Thursday, January 14, 2010

Tragedy And Wealth

Doctor Zero has another excellent column at Hot Air's Greenroom, this time about tragedy and wealth in the wake of the Haiti earthquake. Read the whole thing:

Horrible images of devastation are flooding in from Haiti, in the wake of a massive earthquake that has reportedly left thousands dead. Disaster relief is on the way, with the lion’s share coming from the United States, of course. The U.S. military counterattacks tragedy as quickly as attacks from enemy nations, and a brigade of government and civilian relief agencies is never far behind them. In a nation with 22% real unemployment, people who haven’t worked in months are digging deep to make Red Cross donations.

Who will pay for the lion’s share of disaster relief, after the lion goes broke?

The governments and people of other nations make admirable efforts, but none has the combination of strength and compassion that makes Americans the first to lift debris from broken bodies, or raise emergency medical tents where hospitals once stood. The selfish and brutal tyrannies jockeying for dominance of the post-American world do not have the heart, and the good people fearfully watching their shadows lengthen don’t have the wealth.

Make no mistake: it is wealth that feeds the hungry, cures the sick, and mends the broken. Capitalism is the practical expression of freedom, and wealth allows the tangible expression of compassion. Right now, the Red Cross can use hard cash from capitalists more than sincere best wishes from penniless bystanders. Kind hearts and helplessness blend into despair.

Mankind cannot afford to watch America slide into a socialist coma. It cannot endure the voice of freedom fading into a whisper. Those unemployed people sending their bottom dollar to help the people of Haiti would do more if they could. They don’t want to be unemployed. Businesses don’t want to lay people off. A nation with our incredible resources and human capital has no end of work to do. High unemployment means we see a future in which endeavor is pointless, and risk is foolish… but only through enterprise and risk can we create the fabulous wealth that turns the love of a noble people into waves of food and medicine, to fill the wounds of the world.

If we allow selfish politicians to mortgage the future, to feed their hunger for power, we’re doing more than just saddling our children with a mountain of debt. We’re draining the strength they will need to help the victims of tsunamis, earthquakes, and famines to come. We’re sentencing them to watch the disasters of the future in helpless frustration. We are not just mortgaging their comforts… we’re devouring the economic bone and muscle they need to fulfill the destiny that was left for them by the heroes of our past, and telling them they can’t be heroes, because we weren’t strong and proud enough to be free.

Thank God we still have the wealth and will to help the people of Haiti today. If we let the architects of the socialist state build a hospice where we can die quietly, we won’t be able to help the people of tomorrow, either domestically or abroad. It’s about time we remembered our duty to mankind, and accept the truth that only the industry of free men can defeat hunger, poverty, and disease.

To donate to the Red Cross relief effort, click here.

Update: great round-up of more ways to help from the Anchoress here.

This is the ultimate evil of destroying capitalist America. It's not just about our own personal wealth, comfort, or well-being. America truly is the last best hope for freedom in the world, and that freedom is what allows us to achieve such immense wealth...and thus, the generosity that the world sees every time such a catastrophe occurs. Without freedom, there is no capitalism. Without capitalism, there is no increasing wealth. Without increasing wealth, there is no assistance to those who need it.

This is the bleak future of America if Obama and the Democrats are not stopped.

There's my two cents.

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