December 4, 2008 at 10:26 pm

Rusty Stickler -

Should you bother to read this, I wonder if when you speak to people about One.org and it’s mission, that you balance that with how the world is working today. Unfortunately, everything revolves around money. There is a financial “vacuum” in the world today. It’s eating up available funds at an alarming rate. As a country, we have no more money to give.

There is a point of relief though. The government will get more money when it raises taxes. Your taxes. My taxes. Everybodies taxes. Don’t forget to mentinon that to the people that you speak too.

December 5, 2008 at 5:26 am

hey this is really good to know , i was just searching some thing thing like this where i can debate on

December 5, 2008 at 2:53 pm

Just wanted to say great job Dallas!

December 5, 2008 at 5:44 pm

So, Steve B.,
You have made your choice. You agree to let them starve. I’m not a rich man. I live on a waiter’s wages. I barely make ends meet. I have no health care, and very little savings……most of which goes to pay my income taxes every year. I live as frugally as possible. I still make donations to ONE. I still make donations to The Global Fund. I still volunteer my time. I don’t live in a fantasy world where I think our government will solve all the worlds problems. But I am committed to trying. As a waiter, I see people throwing food away. They order it and don’t eat it. That’s waste. I see waste everywhere. The cost of the food, like uneaten bread goes into the cost of their meal. Maybe the meal would be cheaper if they were to stop wasting. They go into the restroom and use five paper towels to dry their hands, when one would do. We are a country of “haves”. We spend money on things we don’t really need. People are dropping dead in Africa from treatable, curable diseases, when the pennies we save in a jar could feed them and get them the vaccines they need. Maybe this new economic situation will teach people to conserve. Maybe they will understand what it’s like to do without. I appreciate your input, but I wonder if everyone felt they way you do, would we ever have any hope. I’m an optimist.

December 6, 2008 at 4:13 am

Thanks for the reply Rusty. All input is welcome. And your right, I have made my choice. They are going to have to starve for a bit. I don’t like it. But that’s the way that it’s going to be. Callous? I’ll leave that up for others to decide. I view it as realistic. Parallel One.org’s fight against poverty and disease with war. It should work pretty well, and like it or not, I’m sure you’ll see the similarities.

One.org’s tool for feeding people and combating disease is money. Sadly, no matter how much you or anyone else donates, people will die from hunger and disease. Same with war. It doesn’t matter how much money you invest, people die. True, more money spent in the right places helps negate the cost of something as precious as human life, which despite what I’m sure many here would believe, I hold quite dear.

Let’s talk for a second about one of the reasons that I refuse to support One.org and our government spending more tax dollars curing disease, feeding people, and building an infastructure for a forgeign government. That reason is fiscal responsibility. As you are no doubt aware, our government can’t spend our tax dollars properly here in the USA. They’ve got so many pork barrel projects (among other things) going on that we can’t find it in the budget to decently feed and train people to pick themselves up out of their respective mires. Health care? Forget about that too for a while. There is no money. All the while, One.org pushes for legislation that will increase the amount of money that we are pumping out in foreign aid. This too, is money that we don’t have. What we are creating, and One.org is ultimately helping to add to, is debt. As a country, we are in very serious trouble right now. Money trouble. With One.org’s willingness to continue to push for money to donate that we don’t have, they have proven themselves to be fiscally irresponsible to America’s well being, American jobs, and Americans in general.

I have to run. The wife has dinner ready. I’ve got a whole lot more to add to this, so I want to leave you with something to think about.

Think about where our government is going to get it’s money for it’s increased spending. They can’t control current spending. One.org wants to elevate spending. Rusty, it’s gonna come from your pocket. More of your limited income gone in taxes. Figure in the thousandth of a decimal point of your increased taxes that will go into foreign aid, then compare that with your new tax rate.
How much money will you then have to donate to One.org or other charitable causes?

Economics 101. The more you have, the more you can give and continue to give. The converse is also true.

Think about that for a minute. It’s food for thought. Please don’t waste it.

One.org is going about this all wrong.

December 7, 2008 at 10:02 am

Way to go, Rusty!! I truly believe that it is possible for the efforts of ONE man to make a difference. History shows us the the social and political direction of entire nations can be influenced by the seed planted by one person. Obvioulsly, one person can make a difference in the long term with others joining in and participating in a shift in attitudes. How long would the civil rights struggle have taken to get jump started if Rosa Parks had not decided to resist the status quo that day on the bus? She was a small, frail lady with no power in this country. The actions of that one little woman provided a spark. My point is to remind anyone reading this that the easy way out of social responsibility is to ignore it or say that we can’t afford it. Funny how we can spend a trillion dollars on an unnecessary war but we can’t afford to fix education and ease poverty and hunger. It is all about choices. Steve B. relies on an economics 101 argument and states that ONE.org is going about it’s effort the wrong way. What is the right way? Do we simply wait for others to take action and show their support? Do we wait until the starvation victims die and let the problem go away? I didn’t see an offer of a solution, just another armchair quarterback who is obviously smarter than all of us.

I don’t see that attitude or approach providing one iota of hope or contribution. You keep it up and I think you could get Dallas to stand behind this project. When I get moved over there, I will be there helping you get the word out. I won’t waste my time arguing with or trying to reason with anyone unable to envision the possiblity of change when my years on this Earth have shown me that change is possible.

The only change that cannot happen is change that does not have action behind it.

December 9, 2008 at 7:29 am

Nope, you won’t “waste your time arguing with or trying to reason with anyone unable to envision the possibliity of change when my years on the Earth have….” yadda, yadda, yadda.

You won’t “waste” your time on me huh? You will however stand there and toss barbed comments and run. I imagine that that makes you feel superior. What ever man, what ever. If you feel the need to feel superior, then by all means, feel superior. I don’t have a fragile ego to prop up, nor do I feel the need to be better than you, so I can come in here, admit that I can be wrong, and look for a solution to problems while admitting to all manner of man both here as well as abroad, and to Almighty God that I don’t have the solution(s) or the best ideas. I do however know about the money. Money is one thing that I’m really, really good with. If you don’t want to take a stab at learning about it, sit back and let those who understand it a bit better have a go at it. What you’ll contribute by your silence will do wonders for the people around the world. Trust me in this.

Tell you what. You want to have some fun with me here? What’s the budget for net year? How much money will we have as a country? How much do we owe? How much money does One.org want and how much more in the future? Now tell me, if we froze spending at our current rate(not going to happen…), how long would it take us to pay it off? When you figure that out, take the same debt to earning ration and apply that to your life. Your personal life. Find out how long it would take you to pay all that debt off. Factor down what One.org would like to see the U.S give in forgein aid. This will be a new debt to you. You’ll pay it for years to come.

I have 3 quesitons for you.

1) Where are you going to get the extra money for your ever increasing debt?

2) After taking a look at that type of debt scaled down from a governments budget to your personal life, are you still willing to spend your own money to the excess, scaled to fit your personal life budget, that One.org would like to see applied to our government?

3) Why on earth would you support an ideology that helps destroy the single most giving economy in the world?

Thanks for playing.