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Why I hate Ayn Rand, lesson #364
A op-ed piece on the Ayn Rand Institute site declarte that the government should not send aid to tsunami-ravaged areas.
A few specific points here..
The question no one asks about our politicians' "generosity" towards the world's needy is: By what right? By what right do they take our hard-earned money and give it away?
Try the Constitution of the United States, moron. Article I, Section 8, Clause 1 grants the Congress the right to levy taxes and duties. The 16th Amendment specifically authorized the income tax. Article 1, Section 9, Clause 7 allows the Congress to draw money from the Treasury.
But how did Congress get there? We voted them into office. Thus is a representative government. I vote for a Congressman, 2 Senators, and the Presidential ticket on the national level. We get the government we ask for. Anyone having a problem with this is cordially invited to leave the country, or, work to elect people who agree with you.
Then there is the question of why send the aid? Let's ignore the fact that the government is good at moving masses of supplies on short notice. Ignore the vast fleet of military aircraft available to carry supplies.. let's examine what we get for out money.
1. Improved standing in the region. US aid on the ground helps our image. For those of you who didn't know, the vast majority of the world's muslims don't live in the Middle East, they live in SE Asia, specifically Indonesia (almost 700 million of them.) Indonesia is going to be the battleground in about 20 years, mark my words.
2. Without immediate action, the current death toll is just the beginning. Disease and famine are a very real threat. Ground water has been contaminated, thousands of bodies are unburied. Cholera, diptheria, dysentary.. all are going to crop up and kill people.
3. Lastly, and this will be a shock to the Randites.. it is the RIGHT BLOODY THING TO DO! Hundreds of thousands of people are dead and missing! There is no excuse not to help!
I swear, I want to smack some of these idiots.
And of course, Fred Phelps had to open his hateful mouth on the subject... (links to a PDF)
Thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lysana for the links.
A few specific points here..
The question no one asks about our politicians' "generosity" towards the world's needy is: By what right? By what right do they take our hard-earned money and give it away?
Try the Constitution of the United States, moron. Article I, Section 8, Clause 1 grants the Congress the right to levy taxes and duties. The 16th Amendment specifically authorized the income tax. Article 1, Section 9, Clause 7 allows the Congress to draw money from the Treasury.
But how did Congress get there? We voted them into office. Thus is a representative government. I vote for a Congressman, 2 Senators, and the Presidential ticket on the national level. We get the government we ask for. Anyone having a problem with this is cordially invited to leave the country, or, work to elect people who agree with you.
Then there is the question of why send the aid? Let's ignore the fact that the government is good at moving masses of supplies on short notice. Ignore the vast fleet of military aircraft available to carry supplies.. let's examine what we get for out money.
1. Improved standing in the region. US aid on the ground helps our image. For those of you who didn't know, the vast majority of the world's muslims don't live in the Middle East, they live in SE Asia, specifically Indonesia (almost 700 million of them.) Indonesia is going to be the battleground in about 20 years, mark my words.
2. Without immediate action, the current death toll is just the beginning. Disease and famine are a very real threat. Ground water has been contaminated, thousands of bodies are unburied. Cholera, diptheria, dysentary.. all are going to crop up and kill people.
3. Lastly, and this will be a shock to the Randites.. it is the RIGHT BLOODY THING TO DO! Hundreds of thousands of people are dead and missing! There is no excuse not to help!
I swear, I want to smack some of these idiots.
And of course, Fred Phelps had to open his hateful mouth on the subject... (links to a PDF)
Thanks to
lysana for the links.
Re: Try and wrap your mind around this.
Depends on what you think the point of the war is, really. I'm an interventionist inasmuch as I have a compelling interest in the survival of the US specifically and Western civilisation generally; but I'm not at all concerned with intervening for altruistic purposes. So I have that position you disagree with strongly, in essence, because I want intervention wherein it serves my national/civilisational self-interest, and not elsewhere.
But then, I'd argue for the necessity of pre-emptive defence being the best defence, too.
Someone who advocates non-defensive war and also objects to helping the disadvantaged overseas carries an unpleasant whiff of nationalistic tyranny.
In the order in which unconstitutional budget items ought to be cut, the war in Iraq would be the first target for my knife, followed by the budget for most (if not all) overseas troop deployments, followed by all foreign aid, followed by Medicare and Social Security. Then we could cut taxes and cut even more spending at our leisure, because we'd have huge surpluses.
Bottom line? In both political principle, and according to our constitution, it is neither the place of the federal government to invade a sovereign nation which has done us no harm, nor to spend its citizens dollars unconstitutionally even in good causes.