Human interest story out today at Yahoo!.
A California woman suffering from kidney failure was begging for "money" in the middle of the street to pay for a life saving medical treatment when a billionaire seller of "beanie babies" rolled down the window as he pulled up next to her to ask for directions.
Apparently the billionaire heard about her plight then he drove off and then thought about it and turned around:
He'd returned after an hour or so. Rolling down his window, he reached out his hand and introduced himself. I immediately recognized his name. He was kind and sincere as he looked directly into my eyes... I listened as he repeated over and over that he was going to help me. That my fundraising was done. That I didn't need to worry any longer. He said he would send a check after he returned to his offices during the week.I'm very happy that this woman has happened upon the US dollar balances needed to account for her critical procedure. But, I'm sorry to say that beyond this fact, this kind of story makes me sick to my stomach.
What if this wealthy person didn't need directions? She dies? How can we take any satisfaction from this story? We cannot provide balances to our citizens for critical health care without the financial success of moron "beanie babies"? We have all of these critical medical technologies, research, development of surgical procedures, facilities, training and education of personnel, pharmacology, rehabilitation, etc... BUT NONE OF THIS CAN BE UTILIZED WITHOUT THE US DOLLAR BALANCES TO ACCOUNT FOR THIS UTILIZATION FIRST BEING ALLOCATED TO BEANIE BABIES????
What kind of morons are running this country?!
Accordingly, I'm sure this billionaire will be invited on "Oprah" or whatever moron daytime show and everyone will fawn all over him that "what a great person he is", blah, blah, blah, and don't get me wrong I have great respect for what he did and his generosity; but this guy shouldn't be blushing red from humility, he should be purple with rage (if he has a brain).
8 comments:
The Holy Free Market has determined that the most efficient use of the resources is Beanie Babies.
If you challenge this distribution then you are on the road to surfdumb and and evil communist using violence against this holy market order and the divine right of speculators and mad consumerist bubbles to set prices.
There is no truth except Free Market's and von Mises is its Golden prophet.
Nice re-interpretation Matt :), it's so interesting how different interpretations of the same events can be used to justify different moral beliefs.
You would think this guy could afford a GPS? The whole thing could have been turned into a PR stunt imo... why does he need an hour to make the decision and come back? Hard to understand these details...
I'm starting to consider that "charity" is actually a demonic operation at core... it perhaps is an earthly counter "volunteer" or "Libertarian" or "free will" operation to an operation of righteous earthly authority.
"there is no authority except under God. Now those which are, have been set under God,
2 so that he who is resisting an authority has withstood God's mandate." Romans 13:1
Someone who says "we're out of money" and "we should then leave it up to free will charity" is being made to resist an authority... they are attacking the fiscal authority of civil govt under our 'nomos' or 'civil law'.
According to Apostle Paul here, these people are withstanding a mandate of God...
This looks dark to me anyway...
rsp
What most people do not realize is that the ancients that gave the law to their people as prophets, "prophet" meaning to speak for the higher power however that is conceived, mandated charity as a percentage of gain, usually tithing, i.e, 10%. "Charity" was not voluntary but a social tax for supporting the poor. Feeding the poor was also advised as one of the most powerful practices for overcoming past transgressions and gaining merit, which is the genuine meritocracy — "Store up your treasure in heaven..." and "Where your heart is, so is your treasure." —Jesus. But to gain maximum merit, one's giving should be voluntary and done in secret with no sense of "doing good" or obliging anyone, but rather because it's the right thing to do.
Tom,
My interpretation of the Israelite tithe to the Levites was not "charity".
Perhaps there were other Kingdoms contemporary to Israel that practiced a "tithe" for another purpose like giving to "the poor" or something like that but not Israel...
The 1/10 set aside for the Levites was due to the fact that The Law mandated that the tribe of Levi was to be the one responsible for the operations around the tabernacle/Temple and administration of the divine services/offerings to God...
The Levites were not recipients of the allotment of the land due to these other responsibilities (full time job!) hence the other 11 tribes were to set aside 1/10th for the Levites so the tithe became the Levites guaranteed means of subsistence.
So all 12 tribes had a guaranteed access to a robust means of subsistence or what we might call today a "job guaranty" or "basic income guaranty" if you will.
The Levites were religious administrators with tremendous responsibilities who enjoyed the tithe of the other 11 tribes that were farmers with enjoyment of guaranteed land rights... sweet set up!
There was NO CHARITY REQUIRED I'm sorry ... as long as the Law was being enforced..
The scriptures depict how corruption eventually made it's way into the leadership and it became a lawless environment.
Jesus also said in Mat 23, just after he was done identifying the leadership as blind morons and snakes btw:
"23 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you are taking tithes from the mint and the dill and the cumin, and leave the weightier matters of the law, judging and mercy and faith. Now these it was binding for you to do, and not leave those."
Jesus terms as "WEIGHTIER" the matters of The Law that pertained to economic justice.
In my view, no charity was required as long as the leadership enforced The Law.
The fact that Lazarus was reduced to begging with the dogs at the back door of the rich man is prima facie evidence of out of control economic chaos and LAWLESSNESS in Israel at that time... Lazarus was certainly screwed out of his guaranty, reduced to beggary and his sister to prostitution.
and... as some may take the Lord's words to his disciples that:
"For you always have the poor with you, yet Me you have not always."
and assert that this somehow applies to we in the nations today and that we somehow have to "accept" as a fait accompli that our society will always have "the poor" that we have to help in order to "earn" our way into "heaven" thru works is a complete bullshit falsehood.
Paul didnt go all around Greece and Rome establishing soup kitchens.
All we have today (well perhaps at least what the body or 'ecclesia' of Christ Jesus has today I guess I dont know about other people) is the fruit of the spirit and the authority of our 'nomos' or 'civil law' to make sure things get done the right way.
"Charity" is chaos and only required due to the effects of an operation to deny righteous authority and/or an operation against the rule of a righteous set of civil economic laws.
This is scripturally supported imo and I dont care what The Vatican says.
rsp,
Matt, in ancient societies everyone worked and there was no unemployment, although one could go into debt and have to sell one's assets, chiefly land. Those that did not "work" were the priests, who needed to be supported by temple "dues." It was a cultural obligation, not really voluntary, but it was not regarded as an exchange transaction either. In many cases the temples also took on a social welfare function funded by temple dues.
The story of Jesus throwing the money changers out of the temple outer court reflects this. People without a "pure offering" they brought themselves needed to obtain one from the temple, and the temple didi not "sell" in exchange. One had to change the official money for a temple token that would then be offered to obtain ones pure offer for sacrifice at the altar.
kidneys don't trickle down...?!
Tom,
wrt that part of the Greek scriptures, it looks like at the Jerusalem Temple (I dont know about any other "Temples" as there is no documentation I am aware of) the just Israelites brought with them the Roman 'nomisma' (eg. denarius) which was widely used in the countryside, and the "brokers" changed it out for a shekel or other weight of argurion (silver) or copper, again by weight measure.
This was probably looked upon as appropriate, as the "letter of The Law" for Israel allowed for the use of a weight measure of "silver" as an approach present, NOT "nomisma". Or at least I can see the Temple leadership selling it that way based on the specific wording of the Hebrew Scriptures....
This was done by brokers at the Temple, and it was probably fine to do this, it looks like it was the exchange rate the brokers used that Jesus had a problem with. And He didn't "throw them out", the scriptures say he "overturned their tables". He threw out some that were "buying and selling" (pure mercantilism was certainly forbidden).
Here:
"12 And Jesus entered into the sanctuary and cast out all those selling and buying in the sanctuary, and the tables of the brokers He overturns, and the seats of those selling doves.
13 And He is saying to them, "It is written, 'My house a house of prayer shall be called,' yet you are making it a burglars' cave."
And btw it's not "den of thieves" the Greek word is 'spelaion' which is 'cave' not 'den'. The leadership was screwing the just of Israel who were simply trying to remain justified to God by making their offerings. They were being screwed via the exchange rate between nomisma and argurion and then the leadership was using the Temple as a place to hide this ill gotten gain similar to how burglars would hide secretly stolen loot in caves...
The Greek scriptures are perfectly consistent in terminology around these monetary issues. You can see exactly what was going on. Much better than the orthodox academe of economics writes today btw.
'Matthew' (the author of this Greek scripture) was a tax collector and would have known exactly how all of these monetary arrangements worked and this is probably why the Lord selected him to document this malfeasance....
The Temple leadership turned the Roman nomisma (which was non-convertible) into a convertible currency for their own corrupt purposes in/around the Temple. Screwing the 'lost sheep' of the House of Israel via the exchange rate.
The Roman authorities apparently allowed this to happen with impunity. (perhaps as long as Poll Tax could still be generally paid by the population) This rogue exchange rate regime imo also would have to contribute to the apparent economic distributional problems within Israel and would help to create more "poor" people...
All of this lawlessness and corruption and injustice then yes: "the poor you will always have" (no kidding!) and thus "charity" may be needed to deal with the resulting chaos... but we today certainly are under no obligation to accept this type of on-going lawlessness and injustice in the nations in order to "perform works of charity" so we can "get into heaven" or some such nonsense.
We of the nations have the authority of our 'nomos' ie 'civil law'. We had it back then and we have it now.
And the ecclesia of Christ at least should today also have the fruit of the spirit to guide them in how to structure our civil laws to operate against these evils.... too bad those who purport to be and are most apparent are morons.
rsp,
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