Friday, January 18, 2008

U.S. Big Government Hurts Africans   [David Freddoso]

Do you remember the story of the Good Samaritan? A man is beaten and left for dead at the side of the road. A priest and a Levite each walk by, but will not help him. But then a Samaritan shows up. He takes the dying man and shows him how to apply for Medicaid, then gets him set up for disability and food stamps. Then they live happily ever after.

Oh, you mean that's not how it goes?

Anyway, Micheal Gerson's piece today is an awful combination of hyperbole and fallacy with a news hook on top in the form of the accusation that Fred Thompson lacks "moral seriousness." Why? Because he says things like this:

At a campaign stop attended by a CBS reporter in Lady's Island, S.C., Thompson was asked if he, "as a Christian, as a conservative," supported President Bush's global AIDS initiative. "Christ didn't tell us to go to the government and pass a bill to get some of these social problems dealt with. He told us to do it," Thompson responded. "The government has its role, but we need to keep firmly in mind the role of the government, and the role of us as individuals and as Christians on the other."

Gerson objects to this, and takes Fred to task for his statements about taking care of problems in our backyard.

...His objection, it seems, is not to government spending on public health but to spending on foreigners. But this is badly shortsighted. America is engaged in a high-stakes ideological struggle in Africa, where radicals and terrorists seek to fill the vacuum of failed and hopeless societies. Fighting disease and promoting development are important foreign policy tools in this struggle, which Thompson apparently does not appreciate or even understand.

If I may respond with an equally hyperbolic moral argument: I can understand why Gerson advocates foreign aid programs that fool Africans into liking America, because the U.S. government (and the EU) is actively harming them. U.S. agricultural subsidies have for decades forced a glut of food into the world market, undercutting the prices at which African farmers can sell. U.S. tariffs cut off African farmers from a key market where they could otherwise sell their wares.

I have now identified an African problem that is bigger than AIDS funding and can be solved without spending a dime. Imagine if Africans were twice as wealthy and more African countries had the resources to diagnose and treat their own HIV patients? The resources to care for AIDS orphans? That would be much more effective than a mere annual sop in the form of American funds. The current program has reached fewer than two million people — a healthy African economy would mean resources to reach many millions more.

And so I want to know whether Gerson will do his moral duty and join me in voting for Ron Paul in this election. We have a moral imperative to abolish the Department of Agriculture immediately and eliminate barriers to free international trade in food. Paul is the only candidate with this proposal. And in Gerson's words, "it is difficult to imagine what collection of shriveled souls would be excited" ...about keeping an entire continent's farm economy dysfunctional.

Next week, Gerson can write a column explaining why the candidates who spent December kowtowing to Iowan farmers "lack moral seriousness." Damn Africa-starvers.

01/18 12:13 PMShare