When I visited Jim in suburban Jacksonville, Florida in October, 1962, he complained about the loss of his personal freedom to a government that forced him to pay social security taxes. That was the last time I saw Jim. He and my sister were killed in an auto accident in the Bahamas the following June. His $5000 life insurance policy did not adequately provide for their four children, including three-and-a-half-year-old Ronnie. She and her sisters depended on Jim’s social security taxes for their survival. Ronnie is now a grandmother living on Chena Hot Springs Road east of Fairbanks. Her husband Ralph complains about the loss of his personal freedom to a government that forces him to pay social security taxes.

Welcome to the real world where things are more complicated than political ideology. To my knowledge taxpayers’ sacrifices paid for Ronnie’s and her sisters’ food, clothing and shelter. I’m unaware any of them spent taxpayers’ money on cocaine and marijuana. But we all know stories of people who abuse the system.

A while back, a frequent critic, The_Insider asked a good question, “What do you do when the…aid isn’t used properly? Do you cut off aid altogether and let people starve?”

I just quoted The_Insider out of context. T_I was not addressing what to do about poor people in our own country but about other countries. But I think the same question applies to both.

T__I did not distinguish foreign aid by the private sector, which I not only endorse but engage in myself, with foreign aid provided by the US taxpayers.

In the real world, the US does little to alleviate starving around the world. As far as I can tell, the main function of US-taxpayer food relief is to provide subsidies to some US food industries looking for payment for disposing of their food surpluses.

According to an April 13, 2009 report, governments of industrialized nations have pledged 0.7% of their gross incomes to feed the poor in the Third World, but only pay 0.3% for the poor. Sweden has the highest percentage of gross income devoted to food aid. Then come in order Luxembourg, Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands. Only those countries meet or exceed the 0.7% quota. Of the other nations which fail, Ireland comes closest. Then in descending order come, Belgium, Finland, Spain, the United Kingdom, Australia, Switzerland, France, Germany, Canada, New Zealand, Portugal, Greece, Italy, the United States and Japan. The last two nations are in a dead heat for the booby prize. Apparently, Japan won.

To be honest, in gross aid, the US is number one because we’re so much richer and bigger than any other industrialized country. But, comparing incomes, we’re at the bottom of the industrialized countries in governments aiding the poor. We’re tops at handouts to the rich, especially when the handouts benefit the US weapons industry, which sells weapons to other countries.

I’m new at this internet citation business, but I will take a shot:
www.globalissues.org/article/35/us-and-foreign-aid-assistance

From what I’ve seen, we American individuals are most generous, if not the most generous people on the earth. But our government is either the stingiest or close to it.

Now, some of you will insist I am saying the US government is responsible for all the poverty in the world even when I say right now, countries are largely responsible for what happens to them. Or, more accurately, such countries’ leaders are largely responsible for what happens to their countries. But in many cases—not all, but many—the US government has propped up those thieves and murderers and enabled them to abuse their citizens. Having said that as honestly as I could, I realize I can’t stop those determined to misquote me and use that misquote to try to discredit me--the old "straw man" ploy . Doing that’s a lot easier than actually addressing the issue.

Here’s the way the system often works: The US government supports, props up or even installs a dictator in a Third World Country and then sends massive military aid to the dictator under the pretext he will use the money to fight communism. Such aid enables the dictator to seize the resources of the country for himself as well as the US aid. Ferdinand Marcos, for example, protected the Philippines from communism by using US taxpayers’ money to buy himself $50 million dollars’ worth of real estate in New York.

If you don’t believe me, you can consult:
articles.latimes.com/1986…/news/mn-5053_1_imelda-marcos.

As Naomi Klein and John Perkins (see my previous blog on foreign aid) have pointed out, dictators also borrow aid from US and international agencies and hoard the money for themselves. When the poor in such countries finally throw the tyrants out of power, the dictators flee with their billions to another country. When the US and international aid agencies move to collect the debts, the countries are broke after their dictators have looted them. Then the international agencies force the debtor nations to “privatize” under a system that brings huge profits to US and multi-national corporations. We’re talking big-time socialism here, folks—corporate socialism.

If you believe cutting off military aid to dictators will make poor people starve, then I strongly recommend paying the Easter Bunny for the Knik Arm Bridge and the Tooth Fairy for that bridge to the Ketchikan airport.

Back to the real world where today is the 38th anniversary of the CIA-engineered military coup that led to the death of Chile’s democratically-elected President Salvador Allende and installed the mass torturer and murderer Agosto Pinochet. Pinochet “opened’ Chile to President Nixon’s cronies for looting until the dictator’s crimes finally caught up with him. Now that he’s gone from power, Chileans, freed from so much military “aid,” have more food for themselves.

Okay, guys, time to gnash your teeth, rent your garments, tear your hair out, and go into the usual paroxysms of unbridled indignation; I am about to engage in the most egregious outrage in the history of the human race, mention your favorite Middle Eastern welfare recipient. But before I desecrate the holiest of holies, let me digress for a moment:

I have no reason to believe Dr. Brian Sweeney, Jr. is a racist who hates Natives, blacks, Hispanics and poor people on government assistance. On the contrary, I believe the doctor raises a legitimate question about government assistance that keeps people in poverty instead of rescuing them from it. That is an expression of, in the doctor’s own words, “fiscal sanity.”

I haven’t questioned the doctor on this particular point, but I suspect that if you want to send your permanent fund dividend to Hooper Bay or Newtok, the doctor would not want you jailed for that. The doctor is not, as far as I can tell, an in-state “isolationist” with an inherent hatred of every resident of Hooper Bay or Newtok. Or if you decided to open your home to the homeless as Mother Lawrence has done, Dr. Sweeney would not object. He does not advocate, as far as I know, sending all homeless people to Fire Island for the winter. He’s not that kind of an isolationist.

Maybe the doctor and his buddies can extend to me the same courtesy and apply the same principle: Fiscal sanity is neither hatred nor racism. Just as reasonable people might not always agree on the best approach to the poor in our country, so reasonable people may disagree about handouts to other countries.

If Dr. Sweeney wants to send his permanent fund dividend to Israel, I have no problem with that. But he already warned me that’s not likely to happen. He prefers socialized foreign aid. I oppose government coercion until and unless the government proves former CIA specialist in Middle East intelligence Michael Scheuer’s book, “Marching Toward Hell,” wrongly asserts military aid to Israel does more harm than good. Simply asserting military aid protects our national security doesn’t cut it. Prove it. Otherwise, stop grabbing my paycheck.

I favor government programs that help countries help themselves. I oppose government programs that encourage other countries to increase their dependence on the US. I oppose aid that enables dictators like Saddam Hussein to murder innocent Iraqis in the name of national security and defense. I am not willing to shrug my shoulders with a platitude about 20-20 hindsight 20 years after the fact. From the gitgo, I oppose bad actions as inherently immoral. I do not agree with the premise that morality has no place in politics. Morality has a place everywhere in human behavior, even the behavior of governments. I unequivocally condemn aid to countries that attack US and our people. Such aid encourages other countries to attack us as well. That principle applies to individuals as well. You can call me an isolationist if you want, but I still oppose military aid to Osama bin Laden.

And countries like him. Welfare tends not only to encourage people’s arrogance and sense of entitlement, but also countries’ arrogance and sense of entitlement. Just as persons tend to act with a sense of impunity, so do countries. They don’t need to behave themselves if Uncle Sap rescues them every time they get into trouble. Why not push people off their lands and bulldoze them if they protest? Your uncle will protect you. He can beat up anyone who gets in your way. So why not see what you can get away with? What do you have to lose? Your uncle will assert your right to “defend’ yourself against people you steal from, but not the right of such people to defend themselves from you. And your uncle will pick up the tab.

I know something about being an uncle. When one of my nieces got into an affair with a married man, her legal guardian, my mother, threw her out of the house. When the niece, who could not manage the money she got from her job even though she lived free at my mother’s house, suddenly found herself homeless, she tapped a fund I had set up for emergencies and blew the entire wad on decorating an apartment, which she moved out of three months later. Meanwhile, her oldest sister leaned on me to provide tuition for a private high school for her youngest sister so she wouldn’t have to attend classes with blacks and Hispanics. The oldest expressed outrage when I refused to work two jobs to provide her with more affluence than I could afford for myself. I see my saying no as fiscal sanity. I guess some of you would see it as hating my nieces.

I forgot to answer The_ Insider’s question directly. I would not cut off food aid to poor people if some of that aid were used improperly. But since the poor do not eat weapons, I would not hesitate to cut off military aid to those who persecute and murder the poor in their own country or in neighboring countries.

Where are the fiscal conservatives when you really need them? If we can’t afford health care for all Americans, how can we afford all those handouts to foreigners, who claim to be our allies as long as they have their hands in our pockets? If we assert that Americans do not have an inherent right to health care, how can we assert foreigners have an inherent right to my paycheck? So far, no one has answered these questions. Name-calling is a lot easier, especially for intellectual cowards.

I oppose aid to dysfunctional and arrogant people and to dysfunctional and arrogant countries. But I have to admit aiding our own dysfunctional and arrogant people helps our economy a lot more than aiding dysfunctional and arrogant countries. Besides, to my knowledge no welfare mama has ever attacked a US naval vessel, bulldozed an American peace activist, or raped and murdered four American church women. Calling me an anti-Semitic isolationist will not change that. Nor will it refute my arguments.