Can we please have a QUANTITATIVE definition of “almost all.”

It is telling that this response is so completely foreign to our sensibilities that no one even raises it as a possibility.

There is a failure of logic in the above. Both the Gates Foundation and Planned Parenthood fund abortion. Neither does so with federal tax dollars.

There is a huge contest going on between politicians and rich people over who should get to spend their money. Most of us have no direct stake in the outcome–as neither politicians nor rich people, we will not have the choice.

In a dicatorship, yes. In a representative democracy, we do have a choice.

But I think we really ought to be rooting for the rich people.

I don’t

Government is one of the worst charities in the world. It advertises that it is going to give money to worthy causes, but very little money goes to programs that are aimed at people in need, and not many of those programs hit their targets.

I would disagree. Private givers have the right to give to who they wish. And while their favorite charities do have social value — the Opera, the Symphony, Ivy League Schools, their own houses of worship — I don’t think the lopsided giving to these charities is of the level of social interest and need as many others. Public initiatives include the eradication of Polio, the Marshall Plan, the school lunch program, LIHEAP, social insurance, Section 202 Housing, Food Stamps and ‘Meals on Wheels.’

I’m not suggesting that private charity is not important and valuable. I support our American dual system of both public and private initiative (as well as public funding of private community based organizations). I just wouldn’t put all my faith in the charity of the rich.

I think JC is pointing to Gates monetary support for abortion. On the other hand, I think there is more than abortion involved in the abuse found in Gates’ “philanthropy,” for, as Zizek points out, he has this money because of his ruthlessness, and he is charitable only as a means by which he can sustain the system in which he is able to get out on top.

What?

What’s wrong with this commonsensical vision, which is “centrist” in today’s politcal terms? What’s wrong with some form of “social democracy” that good will and good management cannot correct? It seems to me the best we can shoot for in this vale of tears. Now there’s a rallying cry!

We Christians don’t give to the poor so that poverty should be finally eliminated–Our great Teacher has told us that this is impossible; we give to the poor so that WE (and the world around us) might be refashioned in His image. And anybody who uses the ideology of neo-liberal, “Free Market,” post-Enlightenment capitalism to argue the heretical notion of the “primacy of the individual” in economic decision-making is actually speaking the language of the Devil.

And Gates is a great example of why “trickle down” doesn’t work, though I just thought of it.

Gates has not spent billions on helping the poor in foreign countries. He has spent billions on *killing* the poor in foreign countries, as has Warren Buffett, his mentor.

Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s a fine thing when a rich man gives money to charity.

But I also think of what Jesus said about the old woman who gave her two sheckles at the temple after all of the rich men had left larger gifts. In his view, the old woman gave more, because it was all she had.

So, if someone with a billion dollars gives away a million, in a certain sense but not an absolute sense, it’s the same as if a man with a hundred dollars gives up one dollar, or man with one dollar, one penny.

This can’t be the answer. Catholic social teaching implores us to pursue all charitable avenues, of course – some state assistance is necessary, and donating money to ‘charities’ is also a good thing. But neither of these are sufficient. The main thrust is to approach individuals in need not as mere objects of assistance from public or private charity, but as dignified human beings who can and should be enabled to support themselves.

This is why I advocate distributist and communitarian principles and solutions, and why the Church has always supported them as well. Both welfare and private charity often just ‘give a man a fish’. But it isn’t enough to ‘teach a man to fish’ either, if he has no fishing rod.

Catholic social teaching says, give a man a fish, then teach him to fish, then give him a rod so he can fish. You do it all.