The “transparency movement” is, by all accounts, on fire. Obama campaigned on openness, launched his administration with nods to citizen participation, and has talked up a wonderful storm about credibility. The Sunlight Foundation [1. I should say, in advance, that I think the Sunshine Foundation is a fantastic organization with its heart in the right …
Author Archives: Bill Goodwin
Previously: The Ethics of Begging
A dissensible debate on the morality of donatives to the destitute (or at least the fellows on the street presenting themselves as such).
Concur: What’s Wrong With the Bottle?
There seems to be a curious degree of certainty among the dissenters that the choice of the vagrant to purchase alcohol with his donatives is, in fact, a poor one. Bill Goodwin goes so far as to call it enabling self-abuse, which is an unambiguously pejorative description of a highly variable state.
In fact, drunkenness, like …
Dissent: Disedimacation
As I previously mentioned, handouts for beggars can actually be quite harmful (would you like to be the guy who enabled an addict to purchase enough crack to OD?). But that’s actually the weaker argument against the practice.
Rather, I’d say the psychic harm outweighs any benefits. No, I’m not going to bemoan the growth of …
Dissent: Giving Disease
While I salute the clarity A employs above, he seems blind to the pitfalls of his proposition. A blithely assumes that putting a penny in the old man’s hat (to get into the spirit of the season) is a good act in his very defense of it.