We can’t even help those in our own back yard, how are we going to help the rest of the world? I’m telling you hate starts right here, right next to you. If you can’t show love to the person standing right next to you how will you help people oceans away? Money is not the answer. Until we all feel for our fellow inhabitants of this place nothing will change. Money can be stopped at any of a hundred places on the way to the child starving in Kakuma. Because somebody just like you, living there, feels the same way about his neighbors, nothing will change. He will say, no, I don’t care about my neighbor, he is not worthy, he is not deserving.
And those damn lazy African bastards-they made their choices-let them deal with it!
I think the fact that Canadians pay, on average, a third of what Americans pay in health care does prove that public is cheaper. The onus is on you to prove that total privatization would somehow save money, despite all evidence to the contrary.
I don’t think Americans are more valuable. I’m not even an American - if you could read you would see that I’m a Canadian. I believe that Canadians should help Canadians first for the same reason that I think parents should feed their own kids before they go donate to the soup kitchen. Not because their kids are inherently better or more valuable, but because I think we have a duty to protect our own. If I am sick and need care, you better believe I expect my government to care for me, not someone elses.
It doesn’t matter how much you support it, it won’t happen if the money isn’t there.
I don’t see how this is a distortion. You don’t think they should be provided health care or education. You do want them locked away. Where is the distortion?
Oh - and also, if you somehow think that Americans don’t live in horrible conditions, you need to open your eyes. It may not look like Kakuma (and why are you so obsessed with Kakuma anyways), but people are starving to death, freezing to death, living in abject squalor right there in your own country. You may not want to believe it, but it’s there.
Why do so many of 2.5"'s responses remind me of a fifth-grader arguing that the solution to world poverty is giving every person in the world a million dollar bill so that they’re all rich?
2.5": if you’re a troll, you’re not a very funny or creative one. If you actually believe everything you wrote in this thread, then you are a very broken person.
In the first place, I doubt there has ever been such a person. We all pay taxes–income taxes, sales taxes, gas taxes. In the extremely unlikely case that there were such a person, I’m sure their parents and perhaps their children have/will paid enough in to justify helping out this one marvel of societal disconnectedness. Even if this hypothetical person beamed down as an infant and managed never to pay a single penny in taxes it’s STILL more cost effective to keep this person healthy if for NO other reason than to prevent them from being a disease vector to other, more productive individuals. Individuals, it’s quite likely, who pay enough in taxes to cover one or more other less advantaged persons. We don’t want the super payers sick and unproductive now, do we?
And yes, people in my country absolutely are more valuable to me than those who are further outside my Monkeysphere, and anyone who claims otherwise is a damned liar. I can absolutely guarantee that no African refugee would voluntarily choose to sacrifice themself to save my life, and this is as it should be. Proximity and affinity SHOULD encourage greater concern and empathy, otherwise we’d have nothing but emotionally isolated retards who profess to care deeply about the plight of refugees they have no empirical evidence even exist while they kick the local homeless person aside on their way to work. Because they’re scary, don’tcha know. :rolleyes: If it helps any, though, you are less valuable to me than the guy down the street I see walk by on a regular basis. I’d save him before I’d save you because I KNOW he exists and I can see he needs me whereas you might actually be a spectacularly inept attempt at a Turing level bot let loose by a fairly bright fifth grader. Even if you were proved to me to be an actual human being I’d probably be willing to allow you to be hit by a bus if for no other reason than you don’t seem to be able to manage a single declarative sentence that isn’t peppered with grammatical, punctuation or typing errors and yet you have inexplicably been allowed to teach the young. I’d say allowing your demise would be a worthwhile investment in the future of American education.
Yeah, it’s their own fault for not taking advantage of The Secret and its Law of Attraction Woo-Woo.
I still want to know what charities the OP donates to.
Jackmannii, I support you, if you choose to keep your charities private.
I’d bleached him out. Should I thank you for the reminder? I mean puking is good for you, right?
Seriously now, I don’t quite understand the apparent attraction in responding 2 2/1" of whatever. Lame bait that’s all.
Can’t speak for anyone else, but I was rather enjoying the thread as started, got annoyed at the endless hijackings by ThreadShitBot v. 0.2.5 and since it seemed rather tacky to just run in for a driveby invective spray I figured I oughta put something marginally substantive in just to provide the proper framework for the insults. Not that I feel it will be received in any satisfying manner, mind you, but then again I’m pretty self sufficient and merely having said it is enough for me. Sometimes I pour Epsom salts on slugs, too–they don’t mean to piss me off and are just doing what comes naturally but nevertheless it feels good to zap them after they trash my cucumbers.
Then shut the fuck up about the starving children in Africa. And clean up your plate, young man!
I hope you are not confusing me as Official Thread Starter™ with 2 1/2" of Whatever.
What charities I donate to has nothing to do with Paul Krugman’s transgression, unless I missed something vital during the hijacking of the thread.
In contrast, THIS is a pretty good example of debate.
Sorry, I meant to direct it to Two and a Half. I forgot it was you who started the thread.
:smack:
Hey, thanks! Aw, now this thread that was making me all angry is giving me the warm fuzzies.