179 Usurious Charities

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">No concept has been quite so distorted, exploited & co-opted as charity, wrapped up as it is in religion, morals, paternalism, indoctrination, shunning, guilt & sympathy. Modern charitable organizations are mostly irredeemable, cynically used to cover for those whose intent is to extract wealth & self-esteem from others for themselves, and any intended beneficiaries assume a secondary role. There is no justification that allows 90% of donated funds to go into overhead, whatever scheme is being proposed or defended is de facto dishonest. Charity has become an industry as usurious as the worst mafia extortion racket. Worst of all, charity has become a method of control, both of the recipients & of the donors.</p> <p>Charities have no claim on you: they are simply someone else trying to impose their value system onto you. The worst kind claim their moral legitimacy overrides market forces feedback. They want to get paid the same as the private sector, advertise like the private sector, even raise money through the markets but without any form of oversight. And they use insult & derision as leverage, publicly calling people who don't contribute “cheap.” Hey, person of suspect motives, I respect you if you volunteer for your cause, but if you're under the false assumption that what you do is important to anyone else but yourself then that's all hubris on your part. Really, charity should be provided by retired people & people with underutilized skills. It shouldn't be a mechanism for conniving people to gain control over others or to set the agenda of what they consider important. I have no greater disdain than for sanctimonious twits who know-better-n-me.</p>