“Find Your Own Calcutta” The brutal truth about Dems demanding Elon Musk’s money
Musk builds rockets and Democrats want to tax him to fund their failures.
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I’m old enough to have witnessed the life and actions of Mother Teresa, and how she inspired everyone from Popes and Princesses to see Christ in every human being. A profound but curious, deeply complex retort of hers when people, full of good intentions, would offer to go to India and help her work. “Find your own Calcutta”. The meaning: one need not venture to the other side of the world to do good. One can, in fact must, do it right where he is.
This is a stark difference between true Christian Charity and popular secular humanism. It is easier to do good when the needy are distant. “Remote” would be a better word. Or even “removed”. The untouchables of India. The famine victims in Ethiopia. The starving children in wherever.
Mother was quietly and politely but firmly saying “I know you’re not going to come to India, but I’m not going to call you out publicly, so I will redirect your newfound virtue to a more manageable location.” Or, the axiom, “charity starts at home”.
If you want to run a marathon, buying new sneakers feels like the start of the process, but running a 5k after work IS a start. How many times we have bought the sneakers. I know I have. The sneakers. The rowing machine. The 5 easy steps to a six pack. Breaking a sweat is the hard part.
All of this to talk about… Elon Musk. Yes, the great Elon Musk and the great wealth of Elon Musk, and the amount of good others intend to do with his wealth. Many want to fix the world or heal humanity. “I would to fly to India and comfort the dying!”… if only we could take Elon’s money.
Since SpaceX when public on Friday, June 12th and Elon Musk was confirmed as the world’s first trillionaire, many secular humanists have been keen to find their Calcutta through him. Marxist Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have called for a wealth tax to fight starvation and provide healthcare. Marxist Congressman Ro Khanna wants to confiscate his wealth for education.
All the intentions to do good… remotely.
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There is no virtue in demanding other people spend their money on your cause. It is vacuous. Do not tell me to spend one dollar of my money on your issue. Do not tell Elon to spend $1 billion either. Like those vowing to fly to India to bathe the wounds of leper patients in Mother Teresa’s hospice: there is a much more expedient way to do good and no passport is required.
Democrats in Congress always pledge to do good with our money. Rep. Khanna began his Congressional career in 2017. At the time Elon was worth about $18billion. Over those 10 years, Khanna has seen Congress spend approximately $50 trillion, much of it “do good” on all their pet projects, and yet not metric has improved. Not poverty. Not disease eradication. Not education. Not obesity. Not debt vs. savings.
What did Elon do? For starters, he designed a capsule to rescue boys trapped in a cave in Thailand (remember that?), developed the world’s fastest satellite internet (which I have had for 5 years), built 40-story rockets which do a 180 turn in the air and are caught by giant mechanical chopsticks, developed high-speed tunnels under Las Vegas, put a Neuralink chip in the brains of quadriplegics to give them mobility, and this little car company called Tesla.
Ro, Bernie, Warren have talked and spent. They have promised to do good tomorrow, after another election, if only they had more money. Congress, with a tear in its eye, would save the world if only Mother would invite them to India. But alas… poverty continues, and the world goes unbettered. Damn you, Elon!
I never heard of Jamie Metzel but I saw him tweet something so stupid I had to reply. Despite being a prolific tweeter, I don’t often reply to stupidity as it mirrors the old saying about wrestling a pig: you both end up covered in shit and the pig actually enjoys it, but in the case of Mr. Metzel, I felt compelled to say a few things.
Mr. Metzel’s bio says he’s a “futurist”, ironic considering he attacks a man who is trying to colonize Mars... like putting “marathoner” on my bio because I bought a treadmill a few years ago… but this guy demands Elon put 10% of his wealth into a fund to fight poverty and disease.
Mr. Metzel commands $30,000 in speaking fees. Kudos to him. I love capitalism and would never denigrate someone making a buck. I won’t even question what percentage of his speaking fees is put into a fund to fight global sadness. Elon has done more for humanity than any fund ever could. He has done more than Congress and it’s $50 billion in spending.
Also, I know about these “funds” and how they operate.
Elon was brave enough to run DOGE and eliminate the US Taxpayer portion of them. Sec. Marco Rubio testified under oath that USAID was spending only 10% of its budget on the intended cause. The rest of the taxpayer money was spent on overhead.
There is real need in the world, and to address it you start a fund. It begins with a campaign to “raise awareness”. To do that, the fund hosts a conference someplace attractive enough to get critical mass of qualified people. The fund invites speakers and the press, a production teams to make videos and graphics. The fund hands out SWAG and photos of tragically needy people. And after the conference, a team meeting to discuss the success: number of attendees, press hits, and social media impressions. The fund’s Board puts together a plan for increasing those numbers at the next conference. Site visits. Strategic meetings with partners and stakeholders. Then there’s the banquet, the fundraisers, the charity auctions, the golf tournament. The fund spends a week in Washington, DC and meets with members of the pertinent House and Senate Committees. A week in New York at the U.N. and the diplomacy circuit. Working breakfasts. Power lunches. Symposiums. Numbers. Metrics. Update the website. Social media campaigns. Digital ads. Newsletters. Magazine spreads.
The fund is now “prominent”. On every panel or a distinguished keynote speaker “a critical nonprofit that has dedicated more than blah blah blah millions to blah blah blah” and the audience applauds.
And the fund has never even touched a person.
Poverty? Childhood leukemia? Global Climate Crisis? It matters not. What matters is the desire to board that plane to India, to confiscate all Elon’s wealth, to do good the way I think good should be done. What matters is intentionality. What matters is hope to solve it, fix it, heal it, cure it, feed it, console it.
Do not judge me on my actual accomplishments. Judge me on my hypothetical. “If we taxed 5% of Elon’s wealth, we could pay off every student debt in the nation”.
There is nothing noble about such statements, and if you believe they make you a good person, I remind you about the pavement on the road to hell.
You do not need to go to India to do good. You do not need to take other people’s money to do good. You cannot call for others to do in greater magnitude what you think is of value.
Do your job. Elon is doing his, and obviously quite well. The inability of Congress, of Senators Warren and Sanders, to do their job causes them tremendous anger and envy, and Elon gives them the excuse. Rather than account for the trillions spent on “healthcare” without any actual improvement to healthcare, they blast Elon. It is vacuous.
Find your Calcutta.
And if you are going to blather about what Elon should do, or what you would do, please continue to post it all on X, Elon’s privately owned platform, so I can laugh knowing the lost irony is more real than the contrived magnanimity.
Honor and courage.
Daniel Turner is the founder and executive director of Power The Future, a national nonprofit organization that advocates for American energy jobs. He also runs a sheep and cattle farm in rural Virginia. Contact him at daniel@powerthefuture.com and follow him on Twitter @DanielTurnerPTF
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