Posted on 06/22/2005 1:12:35 PM PDT by dead
To be honest, I learned most of my life's lessons from Star Trek and Bugs Bunny...
We do not give because we want to be acknowledged, recognized, appreciated or to change the minds of our enemies. We give because, quite frankly, it is the Christian thing to do. To give without expecting anything in return is an ideal borne of Biblical teaching regarding impoverished peoples, and no nation on Earth has implemented it to the extent that we have.
In what other nation are there soup kitchens in every major city? What other nation has such a great army of volunteers serving its poor and outcast? What other nation has sent hordes of laborers out into the rest of the world to improve the lives of the impoverished? What other nation spends so great a measure of its wealth and produce poruing resources into the lives of people at home and abroad who will never attain the capacity to repay what has been given them?
No nation save America.
We give, my friend, because we have it to give; because someone else has need and we have the capacity to meet the need. We give because it is a noble cause and we are, despite all else, a noble people founded upon great and noble ideals that still resonate within us to this day, and we do not shrink from living up to those ideals.
I'm sure we still have stocks of 1980's era Meals Ready to Eat. I vote for sending that. Chicken ala King was not my favorite.
But why send food. they spent thier money on nuclear weapons to threaten south Korea. We have soldiers there. It does not make sense. But that is government for you.
We have hungry people in the US too...
I vote for dirt.
Nah. If we REALLY wanted to send that kind of message, I know of several large cattle ranches that could readily supply 50,000 metric tonnes of, uh, "soil ammendment".
If we give them food,then they will respond by giving us nukes and bullets. It is all part of a cultural exchange program...really. (sarcasm)
Oxfam pays $1m tsunami aid duty (posted 6/18/05)
6/17/05 BBC Added to 'Tsunami Tyranny' and 'Causes of Poverty in Developing Nations'.
British charity Oxfam has had to pay the Sri Lankan government $1m in import duty for vehicles used in tsunami reconstruction work.
Paperwork had kept the 25 four-wheel drive vehicles idle in the capital, Colombo, for a month. <.> Britain's Daily Telegraph said Sri Lankan customs had charged $5,000 a day while the vehicles were processed. Oxfam was given the choice of handing over the vehicles to the government, re-exporting them or paying the 300% import tax. <.> Some aid workers have expressed anger that reconstruction is being slowed by red tape and inefficiency. What is happening in Sri Lanka is outright theft. The government holds Oxfam's vehicles for a month, charges $5,000 a day, and then says, "well, if you don't want to pay us 1 million dollars, we'll just keep the vehicles!" These are the actions of a mafia, not a government. This, of course, has been a central point I've been trying to make throughout this website. All governments act like mafias, some are just worse than others. The richest countries have smaller governments, with less corruption, the poorest have larger governments with more corruption. This is the difference between rich and poor countries. It is that simple. We should all be thankful that our founders had the wisdom to craft the most limited government ever created in the history of the world.
Why do incumbents have something like a 90% re-election rate here in the United States? Because they shake down businesses in their districts for cash. If you're not buddy buddy with your congressmen, or support his rival, he might try to ruin your business. After all, the congressmen needs money to spend repaying all of his extra generous supporters and it has to come from somewhere. Might as well come from his enemies, or non supporters. Additionally, his next opponent might have trouble challenging him with his support base ruined.
Untangling a Lobbyists Stake in a Casino fleet
5/1/05 Washington Post The dead man was Konstantinos "Gus" Boulis, a volatile 51-year-old self-made millionaire, a Greek immigrant who had started as a dishwasher in Canada and ended up in Florida, where he built an empire of restaurants, hotels and cruise ships used for offshore casino gambling. Boulis's slaying, still unsolved four years later, reverberated all the way to Washington. Months earlier he had sold his fleet of casino ships to a partnership that included Republican superlobbyist Jack Abramoff.
What it looks like happened was that government passed laws and regulations making Boulis's prosperous businesses illegal and then demanded Boulis sell a stake in the business to their cronies in order for it to remain operational. They then ruined his business and he ended up dead in murky circumstances. Government was able to do this because the apathetic people give it the power to pass these sorts of laws and regulations, enabling a mafia to exist within the law.
So, don't think we're all that different from Sri Lanka. If this is what Sri Lanka does to a charity, can you imagine what they would do to a business? If you were an entrepreneur and started up a company in Sri Lanka and created wealth and employment guess what would happen? The thieving government would come in and threaten to steal everything you've created. You'd probably have to pay them heavy bribes in order to prevent this. The government of Sri Lanka causes more deaths, more misery, and more destruction than was caused when the Tsunami hit, yet, no one seems to care about this. People would rather give money, and therefore power, to the government that is responsible for the misery of its people.
Why the West's billions may end up in the Wrong Hands
6/9/05 Times Online Details how the much ballyhooed Blair/Bush debt relief plans for Africa will most likely just prop up the thieves that rule those countries. However, we're in a for a little surprise. Guess who is an advocate for debt relief?:
Anna McDonald, campaigns director for Oxfam, said: “The world's poorest countries need full cancellation of their debts now to pay for the hospitals, the medicines, the schools that will enable them to pull out of poverty in the long term.
Oxfam is just as just as guilty as Sri Lanka because, besides acquiescing to the thievery of it's donors' property in Sri Lanka, they appear to have no clue as to what really defeats poverty! The solution to poverty is not giving government more power to control education, health etc...! How can a charity, whose specialty is, ostensibly, poverty reduction, be so misguided? Perhaps because its donors are misguided, fed all this rot in the media about how Western Governments are to blame for Third World poverty and believe by throwing money at a problem they can assuage their guilt and do some good. Again, just like education reform and welfare reform, money is not the problem. We could give 10 times, 100 times, more aid and money to Africa and Sri Lanka and the people of those countries would, in all probability, suffer MORE, not less!
So, you ask, what can we do to help the people of these desperately poor countries? Well, we have a few options:
1. Do nothing. When the corrupt and thieving governments realize that they must let their citizens create some wealth in order to have a tax base to steal from, then their economies will begin to grow.
2. Donate money to pro-democracy type organizations that work on educating people of impoverished countries and lobby for political reform. These organizations often establish freedom promoting media and occasionally aid revolution.
3. Donate money to religious charities/evangelical groups. Generally these charities operate outside the role of government and take power from government. Churches often illustrate that morality trumps legality. Just because thievery is legal in a country doesn't make it right. In fact, Churches can become quite powerful political movements. In Africa, the thriving Christian communities are playing important roles in challenging government thievery and regulatory tyranny. This is why non state controlled religions are discriminated against or outlawed in most of the corrupt countries of the world.
4. Donate to politicians that 'get it'. Work to elect those that comprehend history, economics, and human nature, and understand, ideologically, the causes and solutions to poverty. A dollar given to the Club For Growth surely does more to make the world a better place than a dollar given to Oxfam. Also, the more donations a politician receives from regular folk, the less he/she will rely on the corrupting special interests (who often advocate government expansion for their benefit).
5. Write letters to the editor, contact your representatives, talk to friends, become more informed yourself. Maybe even start a blog... :)
6. Donate weapons and ammunition to freedom loving people in order to help them overthrow their governments. (Gasp!) What kind of right wing extremist would advocate starting a war in an impoverished country? But is it really that 'extreme'? What do you do if you find a thief breaking into your house? You shoot him before he steals your stuff and attacks you and your family. If you let him go, you are encouraging burglary. Most burglars will continue robbing until they get caught, or are killed. Shoot a burglar and you might be saving the life of a future victim. Now, what if your neighbor is getting his home pillaged on a weekly basis? If you have an extra gun would you not give it to him, or even come to his defense? So why would you not do the same for other poorer and desperate people throughout the world?
The governments of these countries keep their citizens disarmed and are deathly afraid of revolts, often creating external enemies in order to keep the population thinking it needs them for 'protection'. Instead of shipping grain to North Korea (to be distributed by the now empowered Communists killers), why not airdrop arms and weapons? Why not setup a charity that smuggles in weapons from China? When will a charity stand up to the thugs and dictators of the world? When will a charity shout, "Stop the killing, the raping, the stealing, or we will do it for you!"
No, instead, sadly: A spokesman said: "Clearly Oxfam would have preferred not to pay this tax on the vehicles and we did everything we could to have the tax waived. "However the government has turned down our request and the laws of the country dictate that we must now pay the normal import tax." The spokesman said the incident would not affect the way Oxfam worked in Sri Lanka.
'I'm Lost here.'
Welcome to FR Lost.
'North Korea actually has WMD and would use them in a nanosecond.'
I guess we better duck soon. Later troll.
I agree, but don't count on the apathetic taxpayers of this nation to revolt and undertake the 2nd American Revolution.
The typical taxpayer = sheep welcoming the slaughter.
I listed the "failure from the 70's" because Clinton sent him over to negotiate that foolish deal.
Or, the other possiblity is that Bush just plain cares about human life.
Nah...that couldn't be it.
I've said it before so I'll say it again.
If North Korea wants to 'own' South Korea, just tell its people to 'head South and all the benefits you could ever want are waiting'.
(Kind of like what Fox tells the poor Mexicans, 'head North and all the free benefits you could ever want are waiting'.)
They will feed and house you, provide doctors for the kids, schools beyond your wildest expectations, jobs, cash under the table, you name it and it's waiting for you in South Korea. No you don't need papers or passports, just go! They love immigrants, especially ones who look exactly like you. There can never be any profiling or massive arrests, just go.
Instead what do we do? We keep the North Koreans in the Land of the Despair by giving them tons of free food but no doctors or schools, no jobs or free love.
Is this what we call compassion? Love for our neighbor? No this is torture! Keeping the North Koreans in unbearable pain!
LOL - thank you for not printing that failure's name again.
I didn't cross his name out to correct you ... but to make my point regarding the new "brothers." ;*)
Better than sending cash aid - but how do we know this food would ever get to the people? They could claim we poisoned it or something.
I guess it's a good think North Korea isn't on our border.
South Korea got first pick?
Why are we feeding his Army? Are we f*cking nuts?
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