President Bush likes to give away money--other people's money, not his own. This gives him the political benefit of generosity (the perception of good-heartedness), but not the personal cost (a smaller bank account). It's very easy for politicians to be generous with other people's money. What takes courage is frugality, stinginess, and a stewardship that recognizes that it's not yours to give. Rules, not emotions, govern the disbursement of public funds.

Last September, I recommended Congressman Davey Crockett's "Not Yours to Give" to the president. Evidently, he didn't take me up on my suggestion. In September, the president's successful push to distribute $12 billion in hurricane relief inspired my reading recommendation. Today, the reason for again suggesting this bedtime reading for W is the president's announcement that he will seek an additional $600 million from Congress in tsunami relief.

"I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has no power to appropriate this money as an act of charity," Crockett reportedly said on the floor of Congress. "Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money."

The American people recognize that the tsunami victims deserve our help. That's why they've voluntarily given more in private donations than they've involuntarily given in public aid.

What has impressed me the most about GW in the last part of his first term and the start of his second is his weakness and apparent aim to please. He seems to not be immune to any criticism or sentiment that the U.S. is not generous and all giving. Very disappointing and somewhat depressing, as we need a stronger leader.

Things like this really irritate me about George. I'm not sure whether he's engaging in the standard Republican blunder, "If I do what the Dems (and Eurpopeans) say I should, maybe they'll like me more," or whether he is simply misapplying the principles of personal Christianity to the civil sphere. Either way, it's a foolish thing to do.

This is a task for individuals of good will and religious institutions, not my tax dollars.

Every high school student should be forced at the point of a gun to read that pamphlet.

Oh, Crockett is way right. And not only is it wrong for the government to spend other people's money, I would agree with him it's wrong to spend any money gotten by illicit means. My money isn't mine to give if I've, for example, stolen it, cheated someone out of it, scammed someone out of it, or swapped for it something that someone doesn't really need. I don't think businesses ought to be spending my money either.

The fact of the matter is, the United States is the world's only superpower. Being the world's only superpower, and the most powerful nation in the world,it has a moral obligation to help others. We lead NATO, we are on the leaders of the UN. We have protected the world from Fascism, Communism, and now Islamism.

World War II ended in 1945, and the Cold War ended in 1989. Get over it paleocons, we live in an interconnected world, and we aren't going to change that anytime soon.

Ben-T,

Can you please help me with the connection on this point:

"most powerful nation in the world,it has a moral obligation to help others"

Thanks,

-R

"Being the world's only superpower, and the most powerful nation in the world, [the U.S.] has a moral obligation to help others."

This assertion needs justifying. And to do so would involve a conversation about the role of civil government. Fortunately for us, that conversation was had in Philadelphia in 1789, and "global safety-net" was not included.

Perhaps you should send all of your spare cash to Singapore, and encourage your friends to do the same.

Check that: 1787. Ratification was '89.

Ben-T,

Thanks for once again illustrating that neocons aren't conservative in the least, you are of the political left.

Ben T: here's a question for you because I'm curious. Where, do you think, are the _limits_ of our federal government's responsibility -- to the needy in our country, and to the needy in other countries? Or is this just a big global villiage, and there are no such limits?

Brian, What do you expect me to do, recant my point because you labelled it on the left? I could care less what side of the political spectrum it falls on. I believe in what I believe in because it is right, not because it falls on the political right.

I have donated to Tsunami charities, and I would encourage my friends to do the same. Your argument is flawed because the comparison rests on the concept that the United States sent all of it's money to Tsunami victims.

Yes, in the 1700s the founding fathers had a discussion in Philadelphia and decided on the role of civil government. It was then the late 1700s. It is now the year 2005, and it is the early 21st century. Paleocons would do well to abandon, or at least moderate, their cult-like worship of every decision the founding fathers every made, and update their views for the world we live in TODAY. The second world war and the Cold War changed history forever in a way the founding fathers never anticipated, and we can't look back to what they did for every single decision we make. After all, if we did so, human enslavement would still be legal.

Brigid, I will not outline for you a set ruled legal system for exactly when our government is going too far. However, when our government chooses to, out of the goodness of the hearts of the American people, and the intrinsic goodness of the United States, help out those in need, and you stand against it so vehemently, I believe you need to take a long look in the mirror and how you arrange your morals.

So in closing my basic point here is, do the right thing, even if it isn't the Right-Wing thing.

Oh and in response to what Robby said. If what defines the political right is a aversion to ever taking up the responsibility to help someone else, then label me on the left. Am I a liberal? I probablly would have been in the day of FDR or Woodrow Wilson. I believe strongly in private ownership, in preservation of the constitution, and personal freedoms. I also strongly believe in a United States that takes an active role in defending democracy worldwide, in doing what it can to help other world-wide, and in defending what is morally good and just. That is the United States that won World War II, that is the United States that won the Cold War, that is the United States that is fighting the War on Terror, and that is the United States that is giving of itself to help those Tsunami victims.

Ben T: History of our relationship:

1. I ask you if you could set any limits on the responsibility our federal government had to domenstic and international charity work.

2. Instead of doing so, you tell me I have to take a long look in the mirror and reassess my morals.

Very interesting. Do you have some kind of psychological disorder by which you transfer your own feelings of social and personal guilt onto strangers and large political organizations? Tell me more.

Ben T said:
"when our government chooses to, out of the goodness of the hearts of the American people"

I think Dan made this point clear. There is a difference between the donation you did Ben which was out of the goodnes of your own heart and government forcing our dollars out of our own pocket. Coercion and Compassion are two different things.

Time? ...what does time have to do with what is right? Slavery was just as wrong when it was legal as it is now.

Making an argument for Amending the constitution to grant it the power to do xyz internationally because "times have changed" is a legit point - and if the American people agree it will happen.

Saying that "times have changed" so we should do xyz internationally is not.

Constitutionality should never depend on the "times" it should depend on Article V, a lost practice.

Ben-T - as Robby and others have pointed out, there's the one big flaw with simply sweeping away any rigid legal system: Ignoring the law to do right means a precedent to ignore the law to do wrong. That's how we get judiciary run amok and all sorts of "discretionary spending," which is an Orwellian term for indiscreet spending on all sorts of programs for which there are no Constitutional mandates.

The Framers meant the Constitution to be a visible and enduring document representing the will of the people regarding the structure and limits of their government, removing the whim of man from the equation. They left us means to alter these limits by a recognizable process. That's the way it's got to be.

But I do take your point about what's right, rather than merely legal. There are occasions for civil disobedience; remember the famed exchange between Thoreau and (I believe) Wordsworth. Wordsworth came to bail Thoreau out of jail and asked, "Why Henry, whatever are you doing in there?" He replied, "What are you doing out there?" If it's worth breaking the law, the proper thing to do is to suffer the penalty of law, that nobody learn contempt for the idea of rule by law.

A government MUST NEVER DO THIS. It's impossible for the State itself to disobey the law without breeding exactly that contempt; the long-term result is either tyranny or anarchy.

Robby, you missed the point entirely, go back and read it again.

Brigid, apparently one cannot have a desire to help those in need unless they are wrapped up in a feeling of personal social guilt. Apparently then having a conciense is a bad thing.

Nightfly,

It was Emerson not Wordsworth who visited Thoreau. :)

To Ben-T,

Apparently, given your responses to Brigid she was wrong in thinking that you were projecting your own feelings of liberal guilt onto others. Instead of being motivated by a sense of inferiority instead your attitude is characterized by a sense of moral superiority and by a preening moral vanity.

Of course, Brigid was only trying to illustrate how vacuous you were being in your original response to her question by turning the tables on you and doing some armchair psychologizing of her own at your expense, just as you had done towards her.

Apparently you seem to think that a discussion of the principles of government is inseparable from personal/individual ethics. Frankly, that is an unintelligent conflation of two related but separate areas of practical philosophy, a conflation characteristic of political modernity, liberalism in particular.

Ben T: Dude, you're crazy. You think you're a conservative? Seriously?

You think other people should be forced to be "charitable." That does not make you virtuous. And my opposition to it does not make me "immoral." Stop with the self-righteous blather about having a social conscience, and make an argument.

Crap. I hope I didn't miss the point. I thought the topic was about sending public funds to tsunami victims. You think it's the right thing to do correct?

I don't have any kind of sense of moral vanity. However the concept of simply being against the U.S government helping people out abroad is simply alien to me. Yes, I do believe the discussion of this topic is inseperable from morals and ethics. When the United States, the most powerful nation in the world, chooses to help people out abroad for no real reason other than simple human goodness,as does nearly every other western nation on Earth, and there are those who are railing against it so energetically, I must begin to question their moral values.

Again, simply calling me a leftist would not make me refute my views. I dont care what wing I fall on, I care about what I believe is right. No, it most likely is not the traditionally conservative thing to do, to go over there and help out those folks. But it is the RIGHT thing to do, and I can't see why anyone would be against the U.S doing it. Simply supporting what is good, and just, and supporting the United States for taking actions that are good and just implies neither a cultural guilt nor a moral superiority complex. The fact that I am almost always met with immediate anger and ad hominems when I post a differing view here implies just the kind of moral vanity you so angrily accuse me of having.

Robby when I said you missed the point I was talking about I was referring to your comment about my founding fathers comment.

The point I was illustrating was not that slavery was right when it was legal. The point I was illustrating was that we don't need to simply look back to, and adhere to, every single decision the founding fathers made for our modern outlook on the world. The founding fathers did many great things. They also did many things that were not only amazingly hypocritical, but morally abhorrent. Specifically, human slavery.

Seriously, Ben T: All I did was ask you a question to clarify your views. I didn't say you were immoral. In fact, your response was to call _me_ immoral, remember?

You also clearly have another psychological disorder, that of reverse-reading history to make yourself the victim of the types of acts you perpetrate on others.

Also: you have yet to answer my question. :)
ARE there any limits to our fed govnmt's responsibility to force us to fund international charity projects?

Thanks Brian. I get those cats mixed up a lot.

Ben - again, even the right thing to do is not necessarily the legal thing to do, and a government must not scorn the law. To do so, even justly, would fatally damage the just authority of the government and the trust of the citizen in the state.

Your own example works against you here. The Contintental Congress rightly feared that the Union would not survive if slavery were outlawed from the start. That was the only reason they permitted it, and forbade national abolition before 1808. ("Permissable" isn't exactly "legal," and though I'm sorry to quibble, I think it's important.) Any state that chose to was at liberty to outlaw it on their own, and any slave owner could likewise make his slaves free.

After Lincoln was elected, the Southern states, knowing his abolitionist reputation, felt that he would simply usurp their rights and laws. The result was war, which highlights the danger when a government sets law aside in any cause, just or not. (There was more to it - the subject of whole shelves of books, in fact, so please forgive anything I had to omit!)

The same holds today - we can chose to give whatever we like to United Way or the Red Cross or the Left-Handed Stammerers College Fund. In fact, by taking some of our money and forwarding it as they please, governments REDUCE our capacity for charity, not increase it. We're admittedly far less likely to secede over disaster relief, but the principle still holds. If the US Congress wants to delegate funds for something, it has to be legal. If it isn't they have to get permission first. If it's important and right, it should be no problem to marshal the necessary arguments to pass the required law.