Theos-Talk Archives (June 2002 Message tt00029)

At 02:26 PM 6/5/02 -0500, you wrote:
> At 10:02 AM 6/5/02 -0700, P.A.A. wrote:
> >In the U.S.A. a true disciple of the Master J is now President and is 
> working
> >practically and fruitfully to increase freedom and finally
> >seal the door where evil dwells.
>
> Was just watching the proceedings of US Senate. In the proposed budget,
> there is zero increase in education budget for next several years, and
> estimated 6 million poor children are estimated to be left behind. May be
> they are to suffer and work out their Karma?????
Ramadoss:

Whenever a budget is prepared, limited resources
are allocated over many needs. Sometimes every
area is left hurting, not given enough. Other
times, everyone may be satisfied. (But that's
quite rare, if ever!)

We all have particular areas we care about. Those
are important to us, and we're disappointed if
they're not given as much as we want. There are
other areas we may not pay attention to that are
equally needy, and we may not appreciate as much
when resources are given to them.

I don't think it's fair in a budget to attempt
any particular linkage between any particular
category and another, where we might say that
the money given this need is taking away from
one of our favorite causes.

Based upon their best judgement, considering the
big picture, people making a budget have to
somehow meet everyone's needs with less resources
than everyone wants. Being human, their particular
outlook on life may bias their attempt at
impartial judgement. (And there's also politics
to bias things as well!)

Even so, they may give less resources here or
there for a good reason. It may not be that
they don't care for our favorite cause. It may
be that they are aware of a wider range of needs
than we are, and are fairly trying to balance
those needs. They may make some judgement calls
different than we might, but I don't think that
we can automatically infer a lack of caring based
upon how generously they've funded something in
the budget.

(I'm talking here about a balanced view of
people and life, not of the inflammatory rhetoric
we heard from political activists that are
trying to manipulate our thinking and thereby
our vote.)

-- Eldon