Charity From an Objectivist
The other day we had a parents meeting for my son's golf team at our new high school. The cost per player for a pack of all kinds of stuff came to about $200. At the end of the meeting the coach requested the money and I noticed that it seemed easy for these golf parents to whip out their checkbooks for this amount. Then, it dawned on me...I remembered back when I was a kid. My folks didn't have a lot of money. I didn't get a golf club in my hands until I was 29. I imagined that there were other athletes at our school who may struggle to come up with the money. Just so happens that our golf coach is the athletic director this year also. I sent him a note that if he knew of any kid who couldn't come up with the dough to let me know. I'd pay for it. Earlier that very day a young man did come into the office saying he was having trouble coming up with the money. He's a three-sport athlete and that's all I know about him. I paid for a couple sports for him apparently, $350. He doesn't know who did it. Only the coach and athletic secretary know - and now you. To realize there may be a need, mostly based on my own life experiences, and to help a kid in this way without the government holding a gun to my head to steal my money to give to a bunch of shlubs...felt really great. The coach thanked me and shook may hand the next day. I just said, "Hey...I had a good year." That's true in many ways, actually.
Maybe you'll consider doing the same. Contact the high school athletic director and ask if a kid is having trouble coming up with the dough.
Maybe you'll consider doing the same. Contact the high school athletic director and ask if a kid is having trouble coming up with the dough.
otherwise voluntarily help others who have proven their merit but need financial support.
Well done, Abaco! 👍
I saw some figures describing the percentage charitable donations and welfare vs time. Welfare essentially displaced charities, and reduced their effectiveness three fold (per our boy Milton).
The doorbell rang. I opened up and two little kids about 8 stood there and gave me their pitch, they only wanted $5 each. I really wanted to do it myself but I couldn't say no to these cute kids. I saw myself at their age, shy, bashful, unable to be enterprising and assertive like they were. I thought they should be rewarded just for ringing the doorbell.
They did a pretty good job, I gave them $10 each. They were happy.
Wonderful behavior on your part. Objectively, this kid will remember, at some point, there was another watching and caring.
The best was watching a kid work his ass off to buy a small sailboat. Everything was ok except the mainsail. I found a like-new sail and swapped out one night before his first race of the season. He finally caught me....5 years later.
We're not sports people. Instead...
My son was in the marching band for four years. The NHS Marching Bears won titles every year in their division and were even victorious in the NYS Field Band competition in Syracuse NY. But the officials refused to let the NYSFB Cup leave the state. It's a long story.
During those years we donated for dozens of Drillmasters(tm), Jackets, gloves, snacks, and a host of other 'consumables' (including travel expenses) for lots of kids who couldn't afford the necessities of participation in a top-ranked band.
I worked the musical instrument trailer, and my wife chaperoned one of the five busses it took to bring the band to each competition.
Do you know what the difference between the marching band and the football team is?
Each week the football team starts out with a fresh score when they face their opponent. An error made playing last week has no effect on this week's game as long as the team wins the game.
When the marching band competes, they retain a cumulative score from all their the previous competitions of the season, and they are EXPECTED to improve their performance every week from the previous in terms of both complexity, freedom from errors, and musicianship! A single error by any person can tank the season.
The few athletes that are also in the band consistently report that the sports training was far easier than the two weeks of band camp & regular nightly and all day saturday marching practices.
Best examples of this are the "foundations" of such notables as the Clintons and Bidens who bilk money from the ignorant and then spend it on themselves. Frauds and worse.
Free will over "palatable" slavery every time.
I give a monthly donation to Mercury One which doesn't take one cent for itself. Every penny goes toward helping others in distress...no CEO's taking a salary.
I've been making annual cash donations, to one of them, for helping to keep our kid off the street.
The same thing happens within each cell of your body so it makes sense that the community of cells we call You would also act in the same manner....it is a "Celfish" act.
collective.
What you did is proof that our mindset is not evil and selfish. Only wish that those on the Left could understand this.
Pay it Forward has become the motto of The National Rocketry Association. We all have an obligation to our own self interest to Pay It Forward. One explanation of why the country is in the shape it is the failure of our parents and grandparents to do this for at least two generations and now possibly three. It in this case is teaching our history, instilling a sense of morality, a system of ethics, to do the right thins even if no one is looking or knows (when you do you will know). Not only have we failed to teach our history, we have allowed many to revise, rewrite, falsify and conceal by omission. There would be less racial issues if the true history had been taught. This from an old WASP who is remembering the history he was taught and discovering whet was taught wrong or just omitted!
A matter of priorities???