Dr. Machan sent the following letter to the New York Times yesterday and is reprinted here with his kind permission.

Dear Editor:

In his Op Ed column today Paul Krugman chides the likes of Rep. Ron Paul for their lack of compassion in their refusal to back government administered funding of health care, etc.  Yet consider: a few days ago the news showed about a dozen people pitching in to lift an automobile so a motorcyclist who was pinned under it could be pulled out and saved.

Professor Krugman, we may assume, would have considered it far more compassionate had they pulled out their guns at the scene of the accident and forced others to pull out the motorcyclist from under the car.

That is the crux of the difference between Professor Krugman's conception of compassion and Rep Ron Paul's.

Tibor R. Machan*

*Machan is the author of Generosity, Virtue of Civil Society (1998).