Western governments to sacrifice even more money on developing countries

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is preparing to spend £40m of taxpayers’ money plus £5m a year on research into malaria treatments and vaccines in the developing world.

 

http://news.uk.msn.com/Article.aspx?cp-documentid=9769780

 

With the NHS millions and millions of pounds in debt, is this really where the government’s priority should be?

 

Apparently the US is also committing $5bn to the cause.  Where is this money coming from?

 

One million people die from Malaria every year, so the charitable act of free people to help others is indeed a commendable one.  But the enormous sums of money being invested into other countries is at the non-voluntary expense of the taxpayers of those countries; countries whose economy is already faltering; the US is in great financial turmoil and Britain is on the brink of recession.  So what do our altruistic governments decide to do?: hand over millions or billions of expropriated wealth into causes that arguably have no benefit to their own countries.

 

Now the Pope is asking the Western world to be “brave” despite their financial problems and end poverty and hunger (as if it was the sacred responsibility of these governments to carry out these tasks).

 

Needless to say, I am not against charity or helping other countries out, providing such countries are at least partly-free and doing so is of practical benefit to our own.  Indeed, when people are left free to appreciate their own property and wealth they invariably do help the less-fortunate out by charity.  This is undeniable: where do you think any and all existing charity in the world today actually comes from?  It CANNOT come from the have-nots, so it must come from the haves.

 

What I am against is the role of government as a re-distributor of wealth and “saviour” of other less-fortunate countries, which necessarily comes at the sacrificial expense of its own.  It must necessarily come at sacrificial expense, because the billions of pounds being given to help developing nations is not connected to any real world market – it is taken from mass taxation and is not linked to any genuine production (which is the source of wealth).  This is obvious, since if countries were so wealthy that they could spare this much money to help other nations, their economy would not be in the state that it is!

 

The issue of taxation aside, a government’s role is to protect the Rights of its citizens, and that is all.  For a government to actually acquire its own citizens’ wealth and plunge billions of it to aid foreign countries whilst their own economy is on the rocks is not just foolishness, it is treachery.

Rumours of my demise

…are greatly exaggerated!  I haven’t been blogging much lately.  Initially this was because I was devoting my literary creativity to a work of fiction, latterly because my passion for writing had diminished due to other things in my life, but mostly because I’ve been playing a MMORPG to death!

 

In the coming days and weeks I plan to get back onto the regular blogging scene, but I hope to make my posts shorter and more current-affairs based, instead of detailed essays that cover general issues.  This is mostly because I feel I’ve already written about almost every important matter in great detail.

 

Today I’d just like to mention a complaint several colleagues were having over new congestion charges in Manchester.  The Council is introducing charges merely to enter the city by road, and further congestion charges aimed at reducing car use, pollution etc etc.  Most people who know me are aware of my political stance, which is an application of my morality, and my morality from my philosophy, so on this occasion I didn’t bother entering the discussion.

 

The interesting thing is that only last week we were discussing government interference in the market.  The typical mixed-economy supporter believes government should interfere in a market where there is a genuine “life-or-death” need, such as healthcare, food and drink, or power.  One of the usual arguments in favour of government interference in the departments of Water and Power is that is lowers prices and ensures competition, when actually the exact opposite is true; government endorsement of one or two companies is actually the ONLY way for coercive monopolies to exist, and even if the cost to the consumer is apparently cheaper, higher taxes and inflation are the result (e.g.: the NHS).

 

Of course, the very question that mixed economists don’t (and cannot) answer is this: what gives government the right to interfere in the transactions of private businesses and individuals?  There is no legitimate political answer to this question, because there is no moral justification for it.  Government’s sole purpose is to protect the Rights of its citizens, not to deny the “haves” in order to supply the “have-nots”.

 

This is why the same mixed economists who complain about yet another needless tax are reaping the seeds of their own doing.  They want a government that has arbitrary power to violate the Rights of its people, yet they complain when it actually does so!  But of course, they only complain when THEIR rights are violated!  Who cares about the businessman, whose creativity and industry provides the foundations of society, because he has money anyway?  Who cares about the people who take care of the bodies through good health practices and rarely require healthcare, because they obviously have too much money in the first place?  Who cares about the profitability of companies who can provide water and power, because people “need” these things?  The mixed economists don’t care – they want it THEIR way.  But of course, the only way to force other people to suit you regardless of the cost is by government force, a two-edged sword.  So when inflation soars and government needs even more money to fill the hole created by its interference in the market, it looks to squeeze even more money from its citizens by ridiculous fines and charges.

 

The mixed economists don’t even question the absurdity of charging ANYONE for using their own property, regardless of what the alarmist environmentalists threaten will happen (which changes from year to year, decade to decade).  Compare the pollution caused by cars to that of enormous power plants.  If polluting the air is wrong (it’s negligible anyway) let’s close the power plants.  Instead we’ll just light fires to keep warm.  But wait, burning fuel releases carbon dioxide, and we can’t have that…

 

Anyway, the point is to highlight the contradictions inherent in any socialist’s politics.  A typical socialist wants government interference, and doesn’t want it.  A socialist wants government to have enormous discretionary power, and then complains when HIS rights are violated.  This is because a person’s politics are derived from their morality, and the morality of the socialist (which is the true name for a mixed economist) is that of collectivism and altruism.  And the collectivist denies that any man has a right to live for his own sake; that his sole purpose for living is to serve others.  They must believe this, because if they didn’t, they wouldn’t be collectivists, and would necessarily embrace the ONLY political system that totally respects individual Rights: capitalism.

 

So before you moan about more taxes and congestion charges etc, check your politics, check your morals.