Am I being too generous ? Or am I too tight ?

Screamapillar wrote (see)

I'm not going to quote your rant Colin, we've all read it.

But anyway - as far as I'm aware, blood donation has always been voluntary and unpaid. I know because my dad was a blood donor for years. It isn't something that's been "hived off into the arena of charitable giving", it's just your skewed view of the process.

Let's have a look at your idea of payment for body products though shall we? Who will pay? The NHS? If so, they're paying out of the taxation from you and others that they have already received and out of limited funds. Is that your idea of a convoluted sort of refund? And how would you feel about being denied a hip operation because the money for it has been given to a person (live or dead) who donated a kidney?

Alternatively, perhaps the person who needs the blood/organs pays. Can you imagine where that would lead - a world where even donated organs go to the people who can bid the most for them? No thank you. 

When you receive blood it is free at the point of need, as it is if you need an organ donation, as it is for virtually all NHS treatment. The whole reason people don't get paid is to make the system fair and equal. Price and value are not the same thing. You clearly don't get that.

I don't understand how you, and people like you, automatically equate charity with being taken advantage of. But then I'm not you and, for that, I'm thankful.

+1

Colin McLaughlin wrote (see)

"Rabbit realised the world was not solid and benign, it was a shabby set of temporary arrangements rigged up for the time being, all for the sake of money. You just passed through, and they milked you for what you were worth, mostly when you were young and gullible."

~ John Updike, "Rabbit at Rest" (1990)

Yeah, well perhaps I get my world view more from Dickens than from Updike. Thankfully.

Our Colin should be grateful that blood donors have no say in who receives the blood (organs, etc).

Thanks for the prompts guys, I have been reminded to increase my monthly giving. I've been meaning to get a round tuit.

To be honest I don't know exactly how much I give to charity. I do know the regular monthly figure. Requests and appeals are considered on what I consider are their merits. (If I was in that situation, what would I do). Over the years I was regularly running marathons I would use one, usually London, as a fund raiser. In an idle moment I did a rough tally and reckoned that I'd raised well over £10k. I'm not gloating, just relating how it can be possible.

On a completely separate topic, that somehow managed to get tangled into this thread: if we chose how our taxes were to be spent, then it would become very difficult to find funding for prisons, prisoner reform, drug rehabilitation, development planning and even the Police. Hands up who wants to pay for an energy efficiency survey of decrepid publically owned buildings? Overtime for a teacher? Or should I rephrase those two? Who thinks it's a good idea to waste money and energy? Who would like children to be able to play in the school sports team on Saturday?

But Womble, you're part of the PROBLEM, don't you see?  You're one of those hugely over-paid charity employees that all the donations to charity are squandered on.

The fact that you can afford a holiday is the proof!

Womble wrote (see)

I've been prompted by this thread to add to my regular donations! The other prompt being the H*****x changing the t&c on their reward accounts so you have to have direct debits on your account as well as paying in every month. I'd been enjoying the free fivers every month now I'm giving them away  

 Good on you Womble!

Muttley wrote (see)

Our Colin should be grateful that blood donors have no say in who receives the blood (organs, etc).

If they changed the system, I'd revise my approach to it, Muttley.

The UK since 1946 has become a nation of freeloaders. Too many people don't have to contribute much, and are allowed to get away with it, so others have to carry them. I'm done with carrying people who can walk, or being taken for a mug any more.

If the likes of Womble want to swan round London on her bicycle doing good works and being a cross between a saint and a slave, that's up to her. We each make our own decisions, based on how we perceive the country is run and whether it's fair or not.

Screamapillar wrote (see)

Colin McLaughlin wrote (see)

"Rabbit realised the world was not solid and benign, it was a shabby set of temporary arrangements rigged up for the time being, all for the sake of money. You just passed through, and they milked you for what you were worth, mostly when you were young and gullible."

~ John Updike, "Rabbit at Rest" (1990)

Yeah, well perhaps I get my world view more from Dickens than from Updike. Thankfully.

Dickens died long before the welfare state came into being. When he was alive, income tax was probably one or two per cent and we weren't subjected to the vast range of other taxes we are subjected to nowadays. You aren't going to get much insight from Dickens into what an individual's approach to giving to charity should be once we have an all-singing,-all-dancing overbearing state that taxes good people until the pips squeak while at the same time allowing lazy people to contribute very little and freeload, and where "charities" largely duplicate what the state takes it on itself to provide anyway, and aren't so necessary.

Rabbit at Rest" won a Pulitzer Prize, by the way. As did "Rabbit is Rich", Updike's novel in the series that preceded it.

Screamapillar wrote (see)

 It isn't something that's been "hived off into the arena of charitable giving", it's just your skewed view of the process.

"Hived off" means set apart from. Blood donation has been hived off into the area of charitable giving.

Screamapillar wrote (see)

Let's have a look at your idea of payment for body products though shall we? Who will pay? The NHS? If so, they're paying out of the taxation from you and others that they have already received and out of limited funds. Is that your idea of a convoluted sort of refund?

If Womble gives blood, she receives, say, £10 or £15 a time, which is paid for out of general taxation. That is fair on her. It is fair on the rest of us who don't give blood.

Screamapillar wrote (see)

And how would you feel about being denied a hip operation because the money for it has been given to a person (live or dead) who donated a kidney?

l don't understand what you are saying here.

Alternatively, perhaps the person who needs the blood/organs pays. Can you imagine where that would lead - a world where even donated organs go to the people who can bid the most for them? No thank you. 

 

Yes, the person who needs blood/organs pays, or someone else does on his/her behalf (e.g. a charity). Organs going to people who bid the most for them is fine by me. Far better than donors not being paid anything at all, and good useful human meat going to incinerators every day. There should be a financial market in donor organs. Maybe there wouldn't even be a shortage then. Maybe the price would be quite low, because the material would be far more plentiful than it is now, and lives would be saved because organs were available rather than not available.

Screamapillar wrote (see)

When you receive blood it is free at the point of need, as it is if you need an organ donation, as it is for virtually all NHS treatment. The whole reason people don't get paid is to make the system fair and equal. 

The system isn't "fair and equal". The good natures of some people are put upon to give blood, while others are allowed to freeload. That isn't fair.

Screamapillar wrote (see)

But then I'm not you and, for that, I'm thankful.

 

Nice to see your true nature peeping through here.

At risk of some free-loading good-for-nothing taking advantage of my community spirit and having a horrendous car accident or something, I've just booked a blood donation.  (After the marathon!)  Thanks for the reminder Colin. 

You're very welcome.

He probably will.