Measuring American compassion

I had predicted that the Left would be quick to blitz the media with dark insinuations that global warming (and by extension American climate policy, i.e. refusal to ratify Kyoto) had made the Indian Ocean tsunami worse. While there has been a smattering of this (such as here), it looks like their current game plan is to slam the U.S. as "stingy" because the government is offering disaster aid measured only in the tens of millions of dollars. Shouldn't the world's richest country be giving much more? (After all, as that eminent philosopher K. Marx said, "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.")

These accusations almost always come without acknowledging the fact that Americans' private, voluntary contributions to disaster relief agencies have been, in the words of The Washington Post's Joel Achenbach, "phenomenal".

I know this has been said many times by many people, but I'll say it again: The Left measures American compassion by how much taxpayer money the government spends, not by how much the American people donate of their own free will. Americans are the most giving people on Earth, and it has really shown in this tragedy.

To those who are criticizing America as "stingy", I'll be as diplomatic as I can: HAH!

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UPDATE: For what it's worth, my family made a cash donation to the Salvation Army's South Asia Disaster Fund.

UPDATE: Much of the assistance the US government is providing comes in forms other than cash. For example, as a December 30 Reuters dispatch notes:

U.S., Japanese and Australian naval ships are steaming toward the disaster area with onboard hospitals and water desalination plants.

Betcha nobody is counting the cost of providing assistance like this when calculating US disaster aid.

UPDATE: The American Red Cross' International Response Fund alone has already received $18 million. Part of this is has been collected through ARC's special donation page at Amazon, where you can see up-to-the-minute figures on how much has been donated via that page; at the time I'm writing this update, the total is over $5 million ($2 million in the last 12 hours alone). [Redacted] those stingy Americans.

UPDATE: Good point from Boortz (Dec. 30 permalink not yet available):

America will once again show its generosity and goodness to the world as this disaster unfolds. Ironically it is the very strength that allows us to help at times like these that will insure the continuation of the animosity against our country. It might be a good time to remember that poll that was taken just prior to the presidential election. A surveyed showed that 58% of the various nationalities polled wanted to see the United States and its role in world affairs weakened. A weakened United States could not respond to this disaster in as meaningful a way. These people will put aside their desires for American weakness until this tragedy is passed. Then it will be back to business as usual.