14% of its GNP for relief. This supposedly makes us stingy. This French organization didn't count any of the money donated by individual Americans. You see, in the wonderful world of giving, only government giving counts. The actions of individuals are meaningless and not to be considered as part of the big picture. In 2003 individual Americans donated $241 billion to charitable causes. Private giving to tsunami victims will exceed anything spent by the US federal government.
There's a reason to only count government aid when tallying up a nation's charitable giving. For many years now much of the world has been engaged in an effort to create some sort f a world-wide income tax to be collected by the United Nations. This tax would be used to fund UN operations and for international relief efforts. You can promote this idea by showing that the evil rich Americans only give 0.14% of their GNP to international relief causes. If you include American's private giving that number goes way up. You aren't going to get very far with the idea of wealth-confiscation and redistribution if you acknowledge the charitable instincts of individual Americans.
Private charity...what a concept.
This quote from Charles Krauthammer should be used to bash any socialist, Euro-weenie, liberal, or some combination thereof, over the head:
We are six percent or less of the world's population, yet we give almost half. We are a very small number of people, relatively speaking, and we carry the weight of a dozen countries. Secondly, we maintain a military structure that keeps the peace of the world.....Who is in the Indian Ocean with the aircraft carriers, helicopters, skilled personal? No one has the infrastructure in the world, we spend almost half a trillion dollars a year on our military structure, which is essentially the fire department of the planet and it is always at the disposal of people hit in a national disaster.....Incidentally on food aid, we give 60% of all the food aid in the world. It is simply irresponsible to talk about the U.S. as anything other than the most generous nation on the planet.
This tragedy is, of course, being used politically by the UN and other one-world-government types as a "reason" (I use the word loosely) to confiscate more fruit from the producers. Who gets to decide how much and from whom? You guessed it...the U.N.
We help because we want to...not because we have to. The world "community", as well as sick American liberals, will not get away with politicizing this!
posted by Jonathan @ 11:52 AM
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