Paul Shirley: Don't Help Haiti

Most Americans are somewhat hypocritical with providing aid. Not saying I agree with Shirley 100%, but the fact we can raise over $100 million to help a foreign country in times of need, but it’s hard for a local community to raise a couple thousand dollars in need is mind boggling.

There are a lot of people who share Shirley’s thoughts, but in the era of online anominity, they have a forum to share dissent without feeling as if they will be personally indicted for their words. He’s only speaking to those sentiments.

With that said, I decided to read the comments and the one that struck me the most was the response from ‘Zeke’.

It is unfortunate that every relief dollar can’t go directly into saving Haitian lives, but if you indeed have thought this through then I encourage you to leverage your thoughts into action rather than justify your inaction – maybe think about how you could actually help Haiti in the long term once the celebrity concerts are done and the short-term giving has dried up. Or get in touch with an NPO down there to see what they are doing and how you could help besides giving money. There are so many better responses than just to say "I won’t be giving to this cause."

And therein lies the proverbial rub. do the people who complain about what exist have an idea about how to change it or would they rather point and shame from afar?

did he really need the attention that bad?

Was irrelevant when he was in the NBA. Even more irrelevant now.

He then gets to say, “Look, I told you everyone would be made and I was right about that, so I am right about the premise of my [straw-man] argument.”

I haven’t donated to the Haitian relief effort for the same reason that I don’t give money to homeless men on the street.

…

In this belief I am, evidently, alone. It seems that everyone has jumped on the "Save Haiti" bandwagon. To question the impulse to donate, then, will probably be viewed as analogous with rooting for Charles Manson, John Wayne Gacy, or the Spice Girls.

There’s a lot of people who haven’t directly donated to any of the direct funds who are not Manson. I haven’t, although I know that the charities to whom I donate are doing work there. Am I therefore not compassionate because I didn’t text $10 dollars during the last sporting event? Shirley would say so. He would also say that all of you who did text view me as Manson.

I cannot figure out if his next point is to decry donations in general to any cause or just to this specific, cause when other are more worthy. I’m leaning toward the former because no one with potentially/supposedly valid points be such an asshole to other human beings.

The best way to argue against some view is to argue for it, but poorly.

I, for one, feel far more motivated to help Haiti than I did before reading Paul Shirley’s excerpts.