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From: J.JPM@EPIC (Jim McGrath)
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Space Fund
Message-ID: <12185275259.7.J.JPM@EPIC>
Date: Fri, 21-Feb-86 22:16:09 EST
Article-I.D.: EPIC.12185275259.7.J.JPM
Posted: Fri Feb 21 22:16:09 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 24-Feb-86 20:06:19 EST
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: mcgrath%mit-oz@mit-mc.arpa
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    From: decvax!genrad!panda!talcott!harvard!seismo!mcvax!vmucnam!imag!
          lifia!felix@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (Francois Felix INGRAND)
    First my question was serious, I do not know very well the
    american Social System but I feel very sorry too, to think that
    you have to make a fund to help these childrens.

As has been pointed out, in America the culture encourages individuals
helping other individuals in as direct a manner as possible.  I fail
utterly to see how anyone could possibly consider "help" from an
unfeeling government, which gets its "public" funds via coercive
taxation (re: robbery) to somehow be "better" (I assume morally) that
individuals freely giving of their own wealth in as direct a manner as
they can.

    Second, these childrens, which suffered a great loss indeed, and
    you could be sure that I have sympathy for them, looks for me like
    the childrens or people which loose parents or friends in such a
    catastrophe. The tomorrow of the shuttle catastrophe, there were a
    Airplane Crash in South America: 27 deads...  Be sure that I have
    a lot of sympathy for them too. But Medias seem to have forgotten
    them... And American Fund too.

I am positive that for any random public accident you can name
involving Americans there is, somewhere, a memorial fund of some sort
for them.  That all funds are not treated equally (in terms of monies
received) is a necessary consequence of free choice, since some
individuals and their plights simply happen to appeal more to folks
than others.  You may decry this as somehow "irrational."  I accept
it as human.

    Third, Do you really think that it is money that these childrens
    need?  Do you really think that sympathy can only be Dollars.
    Excuse me but I feel sorry for you, to see that the only think
    that you can do for them is to make a Fund.... But here, is it the
    best solution?

What other solution do you suggest?  That all 10 million or so of us
go to their homes?  Or even give them a phone call?  I agree with
Chris Redmond that giving money is the only practical thing to do.
Also, I detect in your message some sort of irrational dislike of
money (philosophically popular in some quarters).  Money is a means of
exchange, a storage of wealth.  There is nothing "evil" in money.


Jim
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