False Compassion: Not Compassionate at All

Much has been said about the difference in death tolls in the Haitian and Chilean earthquakes:  Though the quake in Chile has considerably stronger, tens or possibly hundreds of thousands fewer people died.  While some of this is due to physical factors such as the distance of the quakes from the surface and from large cities, many have also drawn connections between the types of economies in each country and their ability to deal with these tragedies (Chile has a much stronger free market).

But regardless of whether that connection is causation or simply correlation, any time is a good time to pause and consider the effectiveness of our charity.  A new article at Civil Society Trust argues from a Christian -- though in this case probably universally applicable -- perspective that a necessary component of true compassion is effectiveness:

At the end of the day, most of the programs and policies of government initiated in the name of helping people amount to rounding up resources from the private sector and redistributing them to others.   And there are plenty of people who argue we need to do more of that.  But if these programs and policies are in fact not working, or perhaps even making things worse, and yet we continue to do them, I would suggest that we are ignoring the original goal of helping others and instead focusing on how these programs make us feel instead....

New Op-Ed from Ron Paul: "Restore America by getting government under control"

Ron Paul has a new article out, this time published at the DesMoines Register.  Contrary to what some have claimed about the liberty movement being on the fringe even among young people, Dr. Paul notes the enthusiastic reactions he recieves from college students when advocating limited government:

Rising generations know that America's current course cannot be sustained, and they are ready to change direction. When I speak on college campuses across the country, the topic that consistently gets the loudest applause is stopping our system of endlessly printing money out of thin air by ending the Federal Reserve and returning to sound money.

Agreeing with the president that the "time for change is now," Dr. Paul details what true change would look like -- change which makes a lasting difference, not the farcical variety we've been getting from both parties for years:

True change will object to any unbalanced budget, instead of merely trimming around the edges.

The Politics of Environmentalism

My latest column at the Old Gold & Black talks about the political motives behind much of the climate change movement, applying Murray Rothbard's view on the relationship between the ruling and intellectual classes, which he laid out in The Anatomy of the State, to the current environmental debate.

Any human that cares about the survival of himself and his descendents must, to at least some level, care about the environment in which he lives. However, those who truly care for their environment also must be certain to deal with the true causes of environmental destruction rather than simply jump upon whatever environmental trend happens to catch the fancy of pop and political culture.

In fact, those who have an earnest desire to see the improvement of their environment should be the first to attack any who are attempting to hijack the environmental movement for political gain. This is exactly why true environmentalists should currently be livid with the political establishment’s attempts to use environmental concerns to enforce new international laws and centralize power to all new levels.

Read the rest here.

CPAC 2010 Recap

I found this in the Washington Examiner on my way home.  While it's certainly accurate to a large extent, Ron Paul definitely noted his own party's lackluster crediblity on the fiscal front.  Glenn Beck also hit upon a lot of that as well.