Why does Ted Rall get published?
Ted Rall is an idiot. His Sept. 13 column is entitled "Leave Katrina Efforts to the Government" and it instructs his readers not to donate to charities helping evacuees. He says, "Disaster relief is too important to be left to private fundraisers, with their self-sustaining fundraising expenses, administrative overhead (nine percent for the Red Cross) and their parochial, often religious, agendas." As if the government has a lower overhead than the Red Cross? The only "religious agenda" of the faith-based nonprofits helping there is to curry favor with their God, not to spread the word.
He says that "generosity feeds into the mindset of the sinister ideologues who argue that government shouldn't help people" and "It's time to 'starve the beast': private charities used by the government to justify the abdication of its duties to its citizens."
Not only does this man not understand human nature and history, but he's got his facts wrong. It wasn't the Red Cross, or Operation Blessing that waited for four days to act. It wasn't the Salvation Army that blocked trained "self-deployed" rescuers from getting into New Orleans.
Nonprofits are nothing more than the combined, organized efforts of people helping people. Wait, isn't that what government is supposed to be, too?
While Ted Rall is an idiot, I'm OK with that. What bothers me is that the Washington Post and Universal Press Syndicate publish his work. I suppose they pay him for it, too. Talk about the need to starve the beast!
posted by NPAdvisors.com @ 7:40 AM
1 comments
1 Comments:
Thanks for agreeing with me -- that charities did a better job responding to help people displaced by Katrina than the government did. I think it's difficult for you, or anyone, to make the case that this is because the government, with a $2Trillion budget, failed to tax the last bit of generosity out of the American public.
And, as a matter of record, government doesn't have "many times the resources of private charities." They have exactly the same resources -- those of the American people. Each makes its case for funds. One does it through back-room negotiations and pork projects, the other through carefully written letters and emails.
My support for nonprofit organizations comes from two beliefs. First, that people ought to be given as much individual freedom as possible with their own money (something Ted and, presumably you, disagree with) and second, that nonprofits can often be more effective than government. Both of these beliefs stem from an innate trust in the good will of the people, both donors and those who run nonprofits.
And I'm not suggesting Government shouldn't help. I'm saying there's a valid role for nonprofits. Ted thinks there isn't. And in doing so, Ted fails completely to grasp the great tradition of people helping people in this country.
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