"Brothers" And Their "Keepers"

Bear with me, Gentle Reader. It will take a few words to get this essay to where it's going. But the subject is an important one.

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Back at Eternity Road, In April of 2008, my Vietnamese-American sweetie Duyen posted the following, under the title Helping By Not Helping:

Help can cripple or kill you.

There aren't many people who get that. It's so easy to allow someone else to carry your burden for you. It's so easy to allow yourself to become dependent on other people's kindness and generosity. If you're cursed with an accepting nature, you can become a charity addict as easily as breathing. It forecloses your future; everything you might have achieved slips away, forgotten in the relief of not having to work for your own security or prosperity.

It's very important -- critical -- not to help when help is not needed, or not appreciated, or not wanted, or wanted much too much. I know, my Church says otherwise, but I have to disagree. Charity to good people in sudden, unexpected need that's not their fault, who are uncomfortable at being the objects of charity, is usually all right. Charity to people who've never shown any initiative or prudence is always wrong. Good-hearted people have done more harm through generosity than all the murderers that have ever lived. Maybe even including the government murderers....

I don't expect everyone to agree.

And indeed, not everyone did agree...though no one came close to refuting Duyen's central point: "Help" can cripple or kill you. That didn't surprise me at all. For one thing, Duyen is so far above the common herd that most of us can't even see the soles of her Prada pumps. For another, those six boldfaced words don't express a conclusion reached by a logical process, but an observable fact.

There's a reason for that old saying about good intentions.

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Way, way back at the original Palace Of Reason -- hosted on Yahoo's old GeoCities subsidiary! -- I posted the following, under the title The Circle Of Care:

"Charity" derives from the Latin word "caritas," the concern for others that springs from personal connection. A related word of Greek derivation is "sympathy," the ability to "feel with" another person. These are not relations one can truly have with faceless and nameless strangers at a distance.

True charity requires proximity, for at least two reasons. First, the necessary personal connection, the sense that one is helping one's own, fails at any great remove. Second, human fallibility and weakness guarantee that, just as some will fail to prosper on their own, others will fail to employ charity properly; indeed, to receive money from others sometimes makes one's troubles worse. When this occurs, the giver must give no further, for other measures -- criticism, instruction, discipline -- are clearly indicated. With any separation between the benefactor and his beneficiary, it becomes impossible to know whether help helps in fact, or only in theory and intention.

I meant every word. I still do.

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I write today because of an event far more recent than the citations above. You can read about it at Big Government, and I hope you will.

What are the standout facts in that article?

• There's a fellow named George Obama who has a familial relationship with Barack Hussein Obama.
• George Obama is 30 years of age and lives in Nairobi, Kenya; Barack Hussein Obama is 52 years old and lives in Washington, D.C.
• According to published reports, George Obama lives on "a few dollars a month." Barack Hussein Obama is a wealthy man (and currently the president of the United States).
• George Obama has a sick son whose medical expenses he cannot meet out of his own resources.
• Barack Hussein Obama has not volunteered to assist George Obama with those expenses.
• Dinesh D'Souza, a conservative writer of some note, has stepped forward and done so.

Here are my questions about the matter:

1. Has Barack Hussein Obama ever met George Obama?
2. If so, what sort of relationship do they have?
3. If not, does Barack have a moral obligation to form some sort of relationship with George?
4. In either case, does Barack have a moral obligation to contribute to the material well-being of George and his family?

Take your time over it, because what's coming next is likely to shock the panties off you.

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Let's take the segment above and strip off some irrelevancies:

• There's a fellow named Smith who has a familial relationship with Jones.
• Smith is 30 years of age and lives in Nairobi, Kenya; Jones is 52 years old and lives in Washington, D.C.
• According to published reports, Smith lives on "a few dollars a month;" Jones is a rather prestigious and wealthy man with a good income.
• Smith has a sick son whose medical expenses he cannot meet out of his own resources.
• Jones has not volunteered to assist Smith with those expenses.
• Davis, a writer of some note who has an ideological antipathy toward Jones, has stepped forward and done so.

Here are my questions about the matter:

1. Has Jones ever met Smith?
2. If so, what sort of relationship do they have?
3. If not, does Jones have a moral obligation to form some sort of relationship with Smith?
4. In either case, does Jones have a moral obligation to contribute to the material well-being of Smith and his family?

Compare your initial reaction -- i.e., to the first, non-anonymized scenario -- to your reaction to the anonymized version. How do they differ, and why?

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I am a libertarian-conservative and a firm American patriot. I despise Barack Hussein Obama, his ideology, and the damage he has done to this country. I hope profoundly that Mitt Romney defeats him on November 6.

But I don't hold Barack Hussein Obama personally responsible for relieving the material condition of George Obama. More, I consider it a really cheap shot, well below the ethical level demanded of a decent person, to use George Obama's plight as a political stroke against him.

Half-brothers? So what? I have yet to read anywhere that they're even acquainted, much less "close." The difference in their ages makes it unlikely that they've ever had direct contact with one another.

We are supposed to be better than this. We're supposed to have some understanding of the limits of an individual's responsibilities -- most especially, his moral obligations to unknown others.

We're also supposed to be skeptical of supplicants who importune the well-off. What have you done for yourself? is the question that should rise immediately to our lips. In many cases the answer will be, let us say, unimpressive, especially if the supplicant has long benefited from the generosity of others. I owe you nothing should be the second thing we say, regardless of any and all representations about blood ties and regardless of whether our station in life is due to protracted hard work or a winning lottery ticket. Our subsequent decision to help (or not) must be founded on a cold appraisal of the probable consequences.

George Obama called Dinesh D'Souza and pleaded for material aid. D'Souza gave it to him, which was entirely his decision; never mind what political motive he might have had. But I contend that Barack Hussein Obama owed half-brother George nothing, that he has no more moral obligation to assist his half-brother than has D'Souza, and that his decision not to do so is entirely defensible from all standpoints.

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I warned you that this was likely to shock you. I intended to shock you, to disorient you and compel you to think freshly about this supposed moral obligation to "help" a "family member." I also want you to think about what ethical boundaries you're willing to observe in our common attempt to remove a wholly unsuitable chief executive from the Oval Office.

We'd better have some, or we're no better than the miscreants we're trying to displace.