Calling all Americans Catholics! I have questions for you!

[thomfra]

One thing that has always seemed strange to me is how dog-eat-dog life seems to be in the US, compared to the rest of the developed world.

From an outsider’s perspective, it seems to be that USA doesn’t have the same attitudes as the rest of the developed Christian world when it comes to looking after its own citizens. Something which I thought would have been a fairly Christian thing to do.

There was absolute shock in Europe as to how badly things went after hurricane Katrina. That sheer poverty in which people lived, and the fact that it was majority poor blacks that were left homeless was also widely reported. “Why don’t they look after their own people?”…is what many in Europe were saying.

• Things like public health care (completely free), and an essentially free university education as standard in pretty much all of Europe. It’s not seen as something “given to us”, but more as “a right”. And yet in the US this is unlikely to happen.

People seem obsessed with paying too much tax, and how much it is all going to cost, how it may affect the economy.

And I often read posts here on the Catholic answers forum where people seem petrified that somebody else may get something for nothing, without “working for it”.

I have two questions:

1. Why is America like this?
2. How do Catholic Americans feel about how the average American citizen is looked after when things don’t go so well (those who are broke, sick, unemployed etc).

 

[Christy_Beth]

Why is America like this? I’m not really sure. But there’s the attitude to work and collect things to show how much money we make. Some of the poorer people sometimes get out to far on credit accounts.

How do I feel about how people are taken care of in a crisis? Frustrated. Sometimes an effort is made. But in the end there is very little shown for all the effort. Sloppy workmanship on things made here in America is all too common. And these people demand large paychecks for all their “hard work.” And the CEO’s of many businesses want big bonus checks, even while laying off many of the workers.

What do I think about America? It sucks, but it’s home.

 

[whatevergirl]

America donates more to worldwide relief efforts when there are catastrophes than any other nation, yet we are always scrutinized for not ‘doing enough.’ The U.S. is definitely a nation that is obsessed with money, and material things, totally agree. But, it’s also a generous nation. Where was Europe on 9/11? Where were they in support of our troops in Iraq? Where are they in helping us with our gasoline crisis?

It’s definitely easy for another country to sit back and poke at the U.S., but at the end of the day, America still soars above them all in generosity. Could we do better? Yes! But, we are not as bad as other countries would claim we are.

 

[Wolseley]

One thing that has always seemed strange to me is how dog-eat-dog life seems to be in the US, compared to the rest of the developed world.

From an outsider’s perspective, it seems to be that USA doesn’t have the same attitudes as the rest of the developed Christian world when it comes to looking after its own citizens. Something which I thought would have been a fairly Christian thing to do.

But America isn’t a “Christian” country; it’s a capitalist country, and the big oblong green god with George Washington’s picture on it trumps Christ in actual number of devout adherents.

There was absolute shock in Europe as to how badly things went after hurricane Katrina. That sheer poverty in which people lived, and the fact that it was majority poor blacks that were left homeless was also widely reported. “Why don’t they look after their own people?”…is what many in Europe were saying.

We don’t look after our own people because of a combination of institutional greed and an extremely misguided application of the Calvinist work ethic. In other words, “If you don’t work for it, you don’t deserve it”. And if it isn’t profitable for someone, if they can’t make money off it somehow, they’re not going to bother.

• Things like public health care (completely free), and an essentially free university education as standard in pretty much all of Europe. It’s not seen as something “given to us”, but more as “a right”. And yet in the US this is unlikely to happen.

No, because it isn’t profitable. What Europeans never seem to understand about this country is that in other parts of the world, doctors go into medicine to begin with because it’s a calling; here, however, doctors go into medicine because it’s lucrative.

People seem obsessed with paying too much tax, and how much it is all going to cost, how it may affect the economy.

If we cut off every penny of foreign aid to everyone else in the world and stopped shipping our own industries overseas, we’d have a wonderfully vibrant economy and more than enough tax revenue to take care of ourselves. As it is, however, we’re depriving our own citizens of the means to support themselves, and then demanding more tax revenue from them to support everyone else with foreign aid and American military protection. It’s a recipe for national suicide.

And I often read posts here on the Catholic answers forum where people seem petrified that somebody else may get something for nothing, without “working for it”.

Yes; that’s another misguided application of the Calvinist work ethic, and it’s also outmoded by about 30 years. In the 1970’s, true, many people took advantage of the welfare system and didn’t bother to look for work that was available; now, however, because of “globalization” and “free trade”, there are no jobs for people to look for that will support them (those jobs all went to Mexico and Communist China, remember), and when they seek relief, they’re still hit with the obsolete accusation of “You’re just too lazy to look for work”.

I have two questions:

1. Why is America like this?

Greed—the bottom line; and the fact that we have a pack of idiot liberals in charge of everything from Congress to ice cream stands with an agenda to downsize this country into oblivion, which they learned from their pinko college professors who came of age in the 1960’s and had all their brain cells permanently damaged by taking too much LSD.

1. How do Catholic Americans feel about how the average American citizen is looked after when things don’t go so well (those who are broke, sick, unemployed etc).

This Catholic American isn’t happy about it, let me assure you.

I live in Michigan, which has the worst economy in all 50 States. I make about half what I should be making for my type of job; I have no health care insurance, which means I deal every day with a kinked back and a bad tooth, and have been for six months because I do not have money enough to see either a chiropracter or a dentist to get either one taken care of. My wife is unemployed and will remain so due to the fact that our second vehicle died, so she couldn’t go look for a job even if she wanted to, and her benefits ran out some time ago. No second vehicle also means she can’t go to the food pantries to pick up extra food, so we live on pretty short rations. My wages will pay the rent and the utilities----that’s it. There is no money left over for food, medical attention, prescriptions, or anything else.

Needless to say, our magnificent liberal Democratic governor, Jennifer Granholm, is not high on my list. She is the third-highest paid governor in America (after California and New York), and all she has done is preside over a solid exodus of jobs and people from the State. That woman is the single largest economic disaster to hit this State since the Great Depression.

 

[Mary_Gail_36]

America donates more to worldwide relief efforts when there are catastrophes than any other nation, yet we are always scrutinized for not ‘doing enough.’ The U.S. is definitely a nation that is obsessed with money, and material things, totally agree. But, it’s also a generous nation. Where was Europe on 9/11? Where were they in support of our troops in Iraq? Where are they in helping us with our gasoline crisis?

It’s definitely easy for another country to sit back and poke at the U.S., but at the end of the day, America still soars above them all in generosity. Could we do better? Yes! But, we are not as bad as other countries would claim we are.

Same point I wanted to make!

 

[strngrnrth]

Being a Catholic libertarian, I believe in help for the truly needy, emergency help and voluntary private help for anyone a person feels like helping. But I don’t want the kind of megagovernment most of the world has because government has certain problems. One is the lack of built-in accountability. $25 pens and $10,000 faucet handles are the inevitable result of the divorce of budget from attention to the laws of economics. Another is the potential for tyranny. A government big enough to give you everything you want is strong enough to take everything you have. I think that’s Jefferson, it’s someone’s sig around here, can’t remember whose. Not just to take your belongings but to take your rights and freedom. Another is shortages. Socialism notoriously and almost inescapably slows production and distribution of every possible good and service. Another is aimlessness. I grew up on welfare, for the most part, and the disconnect between action and ownership, between ownership and life, left us feeling it made no difference how we spent our lives or treated anything, including ourselves. We had no pride and no program could give us any.
So, yes, I think we should have done more in Katrina and we should certainly help the mentally ill get off the street more and we ought to do more for crime victims and bring food to the disabled better and things like that, but I don’t want to see everything become the government’s job. I don’t want socialized medicine, because the abuses are inevitable. We would end up with fewer doctors, less research, and hypochondriacs taking all the appointments so the people who really need a doctor can’t get in. When people have to pay, but there is still emergency help for everyone, as we have it now, someone who just has a cold will think twice about seeing the doctor, the smart, ambitious students will go to med school, doctors will do more research and take fewer breaks, and the people who need medical care most will get excellent care. With charity, the poor will also get excellent care, as I have. And charities are held to a standard of efficiency, which governments aren’t.
FEMA largely failed in Katrina because it is a poorly-designed agency, which is because it is a federal government response to a disaster. Handling everything from floods to attacks to droughts is a wide scope of responsibility, and FEMA isn’t flexible enough to deal with it all.
And yes, we care. Thousands of citizens went to Louisiana on their own to see how they could help people. But it’s a big country. Most of us work long hours. Few could get away.

 

[estesbob]

I have two questions:

1. Why is America like this?

 

[pentecostbaby]

I think America is like this because of our Protestant legacy. It’s all about “pull yourself up by your bootstraps”, and monetary riches are seen by many as a sign of God’s grace (at least they used to be). If you’re poor, it’s your fault.

In my college class, after the 2004 election, my students and I had a big discussion about the difference between the two political parties. We came up with the idea - and this is a mostly conservative class, keep in mind - that one party was more concerned about caring for the self and the immediate family (except for abortion), and the other cared more about the community (except for abortion). So I think that, as a whole, Americans are more concerned with taking care of #1 rather than the community. That’s why we rant so much about taxes - and why most of us think we should pay for college, health care, etc. ourselves.

 

[1ke]

Americans do believe in helping the needy, taking care of family and the infirm, and looking after those less fortunate. Where we differ is in who we believe should do this and how.

Americans, by and large, believe private institutions such as churches and charities are the way to help the less fortunate and do so very efficiently and effectively.

Most Europeans today believe the the government should take care of everyone.

America developed this way somewhat because of it’s size and the fact that on the frontier you took care of yourself and the community took care of each other. There was no law, there was no government. It was you against nature and hostiles.

America was founded on the principles of freedom and responsibility.

And, if you are honest about your own history-- the idea of government taking care of everyone comes out of socialism and communism, rooted in control and totalitarianism. For all its history, Europe’s elite couldn’t have given a squat about the poor masses. It was the Catholic Church that ran hospitals, schools, orphanages, poor houses, and charities-- not the government. Then, the Reformation-- and in France the La Revolution-- dismantled that social structure and left in its wake poverty and death in Europe on a grand scale. It took England centuries to recover.

The idea of the government taking care of everyone isn’t Christian, it’s Marxist. The idea of the Church and family taking care of its members-- THAT is Christian and the Catholic Church lived that out before being hamstrung in the 1600s by the greed of political leaders.

So, when you point a finger at the US, there are 3 pointing back at you.

 

[YADA]

I think you are mistaken about how the citizens of America care … and not just for ourselves but the world …Here is a good article on charitable giving in America by Arthur Brooks from this spring [t he statistics cited are current]

american.com/archive/2008/march-april-magazine-contents/a-nation-of-givers%between%

The Article is called “A Nation of Givers” from American Magazine …

Q. Are Americans more or less charitable than citizens of other countries?
A. No developed country approaches American giving. For example, in 1995 (the most recent year for which data are available), Americans gave, per capita, three and a half times as much to causes and charities as the French, seven times as much as the Germans, and 14 times as much as the Italians. Similarly, in 1998, Americans were 15 percent more likely to volunteer their time than the Dutch, 21 percent more likely than the Swiss, and 32 percent more likely than the Germans. These differences are not attributable to demographic characteristics such as education, income, age, sex, or marital status. On the contrary, if we look at two people who are identical in all these ways except that one is European and the other American, the probability is still far lower that the European will volunteer than the American.

 

[Kuryakyn]

The idea of the government taking care of everyone isn’t Christian, it’s Marxist. The idea of the Church and family taking care of its members-- THAT is Christian and the Catholic Church lived that out before being hamstrung in the 1600s by the greed of political leaders.

Excellent point.

 

[kristie_m]

I can see where something like Katrina would make someone on the outside believe that we American’s aren’t the most generous souls. But I’ve seen things on a smaller scale that have both humbled me, and inspired me to be a more giving person. When a neighbor lost their house in a fire, the entire community I live in came together to offer anything they needed to get back on their feet. When my pastor went to serve two weeks in a poor part of the country, people from our church filled two trucks worth of supplies, religeous goods and monetary donations to send with him. After 9/11, several people I know took their much anticipated “economic stimulous” checks and sent them straight back to the NYFD’s victim’s fund. Perhaps some of us Americans aren’t as generous as we ought to be, but on the whole, we step up when the need arises.

As for having the government pay for health care, etc., I think perhaps we are too fond of having our own choices in some matters. I think I’d prefer to be able to pick, say, my ob/gyn, rather than having to go to the one Uncle Sam pays for. But that’s just my own take on it.

 

[Dale_M]

Oh, Thomfra, you should have known better than to cast any doubts on the US.

One thing that has always seemed strange to me is how dog-eat-dog life seems to be in the US, compared to the rest of the developed world.

From an outsider’s perspective, it seems to be that USA doesn’t have the same attitudes as the rest of the developed Christian world when it comes to looking after its own citizens. Something which I thought would have been a fairly Christian thing to do.

I think the US has a stronger entrepreneurial culture than does Europe. This extends not only to taking risks to start a business, but also to “get ahead” in life. We want individuals to take responsibility for their own lives. This, of course, can be taken to extremes e.g. persons ranting about “welfare queens”, but I think it explains some of the antipathy to government, and to taxes (taking my money).

1. How do Catholic Americans feel about how the average American citizen is looked after when things don’t go so well (those who are broke, sick, unemployed etc).

I think Catholics, and indeed most Americans, want to help someone who has had bad fortune. But its not unusual to hear judgemental statements about what poor people spend their money on, and snide comments about a person making “bad choices” in their life.

 

[Newbie2]

**1. Why is America like this? **

Two reasons, methinks. First, the assumption is that things are as they appear to be, as presented by the media. Big media in the USA leans left, and my guess is that the reporting overseas is slanted, at least to some degree.

Second, there are more than adequate means, through taxes, to take care of the poor, etc. However, much of the money is wasted on so-called “Pork-Barrel” projects; for example, a legislative bill to subsidize housing for the poor may include millions of dollars for a bridge project in the sponsoring Senator’s district back home. Other Senators who don’t vote for the bill get tagged as not caring for the poor.

Other wastes are too numerous to mention…in Michigan, the State is broke…yet my dad told me yesterday that in Brighton, they are getting state dollars (grants, not a loan) to improve the downtown storefronts. Then the legislature and our wonderful tax-and-spend Governor says we need more money for education, helping the poor, etc.

Governments, local, state and national here in the grand old USA, do not know the meaning of the word “budget”.

There is also the bloated state and federal payrolls, which do not have to answer to economic pressures; when GM started losing big bux, they cut retiree benefits. Try suggesting that at the State or Federal level to help balance the budget, and you’d either get laughed out of the place or beat up.

2. How do Catholic Americans feel about how the average American citizen is looked after when things don’t go so well (those who are broke, sick, unemployed etc).

Well, I don’t look to government to take care of the poor and needy, because “it” will never do it. It takes generousity and compassion by those in the private sector i.e. Christians and others to help out when government eventually fails in its efforts.

 

[adstrinity]

AND, nobody has free health care. Other countries are over-taxed for medical persons who do the absolute least they can, sometimes not even treating the patient. People with health problems come to America to get the treatment they need. …Even if one is dead broke even or in debt here, they do not get turned away for medical treatment.

I like the way things are done here in America…and this is coming from somebody who doesn’t have a job at the moment.

Hurricane Katrina? I don’t know what you were shown/told over on your end, but, the government was there. And you know who else was there? A story that was on Rush Limbaugh? A kid (under 14), got in a school bus and drove a group of people to a safe place (after the levy broke, I think). THIS is what America is; doing for yourself and using common sense! Why should somebody wait for a hand out? The gods help those who help themselves.

Long story short; government shouldn’t preside over me, I should have the option and the right to help who I want when I want and I should have the oportunity to work a job I want, with hours to provide me gainful employment (…FRANCE) so that I can accomplish.

Maybe it’s just me, but, as an American growing up, I NEVER understood the beggar/poor stories in the Bible. Maybe it’s growing up Congregationalist, maybe it’s growing up American, but, yes, granted, helping beggars is so foreign and contradictory to the natural order of things to me. Even where I am, homeless people are out selling Street Wise newspapers. If somebody asks me for money, I will give them money; don’t care if they are going to buy crack, that is their choice. I hope the money will go to what they NEED, though.

A reason some people may not give, besides they don’t want their hard earned money going to something less savoury, is because some people who beg, are scammers. They make an easy living begging, rather than going out and getting a job. They can make $500/day, some of them. Also, the people who hold, “Will Work For Food,” signs, typically are fat. AND, if you try to give them work, some, SOME, not all, but, SOME will yell at you and tell you they don’t want to work; they want food or money (so I have heard…have never approached one).

 

[Wolseley]

We have programs in place to take care of all of the above. No one starves in America and no one goes without health care. In fact the poor in the United States live as well or better than the middle class in many European countries.

 

[mark_a]

But America isn’t a “Christian” country; it’s a capitalist country, and the big oblong green god with George Washington’s picture on it trumps Christ in actual number of devout adherents.

We don’t look after our own people because of a combination of institutional greed and an extremely misguided application of the Calvinist work ethic. In other words, “If you don’t work for it, you don’t deserve it”. And if it isn’t profitable for someone, if they can’t make money off it somehow, they’re not going to bother.

No, because it isn’t profitable. What Europeans never seem to understand about this country is that in other parts of the world, doctors go into medicine to begin with because it’s a calling; here, however, doctors go into medicine because it’s lucrative.

If we cut off every penny of foreign aid to everyone else in the world and stopped shipping our own industries overseas, we’d have a wonderfully vibrant economy and more than enough tax revenue to take care of ourselves. As it is, however, we’re depriving our own citizens of the means to support themselves, and then demanding more tax revenue from them to support everyone else with foreign aid and American military protection. It’s a recipe for national suicide.

Yes; that’s another misguided application of the Calvinist work ethic, and it’s also outmoded by about 30 years. In the 1970’s, true, many people took advantage of the welfare system and didn’t bother to look for work that was available; now, however, because of “globalization” and “free trade”, there are no jobs for people to look for that will support them (those jobs all went to Mexico and Communist China, remember), and when they seek relief, they’re still hit with the obsolete accusation of “You’re just too lazy to look for work”.

Greed—the bottom line; and the fact that we have a pack of idiot liberals in charge of everything from Congress to ice cream stands with an agenda to downsize this country into oblivion, which they learned from their pinko college professors who came of age in the 1960’s and had all their brain cells permanently damaged by taking too much LSD.

This Catholic American isn’t happy about it, let me assure you.

Couldn’t have said it better myself. In fact, I couldn’t have said it half as well.

 

[Verisimilitude]

But America isn’t a “Christian” country; it’s a capitalist country, and the big oblong green god with George Washington’s picture on it trumps Christ in actual number of devout adherents.

Your post was refreshing and I generally agree with it.

We don’t look after our own people because of a combination of institutional greed and an extremely misguided application of the Calvinist work ethic. In other words, “If you don’t work for it, you don’t deserve it”. And if it isn’t profitable for someone, if they can’t make money off it somehow, they’re not going to bother.

The ‘you could grow up to be President’ was balanced with I must ‘earn’ my own when I was an adult. I don’t think greed is a national characteristic of Americans as much as a mentality of a right to pursue any dream to include wealth. Most Americans are of good intention.

No, because it isn’t profitable. What Europeans never seem to understand about this country is that in other parts of the world, doctors go into medicine to begin with because it’s a calling; here, however, doctors go into medicine because it’s lucrative.

This is where we differ most. The vast majority do so for the same reason Europeans, Asians, and Eskimos go into medicine. It used to be lucrative in America. Now the government is involved trying to be like the Europeans.

If we cut off every penny of foreign aid to everyone else in the world and stopped shipping our own industries overseas, we’d have a wonderfully vibrant economy and more than enough tax revenue to take care of ourselves. As it is, however, we’re depriving our own citizens of the means to support themselves, and then demanding more tax revenue from them to support everyone else with foreign aid and American military protection. It’s a recipe for national suicide.

This is where we agree most.

Yes; that’s another misguided application of the Calvinist work ethic, and it’s also outmoded by about 30 years. In the 1970’s, true, many people took advantage of the welfare system and didn’t bother to look for work that was available; now, however, because of “globalization” and “free trade”, there are no jobs for people to look for that will support them (those jobs all went to Mexico and Communist China, remember), and when they seek relief, they’re still hit with the obsolete accusation of “You’re just too lazy to look for work”.

The semi-recent multi-national business attitude explains a part of the willingness of American companies moving to lower wage labor countries, and so do unrestricted borders and the 20+ million non-citizens which makes competition unfair to the American worker. I don’t understand why we would let our manufacturing base disolve to nothing in a national security sense. Consumer costs have not lowered for either as was the promise.

Greed—the bottom line; and the fact that we have a pack of idiot liberals in charge of everything from Congress to ice cream stands with an agenda to downsize this country into oblivion, which they learned from their pinko college professors who came of age in the 1960’s and had all their brain cells permanently damaged by taking too much LSD.

Don’t leave out the idiot neo-cons. They spend more than they promise and are really bad with the military. They are not to be trusted.

This Catholic American isn’t happy about it, let me assure you.

I live in …----that’s it. There is no money left over for food, medical attention, prescriptions, or anything else.

If the government didn’t take about 30% from me for my own good I’d offer to help. If they didn’t take whatever they take from you, you might not need help. They give it to Pakistan, Arabia and Egypyt for your safety from Muslim extremists. We pay off warlords in Afghanistan not to grow a plant you could use as a drug. We pay Sunni Iraqi’s not to fight us in Bagdad. We pay Shiite not to fight the Sunni. We fight just about everyone at one time or another. You should be thankfull your tax money is going to a good cause.

Needless to say, our magnificent liberal Democratic governor, Jennifer Granholm, is not high on my list. She is the third-highest paid governor in America (after California and New York), and all she has done is preside over a solid exodus of jobs and people from the State. That woman is the single largest economic disaster to hit this State since the Great Depression.

Good rant. Good luck.

 

[Jesus_N_Cherie]

The USA has the greatest potential on earth. That said, here goes.

I am from Southeast Louisiana. I live 24 miles away from New Orleans. The federal government, once it got over its red tape to be able to help us, granted us billions of dollars.

What happened to the money from the federal government? It went to a company hired by the then governor of Louisiana to an international company called ICF. Well, the only real thing that we can credit them for doing is giving themselves millions of dollars (with permission from our former governor) in bonuses. They hired totally uneducated people…sometimes even hiring garbage collectors (no offense to the garbage collectors—without whom we could never get along—) to inspect property and evaluate in numbers what the properties that had been flooded had been worth, and what they were worth now. They decided what the houses had been made of prior to the flood, and what was needed to put the properties back to its prior condition.

My grandmother’s house was made of bricks. They reported to ICF that it had been made of stucco. We appealed their findings, and brought proof from pictures and insurance. It was agreed that the house had been made of bricks…but it would not be changed on the form. That greatly devalued her property. Nothing to be done. They said her house was about 500 square feet less than it was.

Was it the fault of the person who inspected the property? No. He was given clear orders on what to put in his report.
Why? So that they could give my grandmother a whole lot more money than should have been allotted to her by the money granted by the federal government.

I am not crying about it. We didn’t expect them to pay for everything. That would not have been feasable. But while they were lying about these people’s properties, and making them wait years…yes, there are VERY MANY people who have yet to recieve the promised check…they are keeping MILLIONS upon MILLIONS for themselves.

The saddest part about this is that they are making the people hold on to property that they have mortgages on, waiting for the promised pay off, so that they can go on with their lives. And they are not allowed to leave the New Orleans area to make a new start somewhere else, or they forfit all payment. Rent is phenominally high, and these people have to pay both rent and mortgage. All because the state hasn’t gotten around to dealing with them. I guess not, they are too busy spending our money on themselves.

Most people who have been dealt with by ICF have sold their property to the state, and have been lucky to walk away not owing back mortgage. Usually, the property value isn’t even considered if you ask me. The people are only able to sign papers and the money is supposedly sent to the bank to pay off the mortgages.

And then there is our dear mayor of New Orleans. He spends very little of the workweek at work. He is too busy to fix the problems that he is supposed to be working on for the good of our city. He is too busy traveling and making stupid comments like “we are gonna be a chocolate city” meaning the only people who will be welcomed are people of African descent. He is doing nothing to bring in business, or to clean up the thousands upon thousands of blighted, uninhabitable properties that the city has bought. We have houses from three years ago that have never even been gutted to get out the mildewed carpet and walls that were water logged. He is happy that the crime rate is so high, according to his own words, because it keeps the city in the nations spotlight. All he wants to accomplish is getting more billions of dollars from the federal government. He is doing nothing for the city to help us rebuild our homes, businesses and lives.

Fema is lately leaving the FEMA trailers that are now illegal, and instead taking away the utility poles that belong to the owner of properties…even when they have posters on them telling them not to remove them…as they are owned by the property owners. So the Federal Government that is actually doing something is wasting millions of dollars doing the exact wrong thing.

People who depend on the government to support them are realizing that the government is totally illogical, illiterate and uncooperative in helping where help is needed.
The only ones who have come back are those who have told the government essentially to go fly a kite (at least it would provide something pretty flying in the wind), and have done everything for themselves.

The only charity we have RECIEVED is from the thousands who have come personally and helped us to recover by the sweat of their brow. They come with materials. They come with tools. They come with food. They come with water. They come with manpower. And they have been the one true blessing shown to the residents of this city. They come without prejudice.

Millions of people donated to charities to help our citizens. The money went to organizations…but little of it got to the people it was meant for. You may as well have been sending it to Burma…for the government to keep for itself…or to other third world countries where it never reaches the people who you donate it for. Just like the millions of dollars that were donated for New York City residents after 9/11. Most of them never recieved a cent from any organization who had recieved the money. So, where did it go?

The problem with our country is not the people. It is the buraucracy.

I read a reliable statistic that conservative Christians outgive liberal democrats by millions every year in charity alone. Those are people…not companies. They are people who are for cutting taxes, but are giving money to the organizations which hold their values. Taxes aren’t seeming to help.

Anyway, that’s my viewpoint from living near and talking with many hurricane Katrina victims. the storm didn’t do half as much personal harm to them as the government did.

 

[KingAlfred]

“One thing that has always seemed strange to me is how dog-eat-dog life seems to be in the US, compared to the rest of the developed world.”

Freedom. It’s all about freedom. If you’re not free, you’re vulnerable. Who is in charge of you, besides God? What if that *human authority *decides it doesn’t want you to believe in God? How will you combat it, since you’ve already given it the authority to *run your life? *

As an American, I am free. Nobody but God runs my life. Nobody.