A CHARITABLE THOUGHT OR TWO

The following is a letter to the editor which I recently sent off to our dear little newspaper not too long ago:

Dear Editor,

Peter Brown’s essay on charity (1/4/05) demonstrates the uncharitable attitude of those among us who still, long after election time, divide Americans between blues and reds. Shame on Brown!

I accept Brown’s “weighted” figures which show that Americans are very generous and the slight tendency of some states to give more than other states, but, then, we must subtract from his figures all worldwide charitable giving whose purpose is to proselytize for one’s religion. For example, does charity come with strings attached? Must a drunk listen to sermons in order to qualify for a meal? That’s not charity; that’s bribery. Christian missionaries don’t qualify either.

The presence of charity in any society is a measure of that society’s failure to create an economically just society. People may from time to time need help, but that help ought to come without charity’s religious strings attached. Help should be available in any well-regulated society not as charity but as a right to the temporarily dispossessed. And since economic justice underpins all cultural stability and benefits everyone, all citizens ought to be held equally responsible to contribute to their nation’s social stability.

A society without charity is a just, prosperous and rational society.

Thank you,

Geo


IF ONLY FOX WERE AS DILIGENT AS CBS ABOUT CLEARING OUT POOR NEWSMEN

Well, CBS finished its investigation of the Bush air national guard papers and ended up firing four senior people from its news organization. Fair enough. Just how things ought to be done in respectable journalism. Now if only Fox were to clean house of all their lying, prevaricating, fudging newsmen and commentators. But Fox will never be the news organization that CBS has been. In fact if Fox got rid of all their liars, they’d have no one left to broadcast news or make commentary. I wonder just how many Fox watchers are even aware of the lies that they are fed and if they care to see their own Foxy liars purged? There is a certain disadvantage to being a creditable news organization like CBS, isn’t there, when in competition with routine liars like the Fox organization? Your viewers are likely to be better educated and to demand balanced and fair reporting and are also more likely to catch you out when you distort the news whereas those with little training in logic, debate or argumentation or in the process of uncovering the truth will accept almost anything they hear.
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"I've tried several varieties of sex. The conventional position makes me claustrophobic and the others give me a stiff neck or lockjaw." —Tallulah Bankhead [Tallulah was a very sexually active hollywood star long before being that active was a benefit.]