Taking 'til It Hurts

Alec Bruce of the Moncton Times Transcript has a great article titled 'Giving until it hurts'.

Read it here

Now the T&T has some run some stupid columns, but is there nobody there reviewing this crap?

Mr. Bruce starts off with a wonderful bit about how charitable we are (second only to Malta, tied with Ireland!), then starts on some garbage about the federal government wanting value for money or some stupid thing from those organizations our tax money gets showered on. Imagine! Actually showing you did something with the money, what do these damn crazy right-wingers want?

A few points for Mr. Bruce:

1. The federal government taking your wealth and sending it elsewhere is not charity, it is taxation. Charity is money you voluntarily part with.

2. Expecting said charities to actually DO what they claim to do may seem onerous or unrealistic to you, but expecting more than nice brochures and a couple of trips to the Caribbean is not too much to ask, is it? The people the money was confiscated from would like to know who got to go to Barbados and did they get the buffet. And did Busty Hookers get expensed?

3. You then move on to a paragraph about the crime bill and the gun registry. It is damn stupid legislation to lock up pot heads for being stupid, but what does this have to do with charity? And allowing people to own guns without a Toronto bureaucrat in the loop? What does that have to do with charitable giving? Or are the billions wasted on that more 'charity'?

4. Next we move on to Britain. PM David Cameron expects the private sector to burden more of the charity work. Well duh, if the government is doing it, it ain't charity.

5. Lastly, you state 'There is no credible evidence that points to federally-funded, Canadian non-profits wasting vast amounts of taxpayer money en masse.' Well Sherlock, who is measuring it? Nobody, that's who. And you seem too suggest this person, nobody, is who should measure it.

Confusing charity with taxation is possibly the dumbest thing the T&T has printed this week. But it is only Monday.