Katrina, Responsibility, and the Far Left
Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath is emerging as the next milestone after Kelo on the road toward the coming joining of Far Left and Far Right in America. This posting concerns my Far Left sentiments about this event. My Far Left (read: Green) sentiments whisper to me that I am my brother's keeper. They leave no doubt in me concerning for whom the bell tolls. This morning, my wife called me. She was weeping. She had been watching scenes from New Orleans of dying babies and those pictures sent her over the edge. She asked whether we had contributed anything yet. I said I was waiting for my company to announce a matching gift program. Turns out, this morning a company official sent mail reminding us we had a standing matching gift program in the company. I had trouble logging onto the internal gifting site this morning because I think thousands of other employees were simultaneously trying to do the same thing. Maybe they had been watching the same scenes as my wife had. But you know, as good and right as it felt this morning sending that money to the American Red Cross, some vague residual feeling of unease remained with me. Part of that unease is my suspicion that a non-trivial aspect of major charities amount to a cluster-f%&* of people who want to be seen as charitable. But that concern, even if well founded, goes only to the issue of efficiency (i.e. what percentage of the money I just sent this morning will go toward bringing essentials to needy people in the Deep South?). But there's something even deeper bugging me beyond mere efficiency. What that thing is has something to do with the words: "God helps those who help themselves". It has to do with another thought that keeps circulating in my head: "Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime." These thoughts bring me full circle toward my sentiments from the Far Right ...
[posted: 09/02/05]
