Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Oklahoma

I support an individual's, or an organization's, giving as much (or as little) of its own money to relief efforts in Oklahoma.  Good people believe in and practice charity, and history shows that Americans are a very generous people.

It's impossible to be "generous" with other people's money, though.  I don't support the massive amounts of federal money that make up so much aid after such disasters, and if you would like to know why, read this post.  In it I relate a story about Davy Crockett (who as a Congressman voted for $20,000 for relief for Georgetown after a fire) and one about Grover Cleveland (who vetoed a bill providing drought and famine relief to Texas--because there was no authority to do so in the Constitution!).

You can donate to the American Red Cross here.

2 comments:

Mary J said...

I have to agree. And I would wager that relief efforts in such events would be doubled or tripled if we didn't live in such a nanny state. If only economics and psychology 101 were required courses of our public servants.

allen (in Michigan) said...

The link to the column about Davy Crockett's now http://www.dailyinterlake.com/opinion/columns/frank/article_d6d886a4-65d6-53bc-ba4e-1786a1327a53.html and the difference between then and now is that self-indulgence, which was Crockett's crime, is now seen as inherently justified.

If you have determined that your actions spring from some morally-justifiable source then a contrary opinion is immoral, thus contemptible, and unworthy of consideration.