G8 March on Edinburgh and Live 8
OK. so I’ve been reading all about the Live8, Bob Geldolf stuff for a few weeks now, and trying to understand final goal of increasing aid to these countries. I understand nearly all of the points raised. Dropping debt, well, that’s money already spent, if the government chooses to drop debt that’s their deal. Fair trade laws, well that’s a seperate sublect, but I can see what the end goal is there.
Now the thing which I don’t understand is the Live8 organisers want the governments to increase their aid to the poverty stricken countries. This confuses me, because the government has no money per se, it only has taxes taken from its tax payers, if they were to increase aid based on funds drawn from its countries tax payers, surely the government will have to increase taxes? Now my point here is that whilst I’m not the most charity oriented person in the world, neither am I the least charitable, I do give, and have given to charity on a regular basis as, and when I choose. I suspect I’d be less than happy if I though the government was taxing my income for the purposes of charity. Remember a government has no money of its own.
The problem lies in the fact that Live8 seems to assume that people in general are not as charitable as Sir Bob, and the other organisations would like them to be, the Tsunami disaster in Asia has already proven, that in times of need people will stand up and be counted, and give money where it’s needed. Sure the Tsunami disaster needed more money (and still does for all of the people who give to disaster funds while it’s trendy, then forget about them once they’re out of the headlines) but I think that taxing everyone in a country to help them is wrong, forced charity is wrong because it is a contradiction in terms. If we don’t pay our taxes we get arrested and sent to prison, increasing my taxes to give to charity is a contradiction, it’s either tax or it’s charity, it cannot be both.
Charity: noun – an activity or gift that benefits the public at large.
I agree with the idea, YES! Let’s make poverty history, but let’s do so by choice, not at the point of a gun, and not by force.
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