Sunday, August 12, 2007

Wallis seems to want to praise Gordon Brown for the following speech made at the US last week. I find it to be great, but empty rhetoric. How about something specific to address these needs:


And so my argument is simple: The greatest of evils that touches the deepest places of conscience demands the greatest of endeavor. The greatest of challenges now demands the boldest of initiatives. To address the worst of poverty we urgently need to summon up the best efforts of humanity.I want to summon into existence the greatest coalition of conscience in pursuit of the greatest of causes. And I firmly believe that if we can discover common purpose there is no failing in today's world that cannot be addressed by mobilizing our strengths, no individual struggle that drags people down that cannot benefit from a renewed public purpose that can lift people up.

To find that common purpose, he said:

Our objectives cannot be achieved by governments alone, however well-intentioned; or private sector alone, however generous; or NGOs or faith groups alone, however well-meaning or determined—it can only be achieved in a genuine partnership together.

After addressing governments and businesses, the prime minister went on:

Let me say to faith groups and NGOs—your moral outrage at avoidable poverty has led you to work for the greatest of causes, the highest of ideals, and become the leaders of the campaign to make poverty history. Imagine what more you can accomplish if the energy to oppose and expose harnessed to the energy to propose and inspire is given more support by the rest of us—businesses, citizens, and governments.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I’m glad you’re not buying the rhetoric bro. In fact, blah, blah, blah is all I hear from the Prime Minister – and I’m trying to be charitable here.

The problem with ANY government involvement Mr. Brown is that anyone who has studied the rise of the centralized nation-state knows that as soon as government hands over the money (which they forcibly seized from those whose labor produced it), they slip on the handcuffs. Government is not about help and compassion (nor can it be), it’s about power and control. Government money means government control. Government money ALWAYS comes with strings attached. And those strings will inevitably become chains.

Furthermore, government money will always lead to more and more dependency on government money. Why seek really hard for donations when it would be much more cost effective to hire lobbyists to do your bidding and beg your Dear Leader for funds?

You know I want to alleviate poverty more than anyone. And the best system to do that is the Church being the Church. J.P. Moreland correctly pointed out –albeit in the specific context of universal healthcare – that “Jesus was angered at moral teaching that emphasized outward conformity to rules without moral action flowing from a heart of compassion and virtue, even if such conformity produced good results. Now the state cannot show compassion in the arena of economic justice, because a necessary condition for compassion is that it is freely given and not coerced. The state forces people to conform to rules. It takes their money and gives it to others. But this is not the sort of compassion of which Jesus taught…To count as pleasing to God, an act of caring from the poor must be voluntary not coerced. The church can show compassion regarding the needy, but not the state.”

I simply do not trust the government, or any organization that relies upon the government, to consistently aid people in any area where compassion is the most necessary component. With funding always tight and the needs (which the government often creates in the first place) readily apparent, I realize feeding at the government trough is tempting. But it’s a temptation well worth not succumbing too.

JPN said...

That's good stuff, especially your comment from Moreland.