[MD] Sin

[Ham Priday]

Case --

Let me be the first to congratulate you on a beautifully crafted essay which
would make a fine sermon for a Sunday morning service.  It offers everything
that a minister needs to link the Christian idea of charity (or the lack
thereof) to the biblical notion of Sin -- ad hominen appeal, historic
credibility, personal relations, descriptive detail, the inhumanity of
neglect, and passionate prose.  Indeed, the only thing it misses is a
connection to Capitalism.

I think it is a mistake to judge an economic system in terms of morality.
Such social institutions, whether it's Agrarianism, Feudalism, Barter
Economy, Communism, Socialism, or Capitalism, are pragmatic constructs
designed chiefly to accommodate the production and distribution of goods
within a given level or framework of commerce.  Thus, a nation whose
subsistence is largely agriculture might find Capitalism somewhat unwieldy,
whereas it is unlikely that a major industrial nation would be comfortable
with Feudalism, Barter or an Agrarian economy.

The goal of these systems is not to be "moral" but to provide suitable
incentives and a workable scheme for the harvesting and/or creation,
production, and marketing of needed commodities.  As such, they have no
direct relevance to the altrusim, charity, or humanitarian concerns of their
constituents.  Communism and Socialism might be considered exceptions, since
they are controlled by the state bureaucracy (or autocrat) whose
responsibility includes a number of social programs involving education,
health care, welfare, rehabilitation, etc.

On the whole, wealthy people in the U.S. are a compassionate and generous
lot.  But I think it has been demonstrated that as privately-owned,
free-market  entrepreneurs have been converted to state-subsidized
conglomerates, the capital available for humanitarian aid has shifted from
the private sector to government.  The more government is involved in
business and commerce, the higher the taxes, and the greater the demand for
government services.  We see this happening in the Scandinavian countries
and Britain, and to a lesser extent in the U.S. (although there is no
question that it is the direction we are heading).

The upshoot of this "progressive" movement is that Government has become the
source of humanitarian aid by default.  And politicians have a penchant for
using humanitarian projects as a power base to secure their own office.  As
a consequence, huge appropriations marked for international disaster relief
or HIV prevention, for example, often don't reach the target populations,
and there is little tracking to follow up the distribution of funds.  This
bureaucratic "ineffectiveness", rather than a lack of charitable concern on
the part of private citizens, may be one of the underlying causes of what
you've described so poignantly as "Sin".

I needn't point out that your sympathetic human story is spun around several
of the reasons for poverty that I suggested to Steve; namely, mental and
physical disability, unstructured goals, (parental) immaturity, drug (and
alcohol) disorientation, irresponsibility, time in prison, criminal
(promiscuous) behavior, and (quite probably) low self-esteem.  Unfortunately
that is a sad fact of life.  That "poor stupid lazy people are out there" is
also a fact of life.  For human beings, as well as lesser creatures, life is
a struggle to survive.  But the fact that some people are better constituted
or more capable than others for survival cannot be blamed on Capitalism.

Could you possibly give us an update on this story, Case?  You've
successfully sparked my interest in knowing what happens to Brandy, Joey,
and Julie.

Thanks for a heart-tugging reality tale.

Best regards,
Ham