Some Good News

After watching the State of the Union address Monday night, I was interested to read this article recounting the success of President Bush's unprecedented AIDS package to sub-Saharan Africa. I was pleased to hear Bush call for a massive and, once again, world leading expansion of a good program. If we were to listen to Bono and his cheerleaders, you would think nobody was doing anything for AIDS in Africa.

Funny Story, U2 was performing in Scotland and Bono was doing his thing about AIDS clapping his hands and saying, "Every time I clap my hand a child dies in Africa." Some bloke from the crowd yelled, "So stop clapping your hands you evil bastard."

I digress. The reason I like this program, as a conservative, is because the bloated bureaucracies of the UN and NGOs are circumvented in favor of local organizations. The key to conservatism is divesting power to the local people because they know better than the central authority how to manage local affairs (most of the time). Many of these organizations are faith based groups who already have relationships developed within the community. I think this adds to the success rate by spending the money on the people who need it instead of corrupt organizations. However, as with all social justice initiatives from the right, it has been ignored.