Down the Rat Hole

Think about Live 8 and all the warm feelings it produced because we knew we we're doing something good for the poor people of Africa. And then read this:

"It is widely reported that an African child dies of hunger and malnutrition every three seconds while in the same period African leaders steal $14,000 from their people and put it in foreign bank accounts. In the words of Milovan Djilas, they squander the nation's wealth as though it was someone else's and dip into it as if it were their own. Isn't it strange that exactly two weeks after the G8 deal that wrote off 80 percent of my country's debt, all our parliamentarians, who earn $300 per month, are to receive $25,000 each in free car loans and $60 a day in rent allowance? I call it free car loans because five years ago they each received $20,000 but have yet to pay it back.

It is insulting that the bill for this lavish behavior is passed on to the disrespected poor as they struggle to pay a 40 percent tax on fuel that is used to support, among other things, government entities that consume almost one-third of the country's fuel. One would have thought that African leaders would be better advised to use resources to build the infrastructure that will increase the volume of trade within the continent and thereby improve economic activity." - Franklin Cudjoe, Ghanaian libertarian advocate

When will we ever learn that the worst way to address poverty is to throw money at it? This will be a good lesson to keep in mind as pressure mounts to "do something" about the awful condition of the poor in New Orleans and other major urban areas. People should be helped, of course, but help should be contingent upon a willingness to make changes in lifestyle choices. If people are to receive public assistance they should be expected to foreswear the behaviors that perpetuate their poverty. To expect the taxpayer to fork over a significant portion of his/her earnings to people who feel no obligation to do anything in return helps no one and is successful only in generating resentments.

Perhaps this sounds harsh, but if so, it's the sort of harshness with which people need to be more frequently confronted. Too often the poor in this country are impoverished because throughout their lives they rejected the advice of others who urged them not to have sex and babies until they were in a committed marriage and once they were married to stay that way. They rejected the advice of others to shun drugs, alcohol, and other dysgenic behaviors, and to do all they could to get a good education. They rejected the advice of others to build their lives around their children and not around their own wants and desires. They rejected all of this and more, and now they demand the tax-payer pay the bill for their lack of wisdom so that they don't have to bear the full brunt of the consequences of their foolish choices themselves.

It's past time to tell people that if they want what you have they should adopt the same values and virtues of education, fidelity, hard work, etc. that enabled you to acquire what you have. If they're unwilling to do that then they shouldn't feel entitled to much help from society at large.