Charity....From Tax $$$$ or Free Will????

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Dreadsox

ONE love, blood, life
Joined
Aug 24, 2002
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Well....here is a can of worms!!!!!

When I come to this forum I continuously see the United States bashed for not giving enough to various causes around the world. This does not sit well with me. Hard working people should not have to give their money to causes that they do not support, period. I am not thinking of one cause in particular, but of course coming into this forum, there is one cause that is usually on everyone?s mind.

What does not sit well with me is that I totally believe that the United States through its Churches and other organizations has been giving more to the world than it has been given credit for. I believe that this is the way that we should give our money, and IF we decide to give money to help fight AIDS in Africa, then it is our right to donate out of CHARITY to an organization to do so.

I am tired of seeing the US get bashed from the standpoint of the US government giving when there are PLENTY of people who give through other organizations. I once posted in here a list of US charitable donations through Churches and the data supports that we as a people give way more than many organizations give credit for if we looked at the whole picture, not just the money given out by our government.

I support Bono, but I also believe people have a right to not have their money taken from their pockets unwillingly.
 
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Are you talking about something you read? What is it you are speaking of exactly? I haven't had my 3 cups of coffee yet, but seems something is missing in your post. I do agree however, I want to give to whomever I see fit. I don't want it deducted from my pay or taken from me without me having a say as to where it goes and to whom.
 
I am speaking in general....

off the top of my head.....and on demerol....lol
 
Dreadsox said:
What does not sit well with me is that I totally believe that the United States through its Churches and other organizations has been giving more to the world than it has been given credit for.

Its churches are bastions of intolerance and discrimination. How does, for instance, the Vatican respond to AIDS? Not by taking command, but by using the situation to justify its belief system and by calling condoms and other forms of birth control evil, smack opposite of the scientific data. Facts would go directly out of the window, in exchange for a "faith-based" pseudophilosophy.

If we had to rely on our churches for human rights, then God help us all.

Melon
 
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Dreadsox said:
Thanks...now....tax money or free will?

Tax money. Also, if I remember, economic theory states that, to keep a currency at its desired valuation, you have to spend it accordingly. An isolationist approach to our currency would lead to bad inflation. Sure, that may mean some pretty horrifying spending statistics, but that's how it prevents our currency from being overvalued in the markets.

Of course, if you spend too much, your currency becomes undervalued. Is that what is happening now? But I digress...

Melon
 
OK....take churches out of it....I spend a lot of my time working for Lion's Clubs International. This is my charity of choice. It is not a church organization. There are many organizations that we could instead put our money to instead of have our money taken from us through taxes.
 
Still tax money. Most churches are centered around corporal works of mercy, rather than outright social justice. The difference, to me, is like putting a band-aid on a deep wound and putting stitches on it. Churches and other organizations, while they can be commended much of the time (when they aren't proselytizing on the job), are ill-equipped to deal with macro-level problems.

Melon
 
Great thread Dreadsox!

I do agree with you. People should be free to give to the charity of their choice, or not. No one can support everything. One can choose AIDS or the rainforest, not necesarily both for monetary reasons or because one resonates more than the other.

But in the end, I agree with Melon. Charity as it exists is just a band aid. The problems are systemic, they are political and social. Churches generally don't acknowledge them on this level, which is why I don't go.

Sickness and poverty in the 3rd world is the result of the health and wealth of the 1st world. There isn't enough in this world for everyone in this world to live and consume the way I do.
 
Well Dread how about those of us that don't want to spend our tax money on a war we don't believe in? I don't understand we want the US to be the police of the world and spread democracy, but we don't want to be charitable?
 
That's the paradox. We want everything, but don't want to pay for any of it.

Melon
 
If you want your tax money to be spent appropriatly then let you politicans here about it. I as for the cause in Africa am not asking anyone to give to a charity they do not chose to.. that is a personal choice and working for the non profit sector I am full aware of that. My thread regarding what the Bush Administration is doing in regards to the Millenium Goals is money that ia already there, money that has been allocated specifically for the ODA this is not money Bono is or whoever is asking you to donate to a charity.. it is not a charity issue. I'm not asking you to support this if you don't , I am making people aware of what has been happening, tis your own free will to chose or not. The Churches American citizens, they give millions of dollars each year to AIDS .. alone for example Bill and Melinda Gates have given over 100 million.. that I never for one minute negate what individual chose to give . I am humbled by what they do no matter what charity they chose to give it to. So this money has already been taken out of you pockets by tax dollars yes .. yes you should have a voice to how it is spent .. I don't however think that donating .33% of GDP is to much to ask of the U.S for international development .. that is my opinion and everyone is entititled to that
 
p.s the .33% from you GDP does not go to Charity , it goes to the Millenium Goals and a portion of that to the Global Fund . That percentage is for internatioanl development as well. Yes part of that means it goes to Africa... again not a charity but a health crisis and a emergency that th G7 countries are assisting with. Sorry I get carried off on a rampage when people call it a charity when it is not.. my irish temper we will say

P.S my intention is never to bash the U.S ever , I have great respect for the country as I have stated many times.. if bringing out the facts is bashing then I am in the wrong

A favourite of mine:
And it makes me ill and nervous when I hear people talk about these issues as charity. We never argued debt relief as a charity issue. We argued it as a justice issue. It is impossible to justify holding children to ransom for the debts of their grandparents, often debts that were taken out for Cold War reasoning and dodgy donors, lenders as well as borrowers. But that's a justice issue. Not giving drugs to people that really ... that are ... easily manufactured. The research and the development is expensive, but there ... the cost of manufacture of these anti-retroviral drugs is not that much. And we can afford it. And this is a justice issue, this is not a charity issue. And I've always picked that up- Bono-
 
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BonoVoxSupastar said:
Well Dread how about those of us that don't want to spend our tax money on a war we don't believe in? I don't understand we want the US to be the police of the world and spread democracy, but we don't want to be charitable?

I deleted my paragrah in my initial post anticipating this line of thought. I was afraid it would turn into a debate on war.

I think there is more Constitutional grounds for raising money to defend the US.....than raising money to give out for other purposes.


I really was hoping not to debate War.
 
katey if I wanted a thread about Africa....I would have started one about Africa...I used that as a general example. I started this thread with more to it than the Africa issue. In my opinion, the people of the United States give more money than they get credit for. While many here continue to cite examples of what the government pledges and gives, so much is given through other organizations that it should be counted as well.
 
point taken .. and having my career based in non profit world . I would agree with your points fully.. happily in the work that I do I get to see the best of people everyday ( every once in a while the worst) . Yep individual contributions to any charity should be fully recognized. Charity often is needed and exists because of social conditions, given that in Canada our government funding to charitable organizations has not increased in 17 years, it is the individual and corporate donors along with private funders that keep us alive.
 
Dreadsox said:


I deleted my paragrah in my initial post anticipating this line of thought. I was afraid it would turn into a debate on war.

I think there is more Constitutional grounds for raising money to defend the US.....than raising money to give out for other purposes.


I really was hoping not to debate War.

I wasn't so much wanting to debate war than I was wanting to debate the topic of US foreign policy. Bush has talked a lot about spreading democracy and some don't believe that that is our place.
 
Well ... not being American I'm not particularly up to date with what the government does and doesn't spend its tax dollars on. I do agree that you can't support everything, nor should it be the government's total responsibility to ensure that each citizen is, in essence, giving their fair share.

My charity of choice being Oxfam Community Aid Abroad, which aims to help communities become self-sufficient and produce enough for themselves, rather than relying on aid money to survive, I kind of feel like it should be a personal decision to want to "change" something in terms of political/social circumstances in the developing world, rather than just pledging this amount of money and hoping that it will be enough.

Besides, there are a lot of people in 1st world countries (Australia among them) who would benefit from increased funding to health care and education, but who don't get it for whatever political reason. I know it's not quite the same as the situation in Africa, for example, but I would much rather the government spend their tax money on improving hospital standards here than on what they have been spending it on, that is border protection, detention centres and the like. Or put some of those funds towards helping people in war-torn countries so they don't have a need to come to Australia illegally ...
 
Taxes.

I believe that we, as a group, as a nation, or a society have a duty to the less fortunate. Is it not the Christian view to help out the least brothers of ours? I believe that our governments have a duty, as a whole, to contribute money. Partly because the rich west is directly or indirectly responsible for the plight of the third world due to colonialism, partly because certain regions are overpopulated, partly because we are not all equal in terms of natural resources, partly because we all have citizens in our own nations that are disabled or need special programs, partly because scientific research depends on it, partly because arts depends on it, etc, etc. There are many reasons, and on a large scale, I believe it is the moral duty of a Government to kick in.

As an individual, I also feel a moral duty to act independently in support of a number of personal causes. My grandmother has been dying slowly, every day for over 5 years of Alzheimer's, and therefore, it is an issue I am well educated on, and I support the research fully. I also have a personal investment in WarChild and UNICEF, and since I have family in Africa (SA and Namibia), I am also invested in the AIDS crisis. I am a grad student who works two jobs, and I don't mind a portion of my taxes going to charity, nor do I mind donating it myself as well. Aren't our hearts big enough at the end of the day for more than one thing?
 
Anitram...

Sincere questions.....not sarcasm.

How am I responsible for colonialism? how are my children responsible for colonialism? Overpopulation is our fault how?


Christian charity does not come through my government. I have seen thread after thread about the separation of church and state. I have seen take the ten commandments out of the courts. Now I see it is Christian to take money.

Christian Charity is when I take the $$$ I earn and donate it. Not the government. When I spend four hours on the weekend driving around town collecting cans and bottles for recycling to raise money for charity, that is Christian Charity. When I give money to my parish, that is Christian Charity.

I am sorry to hear about your grandmother. I am not certain I meant to mix in medical issues with this topic...I am not sure how it would fit.
 
Dreadsox said:


How am I responsible for colonialism? how are my children responsible for colonialism? Overpopulation is our fault how?



There are a lot of things we're not responsible for that our taxes go to to help out. There are also a lot of things to which we are responsible for and our tax dollars aren't going towards to help.

I believe there to be a responsibility for those to lend help to those less fortunate. Forget about any moral reason for a second and just think about security reasons. If we don't lend a hand to those less fortunate than it increases their willingness to attack and it increases the possibilty of their problems crossing over onto our borders. The problem will not go away by ignoring it. If you have a small infection on your body and you do not do anything to heal the wound it will eventually spread. This planet is the same way.
 
We're all a part of colonialism. The life we live was built on colonialism no matter what Western country we belong to.

The wealth of the United States and it's industrialization was built on slavery. Idustrialism always began with textiles, and where did the fibers for those textiles come from... southern cotton plantions worked by African slaves. America made a killing off of cotton (by 1860 it produced 2/3 of the world's cotton and 3/4 of Britain's cotton) which gave it the money for that giant industrial base which made it a world power.

Would you like an everyday example? Do you have a diamond ring... well if it came from South Africa (most likely) then you're profiting from colonialism. Thousands of Zulus and other African tribes had to be slaughtered to get the land those diamonds were dug out of.

I could go on for weeeks with examples, so don't tempt me. We could not live the life we do had not a large number of people from Africa, the Americas and Asia been crushed under the European heel. We have the life we have because they were exploited and destroyed. That is why there is a responsibility for the situation in th Africa and the rest of the world.

And as for rights, you're arguing the right of some "hard working" American or Canadian to have a new car every five years or a big screen TV or a house far bigger than they need against an African's right to have clean drinking water, education, and medicine. Gee which one do I care more about.

Sorry but this is somethignI feel very passionate about, something that makes me sick. We (I say we as I'm sitting infront of a $1000 computer) can argue our "rights" til we turn blue. Guess it makes it easier to ignore the trains as they go on down to Auchwitz.
 
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If you are implying that I am ignoring things then think again. Are you saying my position, one that is not opposed to giving money of my own free will, rather than through the collection of money from me by my government makes me a NAZI? I disagree.....now you may feel passionately about it, but, that does not make myself or my children responsible for the actions of someone else. Now we out of Christian charity may choose to do something to help these causes, but again, other than Melon's post, I fail to see why doating to outside organizations is not the way.

It most definitely does not make anyone a Nazi, and I have not anywhere in here said do not help others.

As I have said....people constantly bash the US for not giving enough in here.....without taking into account the charity we give in other ways, aside from the tax money taken and distributed by the government.
 
Haven't we already had the discussion on not using the word Nazi unless in order to describe either those who murdered 12 million people across Europe in the early part of the 20th century, or else those who support them.

Now for the main topic: why charity, while clearly a good thing, is no substitute for government provided aid. Ask yourself why most Western countries have a state funded education system which provides, free of charge, education for children up to the age of 18. It's because to provide for a child's education is too costly for individuals to provide alone. It's because without that state system we couldn't ensure that every child in the country had the opportunity to learn and to function as an adult in society. Where I live we have a national health service for the same reason: because healthcare is too expensive and too vital to expect every individual to provide for themselves and the only way to ensure that everyone regardless of income gets to see a doctor when sick is to have a national health service.

Our governments fund those organisations because they're vital and because they're simply too vast, too expensive and too complex to expect every individual to provide alone. It's because when we work together we can provide those crucial services to everyone in our country. It's because we all benefit when people are educated and when people aren't prevented from contributing to society because of ill health, all of society benefits.

How vast is the problem of poverty in the developing countries of the world? Six thousand children die every day from diseases that we can prevent for less than the cost of a cup of coffee. Billions live without access to clean water. Even more live on less than $2 per day. Hundreds of thousands every year are affected by HIV/AIDS and thousands more are left orphaned when their parents die of those illnesses. Millions of children never learn to read or write much less have the opportunity to attend university.

Those problems are too big for any individuals to solve. As praise-worthy and important charitable contributions are, they can't ever go far enough to solve those problems. They can't ever help everyone. Some don't want to help everyone: they refuse to help people who aren't of the same religion as them, or they deny funding to doctors who believe abortion should be available to women. Some want to help everyone and can't. Some run out of money as they're dependent on people's generosity. Some charities, respresenting less "glamorous" causes find it hard to raise money at all. People who donate to charity often do so based on information they've seen in the media so if a particular cause isn't covered in the media it's hard for any charity to raise money for that cause. Charities make a vital and important contribution to solving those problems, but a thousand individual charities working alone can't ever hope to solve the huge problems we're talking about.

Governments can do that. Governments can provide education systems which provide free-of-charge education for millions of children. They can provide healthcare to millions who would otherwise go without. They can provide social security benefits so people aren't left destitute if they lose their job or if their pension pays out less money than they'd hoped.

And yes, governments can help some of those millions of people living without access to clean water, or help provide an education for millions who would otherwise go without. They can do that and they should because they have an obligation to. You can put it down to the fact that people who aren't living in poverty might be less likely to sympathise with terrorists. You can put it down to the fact that preventing a crisis is inevitably cheaper than attempting to deal with one which has already occured. Or you can put it down to the fact that we're all people and our basic sense of human decency should say that it is wrong for anyone to die needlessly of diseases that are easily prevented and it is wrong for people to be denied an education and it is wrong for people to risk their lives everytime they drink water they know is unsafe.

If the government of every developed country gave a mere 0.7% of its GDP in international aid we could solve all the problems above and more. Charities can't hope to achieve that. Government can and because at the end of the day we're all equal and nobody should live in abject poverty or die because they didn't receive a 50c vaccination and finally, because when people are educated and healthy and able to contribute to society we all benefit, governments should.
 
FizzingWhizzbees said:
Haven't we already had the discussion on not using the word Nazi unless in order to describe either those who murdered 12 million people across Europe in the early part of the 20th century, or else those who support them.

Are you referring to my comment or the above poster who implied that my stance was that of those watching people being shuffeld off to Auchwitz. Now which is more acceptable? I do not know?

I have been asking reasonable questions in here....and my questions lead to this comparison....very nice....and now I get questioned for defending myself....

Peace
 
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When the January 2003 PIPA/Knowledge Networks poll asked, "How many of your tax dollars would you be willing to have go to economic and humanitarian aid for African countries?" the median response was $20. This is more than six times the actual amount-in fact, approximately $3 of the median taxpayer's bill goes to aid to Africa. Sixty-seven percent proposed an amount in excess of $3

I know Dreadsox is gonna get on me about using Africa as an example again.. but is often an example too of how people really do overestimate just how much of their tax dollars are going to humanitarian aid(p.s not charity).

Governments are not only helping out other countries but they are in essence helping and protecting themselves and protecting us. As so often told the war against terror is tied in the war against, poverty, hunger, disease etccc....
it does not just make moral sense , it is good politics .

Dreadsox,, what would you prefer your tax dollars directed too??
and again I don't think anyone is taking forgranted individual contributions of our society.
 
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Are you referring to my comment or the above poster who implied that my stance was that of those watching people being shuffeld off to Auchwitz. Now which is more acceptable? I do not know?

People who stood by and watched thosee trains were ordinary citizens like you and I not as you called them . The comparison is that they new where those trains were going and did nothing, we too know where this train is going so we make a decision to help or not, it is a personal decision but still one we have to justify like the people who watched the trains go by.

I'm not sure how you got Nazi out of it
 
katey...

you can make any points you wish....they are good ones....

I think it has been an educational thread....

it would be unrealistic to not see tax dollars come out of my pocket and used for humanitarian causes....

I kind of wanted to stir the pot in here......

Thanks for the responses people......

I am retired from this thread.....

I still believe that the US Charities as a whole from other groups is not given enough credit.....i once found a link to the total contributions...but I seem to be lacking in these skills.


have fun....I am through in this thread...
 
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