a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment by kleinbl00
kleinbl00  ·  2866 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Articulate, intelligent Presidential candidates with a proven track record?

You're better than that. C'mon, put your back into it.

    The United Nations said that in total $13.34 billion has been earmarked for the crisis through 2020, though two years after the quake, less than half of that amount had actually been released, according to U.N. documents. The U.S. government has allocated $4 billion; $3 billion has already been spent, and the rest is dedicated to longer-term projects.

There are very few people who will point to Haiti as a success story, but fewer who would say that they'd be in better shape with 1/4 of their aid. Because yeah. $3 billion. But yeah. Still only a quarter of the aid distributed to Haiti.

As far as Syria, the argument is that they've gotten little aid, primarily due to the complex and odious factionalism driving the civil war. Besides which, "Arab Muslims" are Wahabi while Syria is a brew of Sunni, Druze and Shia spread across Alawite, Twelver and Ismaili factions. You're making my point, not yours: Syria isn't getting aid because they're praying to Allah wrong but the problems in Syria are getting all sorts of money because they are.





wasoxygen  ·  2865 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Here is a tentative summary of the exchange about Haiti above, my side in italics:

- People spend more on themselves than they give to others.

- No disagreement.

- Charity won't reach everyone because people like Rush Limbaugh won't support the out-group.

- Here is evidence that people gave substantial charity to the out-group.

- That doesn't count because the charity did not completely solve the problems, and because government aid was larger than charity.

Is this a fair summary?

kleinbl00  ·  2865 days ago  ·  link  ·  

No.

Me: The world will be a tyrannical and biased place if aid is determined by the charity of individuals.

You: There was no tyranny in aid to Haiti. Also, look at all the aid people are giving to Syria, and it's not just the Saudis.

Me: Government aid dwarfs private charity in the case of Haiti, therefore your argument is invalid. Also, Syria is an example of aid being withheld for ideological reasons, not where private aid is a success story, except for terrorism, where private aid is showing all the dystopian promise I was pointing out.

wasoxygen  ·  2865 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Okay, thanks for sharing your perspective.

In my reading, concern about neglected out-groups was the primary thrust of your position, but you did not mention it in your summary.

If I am so incapable of grasping your meaning (I was baffled by your sentence that included the phrases "Syria isn't getting aid" and "the problems in Syria are getting all sorts of money") then we can surely spend our time more usefully doing other things.