It's not clear to me if EricC is accidentally or purposefully distorting the
message. In order for us to accuse the participants in Patriotic Millionaires
(PM) of *not* supporting any given cause, we'd need to look at their individual
philanthropy. Looking at the stances, lobbying, and messaging of PM is
inadequate.
E.g. If we took a look at an issue PM says is Good, a "value", and we examine
the donations of all the PM participants and found that either a) they don't donate any
of their money at all or b) they donate to everything except the values of the PM, *then*
EricC's rhetoric would have some traction.
Otherwise, what an org advocates is not, cannot ever be, identical to what its
members advocate.
I've done none of that work of comparing PM's advocacy/lobbying and its
participants' actions. Perhaps others have?
On 3/7/22 09:51, Eric Charles wrote:
Pick a cause if you want, or just send your money to the government if the
point is that you think the government should have it. ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯
<[email protected]>
A Javelin missile costs $175,203 according to Wikipedia. 4 years of college
education is cheaper than that at most institutions. *Any *millionaire
could just cover one of those, if they thought that was the best use of
their money. *Any *millionaire could cover 4 of them, and still have a
significantly higher net worth than the median American under 40. We need
to stop pretending otherwise. If someone has several million, they could
cover a whole lot more and still be doing just fine.
"Look, man, I think helping kids go to college is a morally crucial
activity and that those who have an obligation to support it should do
so... But I won't help with that unless I know a legislature is forcing
lots of other people to help kids go to college!" Well.... ok.... but
that's a pretty shitty position to take.
Maybe you think it's so important that you want to help yourself, and you *also
*you think others should be forced to help. Sure. I don't like that
position, but it is sensible, and you can morally ground it in all sorts of
ways. But no level of moral importance should exist as a category where you
won't help unless everyone else is forced to as well. Yes, people take that
position all the time. But it is a morally shitty position, and we should
treat it that way.
Phrased differently: Having the government pick up the slack when
individual action is insufficient can often make sense. Claiming that only
government action should happen, and then acting as if that claim somehow
relieves individuals from any obligation to live up to their purported
moral values, is crap.
If you think it is important to support local kids getting a college
education, then step up. You are in absolutely no sense "a bum" or "a
sucker" if you help someone afford a college education and your neighbor
doesn't. That's not how moral action works. Not at all. The correct
response to someone trying to act that way is to try to force them to admit
the obvious truth, which is that they have chosen not to support whatever
the cause is that is in question.
Again, if they *are *supporting the cause, and adding on top of their
individual support a statement that they also think others should do more,
that's a much more defendable position. Statements like "I think the arts
should be supported, which is why I donated $XX,XXX to The Kennedy Center,
while lobbying my federal congressperson for more tax support" is perfectly
reasonable, as is "I think we need to better support local kids going to
college, which is why I provided 5 $X,XXX local-kid scholarships this local
high school graduates, while also talking with my state congressperson
about upping state funding to state schools."
Do a survey of the "Patriotic Millionaires" and ask them how much more they
paid in taxes than what they owed. My guess is that you would find $0 as
the across the board answer. If it's not $0 across the board, certainly the
median will be $0.
On Mon, Mar 7, 2022 at 9:47 AM Marcus Daniels <[email protected]> wrote:
Let’s say it is not a box of cookies but a four year college scholarship
or a Javelin missile launcher. The millionaire might be able to pay those
individually, but no one else. In that situation there is no sales for the
individual girl scouts to perform. At best a few heroic medium-sized
donations.
Some purchases will be out of reach without spreading the cost around,
even over thousands of millionaires.
On Mar 7, 2022, at 6:04 AM, Eric Charles <[email protected]>
wrote:
Marcus,
Let's say you have a neighbor who's always talking about wanting to
support the girl scouts, and who even goes so far as to set up a web page
about how important it is to support the girl scouts, and pays to have
signs printed and distributed around town about how important it is to
support girl scouts. You have a cousin in the girl scouts, so you send her
over with the girl-scout cookie order form. The neighbor takes a look at
the forms and tells your cousin "While I *do *think I should support girl
scouts, I am not going to give you any money unless everyone else in the
neighboorhood is forced to give you money too. Don't ask me to be a chump."
What would we make of that?
<[email protected]>
On Sun, Mar 6, 2022 at 11:13 PM Marcus Daniels <[email protected]>
wrote:
Facebook had advertisements on TV for a few months talking about their
efforts to review content for fake news. They advocated government
regulation. Commonality being that a taxation or regulation impacts them
and their competitors in the same way, so their effective power and
influence won’t be negatively impacted. “Don’t ask me to be a chump.”
On Mar 6, 2022, at 8:02 PM, Eric Charles <[email protected]>
wrote:
Frank,
That all seems 100% positive to me.
Do you also routinely publicly complain about how legislatures are lax in
not forcing you to do more of that sort of thing, because you strongly
think that you should do more, but are unwilling to without the government
forcing you to?
THAT is what the Patriotic Millionaires are doing.
<[email protected]>
On Sun, Mar 6, 2022 at 9:43 PM Frank Wimberly <[email protected]>
wrote:
I probably shouldn't volunteer to be a case in your argument but...
I do make donations to universities and a church. Today my wife and
grandson Matthew assembled packages of hygiene products for Ukrainian
refugees which included things like towels, toothpaste, toothbrushes, soap,
shampoo etc. This was done at United Church of Santa Fe. As for financial
contributions we spend $20k per year for tuition at Matthew's school which
is a Montessori school for kids with executive function problems. There
are a number of scholarship students whose families wouldn't be able to
send their kids there without help.
The church group put together 137 packages this morning. We donated
funds for the purchase of some of the stuff.
Melinda Gates said that if you're a billionaire you can donate half of
your assets without any impact on your lifestyle. But that's a different
question.
Frank
---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505
505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM
On Sun, Mar 6, 2022, 7:24 PM Eric Charles <
[email protected]> wrote:
While some of the goals of groups like "Patriotic Millionaires" are
admirable, I can never get past the blatant hypocrisy of it all. Maybe
"hypocrisy" isn't exactly the right term. You could also see the part
that bugs me as a bizarre worship of the benefits of authority over
individual choice. Let me rephrase their primary claim: "I, as a rich
person, recognize that I really *should *give more of my money to
certain causes, but I adamantly refuse to do so unless forced to do so by
the federal legislature."
What is anyone really to make of that position? Is it any different
than trying to look virtuous by saying that you know you should stop using
child labor in your mine, while also publicly refusing to stop unless the
government makes you?
On Thu, Mar 3, 2022 at 3:08 PM glen <[email protected]> wrote:
Obviously, I'm either procrastinating or unclear on how best to do
actual work today because here is yet another thing I meant to talk about
with someone, anyone, awhile back:
https://patrioticmillionaires.org/about/
A salon participant recently asked whether "greed" was our most
nefarious trait as a species. It's a great question for sparking
discussion. My answer was that the most nefarious trait of *all* species is
myopia, the inability to reason over externalities, from pond scum to the
Trust <https://raised-by-wolves.fandom.com/wiki/Trust>. But to
de-emphasize what people think of as "greed", I said "Trying to ensure you
have enough money to live out your life in relative comfort is not greed.
Greed is, after acquiring billions of dollars, you feel the need to acquire
more billions of dollars."
I found Patriotic Millionaires prior to that conversation. And it
seems legit ... a set of outwardly greedy people who recognize limits to
their greed ... a recognition that there's a spectrum of merit, some luck,
some effort, some systemic infrastructure, etc. Overall, [m|b]illionaire
philanthropy (and especially effective altruism) seem like jokes to me,
very postmodern jokes. "Here, let me given you a billion dollars without
fundamentally rewriting your genetic code." Pffft. Give anyone enough money
and you'll corrupt them fundamentally, often against their will.
Philanthropists know this. Effective Altruism is an oxymoron. You can't
both be coercive and altruistic at the same time. >8^D
Anyway, I'd welcome any opinion on Patriotic Millionaires.
--
glen
When elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.
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