People who do good are rarely referred to as "Do gooders"

A few thousand people died in the attacks on the World Trade Centre. A few hundered of them were Police, Paramedics and Firefighters who went into the inferno willingly to save lives.

Michael Moore subsequently publishes at least 4 books and releases two movies, making cubic dollars with each venture.

Australian and American soldiers (Way ahead of the UN) land in Aceh, Phuket and Sri Lanka- purifying water, distributing food and providing makeshift shelter.

A French trade union official whinges about debt relief and encourages developing countries to file for bankrupcy.

There's a pretty clear difference. Michael Moore and his ilk are pussies. They rarely get their hands dirty, preferring to bitch from positions of total safety.

Onto the list of do gooders I add people who boycott things. There seems to be a belief out there that a simple checklist is to be followed - a bleeding heart checklist.

Boycott Nike (Buy alternative shoes made under the same conditions)= Check

Boycott Nescafe and Shell (Ditto the above, with different subject matter) = Check

Boycott McDonald's (For reasons other than the synthetic nature of the food) = Check

Of course, in a market economy people can choose to buy or not buy things and their reasons are their own. What gets me is that the people who boycott things believe that it puts them in a position of moral superiority, as if making no real sacrifice and performing no real service to anybody qualifies an individual for such a position.

These people are feeding their conscience, as they consider their conscience to be like an emaciated dog: Barely able to whimper, and silenced by the occasional morsel from the table.

The way I see it, there are three options:

1. Be the kind of bed wetter mentioned above (Michael Moore, Generic Activist)
2. Show no regard for the consequences of your actions; Not measurably worse than option one, but more fun (Donald Rumsfeld, Saddam Hussein)
3. Accept that even the most righteous existence you could possibly live hurts people. Devote energy to something you can actually do something about. (Disaster relief worker, those redneck farm boys who piled into their pick ups and headed for Ground Zero with food and drink for the New York Fire Department)

Real good involves some sort of sacrifice, is not done merely to keep the conscience from biting and is not done with the intent of lording it over others.

Mr Schrempp