X-Message-Number: 26456 Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2005 09:51:33 -0400 From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: reply to David Stodolsky To David Stodolsky: I shall try to be brief here because it's close to when I go to bed here in Australia. I distrust any organization which has any kind of monopolism in what it does. This includes governments. If one or more competing organizations provides help to the poor (or anything else, for that matter) then they won't turn bad all at once, and if one does, then it will soon cease to have customers and disappear. Dealing with poverty should not be the role of ANY government. I don't mean that we should not deal with poverty at all, but we're not a government. The best a goverment might do here is to give tax and legal advantages to organizations which do help the poor, or individual persons who do the same. I will finally point out that my attitude applies to businesses too: I point out corporations such as Microsoft, which tries to use its (close to but fortunately not there yet) monopoly power to force computer makers to use its operating system and software rather than any other. Monopolies are unsafe and ultimately bad, whether they are businesses or governments. Best wishes and long long life, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=26456