To those who don't wish to read on about the continuing controversy, I'll give a fair warning that this is a further answer. But I feel that some rather disparaging and inappropriate comments have been made regarding my character, and will respond as I feel appropriate.

In the original article entitled "Get Foreign Nations off of Welfare", I made a snide comment that India and other countries had won the lottery. I do not apologize for the comment, and although I probably could have phrased it in a softer light, it would have been my own usage of the kind of "soft sell" dishonesty that I myself dislike intensely. My following comment was that their overpopulated countries were rid of many of the homeless in addition to their receiving aid. Again, I do not feel that this is particularly callous, given the trend of many modern liberals to advocate abortion as a means of population control (read a good Margaret Sanger book lately, folks?) or euthanasia as an agent of the same. Many of those same abortion/euthanasia advocates were the quickest to aim their cannons in my direction.

But what REALLY hacked me was that ALL of the comments were geared towards the first two sentences. None of these "enlightened" folks was willing to read further and see that the meat of the article and the majority of the words used were addressing the very real and compelling problem of continuing to apply public tax dollars in an area where private contributions would, in my opinion, be far more appropriate and efficient. I remain steadfast in that opinion.

I would further like to address some of the responses I felt were horribly inappropriate from these "enlightened" individuals seeking to "correct me".

1. You also realize that many of those killed were not inhabitants but tourists. There is a very implicit statement in the preceding that the lives of tourists matter more than the lives of the citizens of these countries. If anything I said is appalling, it PALES in comparison to demeaning the values of the lives of the citizens against the lives of "tourists", as this author obviously did.

2. Giddy, this has got to be the most selfish and demoralizing post I've seen in a long time. Upwards of 100,000 or more are going to be dead from this tragedy. Millions are homeless. The devastation is apocalyptic. And, you're belly aching about sending tax revenues? You really are a sicko. This person is yet another of those who didn't read the whole article. So I'm a sicko for wanting private contributions to go to the tsunami victims rather than public tax dollars? Sorry, but I don't see the connection there.

3. And, one more thing.....................

If this post is just about trolling, seeing how many people you can get a rise out of (including me), then you still qualify as a sicko. You need to get your head shrunk Same friend as above, apparently convinced of my psychosis. He earned his way onto the permanent blacklist for this one. I don't give too many that privileged position, but was happy to give it to him.

4. This thread starter is probably the most offensive post I have ever seen on this board, or maybe on any board. That's a pretty tall statement, especially in regards to the aforementioned abortion for birth control/euthanasia advocates that are pretty rampant on this board and others.

Now, let's look at what I did NOT say, in light of these comments:

 I did NOT say that India and other countries were undeserving of aid. I criticized the use of tax dollars to provide the aid, in light of the fact that we are overspending at a rate that virtually guarantees we will NEVER erase the debt that is owed. I criticized borrowing from my grandchildren's future to pay for the costs of today. I said, I have reiterated, and I will continue to state that the money does need to be spent to help these victims, it just needs to come from private and VOLUNTARY contributions and distributed by a more efficient agent than the US government.

I did NOT say I had no sympathy for the victims or their families. I had no way to prevent this disaster, nor in fact, did anyone in existence. It was a NATURAL disaster, and even if we were to commit our entire GDP to India from now till eternity, we will not erase the consequences of that disaster. I did not, and will not, manufacture a false sense of sympathy such as that of many individuals who didn't care less about the lives of these individuals BEFORE the disaster (how much time have whoman and dabe spent easing the plight of those in India, I'm forced to ask myself). I also see no reason to see their death as being any more tragic than those caused by the hurricanes in Florida than the tsunami in India. While the scale is certainly larger, why don't you go ask a family member of a Florida hurricane victim if they miss their families any less because of the tsunami in Asia?

I advocate for, and continue to advocate for, fiscal responsibility from our government and from individuals. My statement was, and remains, that if we keep throwing money away at every worthwhile project, we will soon find that there are worthwhile projects that exist long after our money is spent. We MUST discriminate in our spending, and that needs to start NOW. I advocate for it in ALL areas, not just foreign aid, this was just the issue that was at the forefront.

If the United States doesn't stop spending money it doesn't have, it won't be long until we don't have the money to spend on ANY of these projects. And then, the entire world will suffer.

But, I hardly believe that a liberal will have read down this far.

Respectfully submitted,

Gideon MacLeish