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\u201cGive back.\u201d\u00a0 To whom, the beneficiaries of this fundraiser?\u00a0 The county bar association and the local Legal Aid office?\u00a0 The phrase \u2018give back\u2019 implies I once received something of value from them, for which I did not pay on the spot.\u00a0 The phrase \u2018give back\u2019 implies an obligation, a debt.\u00a0 Searching my memory (insert Star Trek computer voice: \u201cWorking. Working.\u201d).\u00a0 Nope, can\u2019t think of anything either of them ever gave me for free.\u00a0 Don\u2019t see that I have any obligation to give either of them anything in return.<\/p>\n
\u201cPay it Forward.\u201d\u00a0 Cute movie, silly slogan, worse reasoning.\u00a0 Somebody once did something nice for me, so that burdens me with an obligation to give money to someone else.\u00a0 And lucky for me, they\u2019ve pre-selected the people I\u2019ll be paying, all good Liberal Democrats, no doubt.\u00a0 At $85 a plate, plus having to sit through do-gooders giving each other feel-good awards to signal their virtue?\u00a0 I don\u2019t think so.\u00a0 If that\u2019s the cost of people doing nice things for me, stop doing nice things for me, I can\u2019t afford it.<\/p>\n
This is not an appeal for charity, it\u2019s shaming.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been shamed enough.\u00a0 I get it every day.\u00a0 I\u2019m an old White male.\u00a0 We\u2019re the bane of society.\u00a0 Racists.\u00a0 Sexists.\u00a0 Rapists.\u00a0 We didn\u2019t build anything, we never accomplished anything, we\u2019re oppressors who stole our ill-gotten gains and don\u2019t deserve to keep them.\u00a0 So Give Back the money or Pay it Forward to our pet programs so we can work to further shame old White men.<\/p>\n
You know what?\u00a0 That argument doesn\u2019t motivate me to give money, doesn\u2019t inspire my generosity.<\/p>\n
If you want me to give you money, convince me you deserve it.\u00a0 Offer programs I want to watch (Dr. Who on public television).\u00a0 Give me something I want to have (salvation, from my church).\u00a0 Show me you\u2019re helping people I want to help and give me a little reward (Girl Scout cookies).\u00a0 Hell, stand at the stoplight in the pouring rain holding a cardboard sign to make me feel glad I\u2019m not you.\u00a0 I keep a dozen ones in the center console for precisely those people.\u00a0 But not for Legal Aid lawyers.\u00a0 And not because I\u2019ve got some fake obligation that I should be ashamed I haven\u2019t paid.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The hardest part of establishing an entitlement is convincing those who’ll pay that you are in fact entitled to their money.<\/p>\n
It seems MN Democrats have done a fine job of this.<\/p>\n
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Joe Doakes from Como Park emails: Got this in the mail.\u00a0 Not going.\u00a0 Annoying. \u201cGive back.\u201d\u00a0 To whom, the beneficiaries of this fundraiser?\u00a0 The county bar association and the local Legal Aid office?\u00a0 The phrase \u2018give back\u2019 implies I once received something of value from them, for which I did not pay on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-socialism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=68096"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68098,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68096\/revisions\/68098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=68096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=68096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=68096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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