# No sympathy for those Stupid Hatians! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 13, 2010, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-sympathy-for-those-stupid-hatians/524813 "2010-01-13T18:27:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![armedmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2010, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-sympathy-for-those-stupid-hatians/524813/41 "2010-01-13T20:03:19Z")
> [@Mr.Excellent](#): > > And over those 200 years it endured a series of dictatorships, coups, and low-grade civil wars, an occupation by the United States, a dictatorship combined with a nasty cult of personality, and assorted natural disasters. Seriously - what is it you’re saying? That Haitians, alone among the human race, _enjoy_ being ruled by thugs? That they offended the hurricane gods? What? I’m only saying that it isn’t colonialism. That’s why I don’t want to listen to people blaming Haiti’s problems on “colonialism”, which is what you and several others did. 206 years. It ain’t fucking colonialism. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Excellent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f19dbf/32.png) [@Mr.Excellent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Excellent)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2010, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-sympathy-for-those-stupid-hatians/524813/42 "2010-01-13T20:09:20Z")
> [@A Monkey With a Gun](#): > > I’m only saying that it isn’t colonialism. That’s why I don’t want to listen to people blaming Haiti’s problems on “colonialism”, which is what you and several others did. > > 206 years. It ain’t fucking colonialism. Okay, so what’s your theory? Mine is that the French colonial experience made it very unlikely for the initial post-independence government to be any good, and that successive bad governments dug the country further and further into the hole of poverty and weak (or non-existent) civil institutions. What’s yours? ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2010, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-sympathy-for-those-stupid-hatians/524813/43 "2010-01-13T20:10:09Z")
> [@Palo Verde](#): > > In a thread devoted to the devastating earquake > [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](#): > > Earquake my eye. Wins the thread. My compassion is fatigued out, too. I think it’s a symptom of globalization; we hear all the time about everything bad going on in the world. I can’t care about everyone, or constantly compare my luxurious Canadian lifestyle to desperately poor people, because I’d go crazy. I donate to charities, local and abroad. I do Kiva loans. I volunteer to help local people. I have to call that enough. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2010, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-sympathy-for-those-stupid-hatians/524813/44 "2010-01-13T20:12:31Z")
Regardless of the causes of Haitian problems, how is it relevant to the current situation? Because to me it seems like you’re advocating a position of; “No money for you earthquake victims, your country was already a toilet. Sorry.” But if we care and help it makes an awful situation less awful, provides an objectively better quality of life, for example; “[Oxfam](http://www.ethiopianreview.com/news/11655) has a 100-strong team working in Haiti and links with a large network of community volunteers who can get aid to affected people quickly. Our response will include providing clean water, shelter and sanitation.” All this stuff costs money (and requires empathy despite the state of the country). So I’m really struggling to see the big problem here. ---
**Author:** ![Duke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e8c25b/32.png) [@Duke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2010, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-sympathy-for-those-stupid-hatians/524813/45 "2010-01-13T20:14:39Z")
Pat Robertson has thrown his tiny brain into determining the causes of this disaster, and he has come up with the reason: SATAN. [About six minutes into this video, the crazy begins:](http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2010/January/Powerful-Quake-Hits-Impoverished-Haiti/) > [@](#): > > Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French, you know, Napoleon III and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the Devil. They said we will serve you if you will get us free from the French. True story. And so the Devil said “OK, its a deal,” and they kicked the French out, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free. > > But ever since they have been cursed by one thing after the other, desperately poor. That island of Hispaniola is one island cut down the middle - on one side is Haiti, on the other side is the Dominican Republic. The Dominican Republic is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, etc. and Haiti is in desperate poverty. Same island. They need to have, and we need to pray for them a great turning to God, and out of this tragedy I’m optimistic something good may come, but right now we’re helping the suffering people and the suffering is unimaginable. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2010, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-sympathy-for-those-stupid-hatians/524813/46 "2010-01-13T20:17:06Z")
Odd that the earthquake also destroyed the cathedral and killed the Archbishop in Port-au-Prince. It never fails to sicken me how these idiots will exploit natural disasters to promote dogma. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2010, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-sympathy-for-those-stupid-hatians/524813/47 "2010-01-13T20:20:39Z")
> [@A Monkey With a Gun](#): > > I’m only saying that it isn’t colonialism. That’s why I don’t want to listen to people blaming Haiti’s problems on “colonialism”, which is what you and several others did. > > 206 years. It ain’t fucking colonialism. The colonialists (traditional & neo-) hated the very idea of a country founded on a slave rebellion & determined that Haiti must not prosper. The rebels were sometimes a very cruel & unsophisticated lot, too. Their Founding Fathers included no highly civilized intellectuals who studied the classics & composed deathless prose about Liberty–while living off slavery. They _were_ the slaves–or, in some cases, free people of color. > [@](#): > > In July 1825, the king of France Charles X sent a fleet of fourteen vessels and troops to reconquer the island. To maintain independence, President Boyer agreed to a treaty by which France recognized the independence of the country in exchange for a payment of 150 million francs (the sum was reduced in 1838 to 90 million francs) - an indemnity for profits lost from the slave trade. The French abolitionist Victor Schoelcher wrote “Imposing an indemnity on the victorious slaves was equivalent to making them pay with money that which they had already paid with their blood.” > > A long succession of coups followed the departure of Jean-Pierre Boyer. National authority was disputed by factions of the army, the elite class and the growing commercial class, now made up of numerous immigrants: Germans, Americans, French and English. > > On more than one occasion US, French, German and British forces claimed large sums of money from the vaults of the National Bank of Haiti. > > Expatriates bankrolled and armed opposing groups. In 1888 US Marines supported a military revolt against the government. In 1892 the German government supported suppression of the movement of Anténor Firmin. In 1912 Syrians residing in Haiti participated in a plot in which the presidential palace was destroyed. In January 1914, British, German and United States forces entered Haiti ostensibly to protect their citizens. Fight your ignorance–learn some [history](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiti). ---
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2010, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-sympathy-for-those-stupid-hatians/524813/48 "2010-01-13T20:20:50Z")
> [@A Monkey With a Gun](#): > > No. _Fuck no_. But in Haiti, unfortunately, tragedy is par for the course. Do you lose sleep at night thinking about Darfur? No, you fucking cretin, that isn’t the point. The point is you seem to be assigning blame on current generation “stupid Haitians” for a country that’s been fucked up since the devil was in Underroos. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2010, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-sympathy-for-those-stupid-hatians/524813/49 "2010-01-13T20:29:34Z")
> [@A Monkey With a Gun](#): > > Heh. I forgot about that. Meet the new boss - same as the old boss. And you really think that another revolution will accomplish what that one didn’t? A Communist revolution won’t get rid of corruption. It didn’t in [the Soviet Union](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blat_%28Russia%29), [China](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guanxi), or [Cuba](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociolismo). As far as ending food shortages, Communist governments didn’t do such a good job of that in [the Soviet Union](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor) or [China](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine) or [Cambodia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge#The_Khmer_Rouge_in_power) or [North Korea](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_famine). War, rebellion, and political instability are generally bad, not good, for growing and distributing food. ---
**Author:** ![koufax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/7ea924/32.png) [@koufax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/koufax)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2010, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-sympathy-for-those-stupid-hatians/524813/50 "2010-01-13T20:34:46Z")
> [@Mr.Excellent](#): > > Okay, so what’s your theory? Mine is that the French colonial experience made it very unlikely for the initial post-independence government to be any good, and that successive bad governments dug the country further and further into the hole of poverty and weak (or non-existent) civil institutions. What’s yours? Pat Robertson has the answer. [http://www.breitbart.tv/they-have-been-cursed-pat-robertson-says-haiti-swore-a-pact-to-the-devil/](http://www.breitbart.tv/they-have-been-cursed-pat-robertson-says-haiti-swore-a-pact-to-the-devil/) ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2010, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-sympathy-for-those-stupid-hatians/524813/51 "2010-01-13T20:43:31Z")
> [@Mr.Kobayashi](#): > > Odd that the earthquake also destroyed the cathedral and killed the Archbishop in Port-au-Prince. It never fails to sicken me how these idiots will exploit natural disasters to promote dogma. Well presumably that was a Catholic cathedral and archbishop, which doesn’t negate Pat Robertson’s viewpoint at all. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2010, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-sympathy-for-those-stupid-hatians/524813/52 "2010-01-13T20:43:31Z")
> [@A Monkey With a Gun](#): > > **Bricker** , do you honestly think that colonialism is the sole cause of Haiti’s problems? Surely you’re not that stupid. You’d be amazed at how stupid I am. But that’s neither here nor there. Two hundred years is not a long time when you consider that each successive generation builds upon the success and infrastructure established by the previous ones. This is not only physical infrastructure such as roads and sewage systems, but social infrastructure, the basics of good government and social interaction that foster the creation of wealth. So no, I don’t think colonialism is the sole cause of Haiti’s problems, but i think it’s a major one, perhaps THE major one. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2010, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-sympathy-for-those-stupid-hatians/524813/53 "2010-01-13T20:47:31Z")
> [@Duke](#): > > Pat Robertson has thrown his tiny brain into determining the causes of this disaster, and he has come up with the reason: SATAN. > > [About six minutes into this video, the crazy begins:](http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2010/January/Powerful-Quake-Hits-Impoverished-Haiti/) What’s he talking about?! The voodoo?! ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2010, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-sympathy-for-those-stupid-hatians/524813/54 "2010-01-13T20:49:21Z")
> [@villa](#): > > Well presumably that was a Catholic cathedral and archbishop, which doesn’t negate Pat Robertson’s viewpoint at all. Still, you’d think the man upstairs would at least have thrown them a bone before wiping them out. ---
**Author:** ![truthbot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e9bcb4/32.png) [@truthbot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/truthbot)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2010, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-sympathy-for-those-stupid-hatians/524813/55 "2010-01-13T20:50:08Z")
> [@koufax](#): > > Pat Robertson has the answer. > [http://www.breitbart.tv/they-have-been-cursed-pat-robertson-says-haiti-swore-a-pact-to-the-devil/](http://www.breitbart.tv/they-have-been-cursed-pat-robertson-says-haiti-swore-a-pact-to-the-devil/) That Pat Robertson has all the answers, the video would be a real knee-slapper if not for the tragic circumstances. How does an entire nation of people pledge a deal with the Devil? Charlie Daniels already told us the Devil went down to Georgia, not Haiti. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2010, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-sympathy-for-those-stupid-hatians/524813/56 "2010-01-13T20:51:12Z")
> [@Mr.Kobayashi](#): > > Still, you’d think the man upstairs would at least have thrown them a bone before wiping them out. He works in mysterious ways. And by the way, I appreciated the Heroes joke earlier… ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2010, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-sympathy-for-those-stupid-hatians/524813/57 "2010-01-13T20:54:12Z")
> [@joebuck20](#): > > How long do you bet it will take before someone on Fox News lambastes Obama for responding immediately to this but waiting three days to say anything about the underwear bomber? How long do you bet it will take someone on this MB to use this tragedy to take a partisan swipe at FoxNews? I guess not very long… ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2010, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-sympathy-for-those-stupid-hatians/524813/58 "2010-01-13T20:55:17Z")
> [@A Monkey With a Gun](#): > > Let’s not. I have desire to play your masturbatory hypothetical games. I’m not playing a game, I’m trying to genuinely understand where you’re coming from. I’ll ask more directly: Do you think that people who suffered from a natural disaster are less deserving of sympathy if they have done little to improve their economic lot? And if so, why? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2010, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-sympathy-for-those-stupid-hatians/524813/59 "2010-01-13T21:05:44Z")
> [@truthbot](#): > > That Pat Robertson has all the answers, the video would be a real knee-slapper if not for the tragic circumstances. How does an entire nation of people pledge a deal with the Devil? Charlie Daniels already told us the Devil went down to Georgia, not Haiti. Daniels got it wrong. [It was Jamaica.](http://www.stlyrics.com/songs/d/davidallencoe12389/thedevilwenttojamaica508592.html) ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2010, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-sympathy-for-those-stupid-hatians/524813/60 "2010-01-13T21:08:03Z")
Haiti is a disaster waiting to happen. I saw that the presidential palace (built ca. 1920) had collapsed-so even well-constructed buildings were destroyed. God only knows how many were killed in the jerry-built structures that were build from junk and without building codes. You cannot blame the USA occupation (1915-1935)-in that period, practically the ONLY decent roads and buildings were put up. Unfortunately, the country shows no sign of any reforms-the small rich class steals everything. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-sympathy-for-those-stupid-hatians/524813.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-sympathy-for-those-stupid-hatians/524813.md?page=4)