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- Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 11:52:36 EST
- Sender: CHRISTIA@ASUACAD
- From: Dan Harling <harling@ROADRUNNER.PICTEL.COM>
- Subject: Re: Ethics and Laws
- Lines: 44
-
- > Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 15:17:00 MST
- > From: Steven Klepzig <SKLEPZI@SSB1.SAFF.UTAH.EDU>
- > Subject: Ethics and Laws
- > To: Multiple recipients of list CHRISTIA <CHRISTIA@ASUVM.INRE.ASU.EDU>
- >
- > Usenet mail forward.
- > ****** START OF FORWARDED MESSAGE ******
- >
- > From: gjm11@cus.cam.ac.uk (G.J. McCaughan)
- > Subject: Ethics and Laws
- > Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 02:41:17 GMT
- >
- > If a thing is wrong, should it necessarily be illegal?
- >
- > If a thing is right, should it be enforced by law?
- >
- > Let me give some examples. (I don't want to talk about homosexuality
- > in here; there's already far too much about it on CHRISTIA.)
- > - It is right (perhaps...) to give some money towards letting the state
- > perform its functions, and we are legally obliged to pay taxes.
- > - It is right to give to charitable causes, but the law doesn't make you.
-
- This is a poor example; to my knowledge, several charitable causes are
- funded by Federal tax funds (and possibly state funds as well), such as:
-
- National Endowment for the Arts
- Planned Parenthood
-
- Effectively, the law *does* make you contribute to any such causes, as
- you do not have the option of deducting any such group's share from
- your taxes due, nor can you specify that one group's share be provided
- to an alternate cause of which you approve. For example, if you prefer
- the way Birthright operates to the way Planned Parenthood operates, you
- cannot redirect your taxes from Planned Parenthood to Birthright; you
- must ultimately contribute to *both* if you want to support
- Birthright.
-
- As someone said once, "It's not charity if it's someone else's money."
-
-
- > Gareth McCaughan Dept. of Pure Mathematics & Mathematical Statistics,
- > gjm11@cus.cam.ac.uk Cambridge University, England. [Research student]
- >
- > ****** END OF FORWARDED MESSAGE ******
-