If you are a regular reader of RFL you’d know that this site hosts articles from a bunch of writers, each having their own understanding of what a free society could look like. Its impossible to predict how exactly things will take place in such a society, all that can be done is to use the science of human action and envision how would such a society might look like.
Last article published at RFL was an attempt by the author Sudha Amit to answer the questions asked by various people about the rapist and the rape victim in a free society. I agreed with the article overall but I would like to elaborate some of the points.
If you haven’t read that article, you can still read this one, but I recommend reading that article too.
The question generally asked is if in a free society a criminal is let free for a certain amount of money, then wouldn’t that mean rich people will keep on committing all crimes and walk free?
Proportionality of Crime
Before we proceed I must explain a very important concept of Libertarian justice system and that is “proportionality of crime and punishment”, that is any punishment must be proportional to the crime committed. It could happen that the victim wants to punish the criminal less than the proportional punishment, and that is perfectly acceptable, but if a victim punishes the criminal more than the crime committed, then the victim has now become the aggressor, and now the criminal has become the victim.
Take for example if Alice slaps Bob, and Bob breaks Alice’s leg as a punishment, then Alice has become a victim of Bob’s aggression. Similaly if someone trespasses on your property and you shoot them then you have initiated aggression against them.
Restitution Business
Another important aspect of Libertarian justice theory is that a victim first must be restituted for the harm done to him by the aggressor, and then the aggressor loses the same amount of rights as the amount of rights of the victim he violated. For example if I steal $10,000 from you, then first you need to get those $10,000 back, then I lose rights over my $10,000, so you will get $20,000 back. It is to be noted that you do not get double the money back, you just get your own $10,000 and then another $10,000 as a punishment for me.
Similarly if you poke my eye, and blind me by one eye, then you first need to pay me enough money to provide me with restitution, then you lose the right of your eye, and I will have a right to poke it out.
Rape Scenario
In the case of a rape victim and him/her rapist, first the rapist must provide restitution to the rape victim. That is to make the rape victim whole. Then the rapist loses his rights in the same manner he violated the rights of the rape victim, that is rape victim now has a right to either rape the rapist, or have him sexually violated in the same manner through someone else. The rape victim can fortfeit his right to a restitution and chance to violate the similar rigths of the rapist, but he can never force a bigger punishment than the crime done by the rapist.
By this principle if a rich man rapes a woman, the woman has a right to have the rich man pay her a restitution(the amount of will be determined by the courts), and get him raped(chances are she will pay someone to rape him). Nobody can force the woman to accept money in lieu of punishment of the rich man. If this rich man keeps on raping women, he will keep on losing his rights the same way. If a rich man kills someone then it (could be) gameover for him. If I were a rich man I wouldn’t rely on raping or killing people first and then silencing them with money.
Its possible that the rapist makes the victim an offer that she forfeits the punishment by rape of the rich man. But this offer could be a really large sum of money as there is no upper limit to it. If she demands all the money of the rapist in return of not getting him raped, and rapist really does not wanna be raped then he will have to give her all his money.
No rapist, no matter how rich can live life normally in a free society.
Prostitution and ‘Rape-restitution’
This is the most ridiculous idea that someone would suggest that there is a similarity between money exchanged for prostitution and money given as restitution of a rape victim. Its like someone is confusing stealing groceries with purchasing groceries. Prostituion involves voluntary exchange of sex and money. Rape and its subsequent restitution is not even an exchange. The money is being given as an attempt to restore the damage done to the victim, not for rendering services. Even if you rape a prostitute that is still a rape, and not an act of prostitution.
Conclusion
There are many misconceptions about how a free society will operate without the coercive apparatus of state, before any attempt is made to answer how this will happen one thing must be kept in mind by libertarians and voluntarists. If people really want some service and there is no initiation of aggression involved then the free society will have that service or facility. Once you establish that assumption, you acquire a firm ground from which other people cannot displace you by putting words in your mouth.
I would conclude by quoting a recent conversation I had with a friend who had doubts about a free society. After I explained him about the concept of private proeprty and a society of pure liberty he said: “What if your neighbor is beating his wife, then though its none of my business in your society but I wouldn’t wanna live in such a society?”, my reply was simply “What makes you think I would wanna live in such a society?”, after his shocked withered away I claimed, “Trust me in a free society I wouldn’t live in a neighborhood where people are beating their wives”.
Hello Friends, I have shifted my writing portal from here to http://rationallibertariancorner.com/ you may check for my New articles at my website.
While discussing about the legal system of a free society, we often mention private legal firms and jurisdiction to take care of petty criminal incidences along with hard core crimes that may occur in such a free society where there is no government or aggressive authority to suppress Individual Freedom.
However, I have found that most of the supporters of democratic governmental systems oppose the idea claiming that such a free system will destruct itself and individuals will actually lose any available freedom in absence of state ruled jurisdiction and policing system. Often they mention hypothetical examples of sexual offenses and oppose the idea that a sexual offender can actually remain free in a free society if he makes an agreement with the victim and pay the agreed amount of money as fine to the victim and corresponding private security firm/s to which the victim and culprit have registered.
They feel that it is an obnoxious idea because if such monetary penalties are allowed for sexual cries, then no rapist will ever attain any serious punishment as they will victimize poor girls and boys for their criminal lust. The poor victim, being poor, will opt to compromise for a handsome amount of money and will not demand any physical punishment or jail term for the culprit. Such opposition occurs because of the common biasness against sex workers. People often feel that prostitution or selling sex for money is bad or immoral and hence they feel it should be avoided. Now if in a free society, the rapist is allowed to remain free of punishment for meager monetary payments, then it would be a direct support to prostitution. If the rape victim accepts money for being raped, then it is no rape, it is simple prostitution.
It is hard to convince people about the moral soundness of prostitution. They won’t believe that sex is an art and sexual acts are art form. When a woman performs sex to fulfill requirements of a man or when a man perform sex to fulfill requirements of a woman, then they actually perform work and for that work, they are entitled to ask for payments.
However, there certainly is a difference between a rape case and a case of prostitution. A prostitute initially agrees for serving or entertaining man or men with her sexual art. Oh well, it is not necessary that every prostitute should be highly skilled in sexual art. Yet, she demands money for whatever sexual satisfaction she provides to her clients. On the other hand, a rapist is not a prostitute, she was never ready to be used for sexual pleasure by her rapist and at least she was not ready for that when she was being raped.
Since the rape victim is not a prostitute and she was not ready for being sexually used initially, she has a right to demand for a jail term or physical punishment for the rapist. What if the rapist doesn’t agree to accept physical punishment or jail term and insist for monetary fine? He may succeed in making a compromise with girl. If the girl accepts monetary fine, then she cannot say that she was being raped. If she accepts monetary payment/fine for being raped, she is no different than a prostitute. I guess any woman will accept monetary fine for being raped rather than forcing physical payment or jail term for her rapist.
Impostors of fake morality may oppose my guess, but the real life supports my idea of accepting monetary fine or punishment for rape victims and allowing rapists to remain free. Recently, the Supreme Court of India allowed three rapists to enjoy freedom and removed all charges against them after they won an agreement with the rape victim who asked for monetary fine from culprits in place of prolonged jail term for them.
The rapists were initially awarded with a jail term of 14 years. Justices Markandeya Katju and Gyan Sudha Mishra maintained the conviction of the three rapists and said that the sentence of 10 years stood reduced to three-and-a-half years, the period of imprisonment already undergone.
The court further directed the convicts, who had raped the victim in Ludhiana on March 5, 1997, to pay a fine of Rs 50,000 each. Now since the three rapists have already suffered three and a half years of jail term, they have been freed.1
I don’t think anyone will now criticize the poor rape victim who appealed in the court to reduce the jail term for her rapists and to allow her to take monetary fine from each of the rapists. Obviously, it was her right and she made good use of it.
- SC lets off rapists before time, SC Let off rapists before time [↩]
Recently I got a chance to see the movie ‘Dark Knight’, for the first time. There is a very interesting scene in it where Joker creates a situation where he plants bombs on two boats and gives the trigger to the people of the other boat, and tells them that if one of them isn’t destroyed soon, he will blow both the boats up. This was director’s attempt to create a “trolley” problem. This does not happen to me a lot, but once in a blue moon someone will decide to question my commitment to individualism by posing the following scenario:
Imagine if there is a speeding train rushing towards 10 people who are tied down to the track. Their death is certain if the train maintains its course. You can prevent that from happening if you flip the lever and divert the train to another track, where one person is tied down to the track. Assuming you cannot release the individuals, would you let 10 people die or kill one person to save 10 people.
I am sure you must have heard many variations of this scenario. The proper libertarian/individualist answer is simple, you cannot take away the rights(in this case that right would be his life) of any individual in order to save the rights of one or more individuals(assuming its your inaction which will take away the rights of those many individuals).
The goal of posing this scenario to a libertarian in most of the cases isn’t to ponder over a difficult but hypothetical scenario, but to present them with a ‘gotcha’ moment. Most people would not hesitate to take away rights of one individual over the rights of many people, and saying otherwise is not an easy reply.
My replies to few such scenarios are as follows.
For the above given scenario, the question one must ask is, how did this situation came about to. How did 10 people ended being tied up on the railway tracks, and how come another individual was tied to the alternate railway track when the train was destined to go towards the 10 people. This seems to be a very tailored scenario where every element is designed so that above question can be posed to the libertarians.
I am not saying its an impossible scenario, its physically possible to do something like that, but the chances of scenarios like these showing up in real life are very rare. But assuming this does happen, my answer is simple, if this hypothetical example happens exactly how its proposed to me, then yes, I will not kill that one individual for the sake of 10 people. In reality, if I ever do confront this scenario, I will flip the switch so that the train heads towards the single individual, and then try to make a dash towards that guy to save him(because it would be easier for me to untie one guy then ten people). Even though I would do such a thing, it does not mean I am sacrificing the life of one guy to save the lives of many, but that I still want to save the lives of everybody in the scenario, its just flipping the switch towards the single individual gives me a better chance at it. He may still die, and my attempt to untie him could be proven completely futile, yet I have not chosen to kill him, I have chosen to save everybody.
When I give this answer it frustrates people and they decide to present me with more realistic scenarios, take for example this scenario:
Imagine if a terrorist has planted nuclear bombs in American cities(like in the plot of movie ‘Unthinkable’), would you torture him to get out the location of the bombs, or kill him if the act of killing him saves the lives of the millions of people?
Its true that this is a much more feasible scenario than the train and tracks scenario, except its a very easy scenario to answer. If an individual really has put bombs in American cities and he threatens to explode it, then he is making a realistic threat of violence, and a realistic threat of violence is the same thing as the act of violence itself, therefore this individual, according to his own confession is guilty. If an attempt is made to prevent this attack by harming him, then its an act of self-defense, not an ethical dilemma.
This reply usually makes people feel they have been tricked, so they immediately present to me with the following scenario:
Imagine if there is a deadly virus on loose which has the capability of killing millions of people very quickly, in fact lets just say everybody will die if this virus is set lose. One innocent person is infected with this virus. There is no cure for this virus, in fact its so dangerous that even studying it represents massive amount of risk. Would you kill this person, or forget killing him, would you incarcerate this person so that he may not be able to infect other people?
Finally we have landed on a decent enough version of this question. The individual is not guilty, he is not voluntarily causing the death of millions of people. Keeping the arguments about feasibility of such a scenario in a free society aside, lets just assume this just happened. What would you do in such a scenario? Would you uphold his rights or save the lives of millions of people.
This scenario is not very feasible scenario to start with, if a person has been infected with some virus which may infect everybody else, most individuals will voluntarily submit themselves for any kind of measures which may be required to keep the rest of the population safe. Even if we assume there are no such individuals or this individual has no such conscience even then he can be restricted to a piece of property without violating his rights. Everybody on the planet rescinds consent to allow him on their property since every property is private property. Insurance companies can pay him a lot of money so that he stays on a quarantined villa with all sorts of facilities until the end of his life or until he is cured, this money paid to him would just be a cost towards preventive measures against disease.
The simple answer just like the first scenario given is pretty simple, no you cannot violate the rights of an individual over the rights of many people. There are simply no exceptions to that rule, and if this is the only scenario on which the argument of the anti-libertarian relies upon to demonstrate the abject failure of individualism then so be it. The fact is the sole reason why this argument is being posed to the proponent of Individualism because all his rest of the arguments have been satisfactorily answered. When a socialist promotes his ideology, the critique of his argument does not rely upon some hypothetical scenario where the private ownership of means of production is important, but because private ownership of means of production is required everywhere.
Venus project is another attempt made by people who look at a market economy from outside, and think they see numerous vestigial elements which they think are not needed anymore, or since they fail to see their utility, consider it restrictive, and then they conclude that they can do better by removing those vestigial elements from a market economy.
Karl Marx did the same, he saw the market being divided into owners and workers, so he came up with Socialism. He saw ownership of means of production has vestigial element. Keynes did the same, he saw Stock market crash and economy not recover so he came up with his ridiculous theories about Keynesianism. He saw Gold standard as vestigial element of the market. And so on Time after time people keep on coming up with theories to fix the market because they all see how Market works from outside, and are unable to figure out why many things exist in the market.
Venus project is the latest addition in this category. They see the monetary system as a vestigial or restrictive element of the market economy. They see how beautifully the market works, and how people provided each other with their labor, but they fail to see the role of money in it, so they propose removal of money from this system.
I have seen the movie ‘Zeitgeist:Addendum’, and I have hung out in Venus Project forums long enough to see what they are proposing.
Resource-Based Economy(RBE) proponents refuse to acknowledge that there is a scarcity of resources – Remember your first Economics introduction, they teach you that economics is “.. the science which studies human behaviour as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses.” RBE proponents refuse to acknowledge that we may not have enough resources.
Why do they think so? – As given as an example on Venus Project’s homepage, they observe:
At the beginning of World War II the US had a mere 600 or so first-class fighting aircraft. We rapidly overcame this short supply by turning out more than 90,000 planes a year. The question at the start of World War II was: Do we have enough funds to produce the required implements of war? The answer was No, we did not have enough money, nor did we have enough gold; but we did have more than enough resources. It was the available resources that enabled the US to achieve the high production and efficiency required to win the war. Unfortunately this is only considered in times of war.
Its obvious that RB Economists see that market sooner or later provides every individual what he or she wants(or they observe war time distortions), and conclude that if an individual could be provided with an iPhone in year 2010, that means we have enough resources even in the year 1776 that Benjamin Franklin could also be provided with an iPhone(its not like the world acquired alien resources in that time). That means there must be something restricting this feasibility, and their conclusion is if money did not restrict people of that time from constantly acquiring new resources, experimenting and developing new technologies then we would have a lot more progress in the world.
Resource Based Economy proponents do not understand law of diminishing returns – The RBE proponents attack diminishing returns as a faulty valuation system. Of course as Austrians we know that even in Eden Gardens where everything is abundant, a man still is going to have the scarcity of time, therefore even in society with no scarcity, a man will have value scales. Because men assign different values to different ends. The reason why I value another car much less than the first one, because I can’t drive two cars at the same time, I can drive only one, and once I have had a car, I would rather prefer to have some other ends achieved. Therefore I value another car as much less than the first one. Third car, even less than second one.
RBE believes that there is something inherently wrong with high values of Diamond, there is no reason why it should cost so much, and 1 oz of water should be of same value(or even more) than 1 oz of diamond. They believe that if we can get rid of these valuations(or they believe this’d happen on its own once we get rid of monetary system), we will not have to worry about diminishing returns anymore.
Resource Based Economy proponents consider scarcity of capital as just that, scarcity of capital – RBE has taken this page off the books of other schools of economics(Keynesian, Montarists) which do not have a Capital theory. A scarcity of capital according to them only represents scarcity of capital, not a scarcity of resources/goods/time. This is probably the biggest reason why they think they can get rid of monetary system and make things work. The fact that we have scarcity of capital because we have scarcity of time, goods, labor or all of these. We are in a recession because our goods have been misallocated and govt is preventing them from being reallocated to more fruitful production endeavors.
RBE proponents only see one timeframe, and one group of people – RBE proponents fail the one lesson of economics Henry Hazlitt taught, The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups. They purposefully focus on a very small timeframe(such as war time production of First class fighting aircrats), and only one side of the picture(that the production rose to 90,000 aircrafts a year from only 600 aircrafts a year). When you remove this error, and look at all timeframes not just one, and all groups of people not just one, you realize that they can hardly promise more production in all aspects of economy without a monetary system even when you give them a very liberal leahway.
During oil crises of the 70s when world saw the power Saudi Arabia might have, they threatened to use Food as a weapon against Saudi, so the Saudi government started wheat subsidy program in order to be self-sufficient. Soon Saudi Arabia had so much wheat production that they were exporting wheat to other countries. The RBE proponents see it as a proof that even a desert country such as Saudi Arabia is capable enough to produce all the wheat it needs. But what it cannot see(and which is even more unseen with a lack of monetary system), is the high cost Saudi govt paid to achieve that. Massive resources were directed from other places to grow wheat. RBE proponents have a habit of looking at examples like these, and use them in their advantage.
RBE proponents do not understand economic calculation – Profits are demonized by RBE proponents, it doesn’t mean that they support a loss-making venturing or non-profit venturing(like a lot of leftists do), instead they just refuse to understand what are profits or need for economic calculation. This is actually the hill where their whole theory falls down to pieces, but you will never be able to have a discussion on this topic, because they refuse to acknowledge that scarcity exists. Since they don’t think scarcity exists, and technology can provide them with everything they want, they fail to see why anyone would need economic calculation. RBE proponents do not understand economic calculation because they don’t think we have scarcity of anything, and they don’t understand that we have massive scarcity and whatever we get we get because of economic calculations because they don’t understand economic calculations. So its a cyclical trap.
The list of anomalies and fallacies propagated by the Venus Project is endless. They rely too much on technological solutions and too little on human action or praxeological aspects of their idea. They fail to understand why Socialism doesn’t work(or at least they think it doesn’t work because of lack of human motivation).
Hello Friends, I have shifted my writing portal from here to http://rationallibertariancorner.com/ you may check for my New articles at my website.
Every human has four endowments- self awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom… The power to choose, to respond, to change (Stephen Covey)
Human is a rational animal. None of us can ignore or deny the importance of the above mentioned four important endowments, none of us is such who does not use these effective tools of a rational mind in our daily routine life. Yet the extent to which we are aware of our rational faculty and its immense power to create happiness and success varies from person to person.
Self Awareness, Conscience and Independent Will
The process of discovering one’s own potential and accepting its limits at a certain point of time and to strive to increase is the real way to progress. A person with clear self awareness live and act in a manner which they discover using their own rational faculty, their mind, the inner compass to assess whether an act is possible or not, whether a particular way of thinking or behaviour is right or wrong.
In some situations, one may find himself in conflict between the established norms and his own perception of the circumstances. Man is a rational being; he has a choice either to accept the conventional norms or to apply his personal aptitude to find his way out of such situations. Yet, one cannot apply their rational mind if they are not aware of the effectiveness of the rational tools they possess. It is not necessary that a self-aware, independent person will always go against the socially established norms. An independent person is surely not anti-social; rather he (she) is pro-progressive with a will for improvement and refinement. The society may find such personal attitude as idiosyncratic and often oppose it, yet every person gains and enjoys the progress brought upon by such independent people. One of the famous examples of such a character was Galileo who dared not to accept the conventional norms and tried to establish the fact that the Earth revolves round the Sun. He was punished for his strive to solve out the mysteries of planetary system, yet he was not anti-social.
Often people lose the will to discover their own potential because of the religious, traditional and social aspects of their surroundings. Right since their birth, men are taught to follow the established norms. Children are taught to behave in a manner that will please others. They are taught to gain the approval of others. Peer pressures and need to compete with others often blurs the ability of person to seek his own self and to develop and sharpen his rational tools. They grow up as situation dependents and lack the potential to access the independent zone.
The first step towards realizing the importance and potential of one’s independent rational self, it is very necessary to realize whether one is free or he is independent.
A situation dependent person often becomes docile against the social norms and tends to believe that the best way to live is to please others and gain their approval.
A Situation dependent person
- Depends on the circumstances and finds himself unable to improve situations or change them.
- Fails to detect and make use of the non-salient or not so obvious clues that may bring forth a sudden surge of progress or effectiveness of their acts.
- Fails to give a shape or structure to uncertain yet seemingly rational and creative imagination and ideas.
- Fails to link the evolving information with the already established norms to judge whether they are right or wrong and is there a need to change or go against the established norms.
- Such person fails to retrieve information from their previous experiences. They lack the potential to learn from their mistakes and that is why they remain close to any possible progress.
- Often such people fail to gain the real inspiration which is intrinsic, rather they depend on extrinsic motivation and want others to suggest, direct or order them to achieve new goals.
- Often such people are extrovert as they seek other’s approval and most often they invest their inner and yet unknown potential to convince or impress others.
A person with self awareness and an independent mind will have an entirely different approach
- He will be able to recognize objects and motives distinctly and eminent from the circumstances.
- He will be able to enlist the priorities, discarding the irrelevant and trivial issues to concentrate on rationally beneficial points.
- He will be able to provide a rationally viable structure for his rational creativity and imaginations.
- Even the most rational person can commit mistakes, yet his process of learning and experiencing will make him able to link his prior experiences with current situations to help him avoid repeating similar mistakes and to attain progress.
- A person with an independent mind always seeks the real inspiration emanating from his inner self. He knows that the potential inspiration is always intrinsic in nature.
- He is self-motivated and self-content. He does not seek approval from others rather, he considers his own rational faculty as the only tool available to help him in understanding the reality.
- Often such people are introverts, deep thinking, and rational speakers. They choose not to impress others with vague expositions; rather they believe that the results of their endeavours will show the way.
Irrespective of being a dependent person or an independent person, everyone owns a certain rational faculty, his mind. That is why there always are possibilities to strive for improvement. Once a person realizes his own position and limits to which he is using his mind, he can strive for self-awareness and the conscience to understand and recognize their independent will and ability to give shape for their creative imagination in a rational manner.
So, are you willing to strive for achieving the independence of your mind?
Hello Friends, I have shifted my writing portal from here to http://rationallibertariancorner.com/ you may check for my New articles at my website.
Pakistan is suffering the natural disaster of flood and heavy rains. Naturally one will feel to help Pakistanis in this tumultuous period of difficulties. Innocent women, children and elder people will be the first to suffer from the aftermath of the flood. They will face the dangers of various ills and diseases that will arise as a result of the receding flood waters. Those poor people already have lost their adobe. Most of their farmlands and huts have been washed out. There’s nothing left for their food. And this is the period of Ramjan.
Who will not like to provide some monetary aid for those poor Pakistanis?
Obviously, if some such Pakistani who is suffering extreme poverty and distress due to heavy floods comes out to your door and knocks at it to demand some humanly help in form of money, you will find yourself ready to help the Pakistani, to respect his needs in this period of natural disaster and will give him at least Rs5.
If a group of 1000 individuals from various private NGO’s working for helping those Pakistanis visits 100 Indian cities, connects with 10 Lakh Indian families and household and each family provides them Rs10 as a humanitarian help, the group will collect at least Rs 100 Lakh or Rs10 million. Some of the households may provide them higher amount of money as aid and at an estimate, it would not be too difficult for them to collect Rs 50 million (that is USD 5 million).
Will you be ready to help those Pakistanis?
Some will say that it would be wrong to help those Pakistanis. Most of them consider India as an enemy state. They facilitate terrorism in Kashmir and other parts of India. They were those who planned and attacked Indian cities regularly and killed people. Thousands of Indians have been killed due to Pakistan instigated terrorism, violence and mass murdering.
In Mumbai alone, people killed in terrorist attacks during the last ten years were
• 6 December 2002 – Bomb goes off in a bus in Ghatkopar killing 2
• 27 January 2003 – Bomb goes off on a bicycle in Vile Parle killing 1
• 14 March 2003 – Bomb goes off in a train in Mulund killing 10
• 28 July 2003 – Bomb goes off in a bus in Ghatkopar killing 4
• 25 August 2003 – Two Bombs go off in cars near the Gateway of India and Zaveri Bazaar killing 50
• 11 July 2006 – Series of seven bombs go off in trains killing 209
• 26 November 2008 to 29 November 2008 – Coordinated series of attacks killing at least 172.
Many of Indian families may deny giving money for Pakistanis even in such scenario of natural disaster in Pakistan only because how could they say that the group of people coming to their home and demanding money for helping the poor Pakistanis will actually help the Pakistanis and will not use that money to instigate further violence and terrorism on India?
How will you be so sure that the same amount of money you are paying to help the poor kids suffering in flood ridden Pakistan will be used actually to help those kids and not for fulfilling the pockets of violence lovers and terrorists?
You may not be so sure, and yes, it is true that you may be fooled by any such organization that will use the money given by you against your nation or fellow men. May be your money will reach again in a terrorist squad and will help them to kill further people.
Yet, you will have a chance to check the premises of the person asking for direct money with your consent. You will be able to see his/her truthfulness in his/her eyes. You will be able to have a choice either to give him money or to decline. Most probably, you will not fail to recognize the truthfulness and validity of the person asking you money directly for helping the poor kids suffering in flood waters in Pakistan.
At present, you are forced to pay money for Pakistan as an aid or flood relief. You are forced and nobody will even feel it necessary to ask or inform you about the money you are paying as an aid to Pakistan. Indian Government has already promised money for Pakistan government as an aid of $ 5 million to help the poor suffering from Pakistan1 It is your money that has been offered by the Indian government to the government of Pakistan. First of all, Indian government has no valid right to use your money without your consent to pay for any aid to any other body or government irrespective of the receiving country is Pakistan or India itself. It is your money and you should have a right to have a say on it to how to spend it and what for. It is true that government was chosen democratically and in democracy majority rules and minority obeys. Yet, there was no democratic voting for the issue of whether to pay aid for Pakistan or not to pay any aid. The Decision of so-called democratic government’s aid to Pakistani government is surely a tyrannical one and it is not democratic in any respect. If a voting is done to achieve a democratic decision over the issue, most probably No aid will be provided to Pakistan government, although people may democratically agree for a channel of direct help for the people suffering in Pakistan without involving any government including Indian government or Pakistani government.
What is wrong in involving Indian or Pakistani government in this humanitarian cause?
We cannot say how logically and honestly Indian government will pay the aid to Pakistan. It is not Indian government’s money, government does not create any wealth, government is parasite, we earn and government sucks our earning to exist. It is simply embezzling money earned and created by us. We do not know how the Indian government will tackle the issue of compensating the loss of this money that has been promised to be provided for Pakistani government. How much inflation will we suffer due to this aid of USD 5 million? We do not know. How much national debt we will have to cover off? We do not know. Every Indian citizen is already under the pressure of national debt, we suffer governmental fiscal deficit every year and yet, instead of managing their own monetary problems, Indian government is engaged in distributing alimonies and gifts and aids. We do not know how many corrupt figures it will add to the fiscal deficit of this year while the Indian politicians will fill up their bank accounts in Switzerland banks. Thus, this aid by Indian government to Pakistani government is a big loss for Indian citizen who is forced to pay this aid. It surely will not be an issue of Rs5 or Rs10 for every Indian family. It will reach too high because of the corruption of Indian government.
Issue of Pakistan government is much more dangerous and serious.
We think that it would be difficult to assess the true nature and honesty of a NGO member coming directly to your home and demanding humanitarian aid for Pakistani people suffering in floods. They may provide that money to terrorists. Yet, you have a choice to assess their nature. You are not such a fool who will give their money to any fraudulent person.
Pakistan government on the other hand, is surely fraudulent. There is a record of Pakistani government to use the money given to it by international societies in other works including terroristic and warfare acts. The money given to Pakistani government for earthquake relief a few years ago was never used to provide relief for the poor people of Pakistan who suffered the aftermath of earthquake. The Pakistani government is a crook for sure and the government associations are too much corrupt. Not even Pakistanis can trust on ISI. Those were Pakistani citizens who were against Pakistani government during the issue of sacking of Justice Chowdhary. There are 100 percent chances that the money given to the Pakistani government for helping poor suffering in floods will never actually reach the poor people. First of all Pakistani government is corrupt, then the government includes a lot of red taping, the Pakistani officials are corrupt, police and army is corrupt. Why will they provide any money to the poor kid or woman or elder person suffering and dying in floods? Why will not they grab that money and put it in their own pockets? Or they may use it for enriching their collection of arsenals and weapons of mass destruction.
Overall, you are forcibly made to pay USD 5 millions for a wrong cause. Better would have been a way to help those Pakistanis directly through the help of some NGOs, at least you could have got a chance to provide money to an honest group and to avoid giving money to a dishonest one. At present, you were forced to give your money first to dishonest Indian government and then your money was given to another dishonest government, the government of Pakistan. It is a two way loot of Indian citizens.
- India’s Flood Aid Offer to Pakistan, Timer of India [↩]