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| 5/16 |
| 2005/8/31-9/2 [Politics/Domestic/California, Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:39392 Activity:high |
8/31 Poll: Did you / are you going to donate more/same/less for the Katrina
relief effort than what you donated for the South Asia Tsunami relief
effort?
More :
Same : .
Less : .
Not decided yet : .
0 : .
0 in both cases : ..
\_ I need to defend my reasoning. Donating after a disaster is like
volunteering to serve food to starving people during Thanksgiving.
While the gesture is noble, people need food the other 364 days.
Just because you are nice one day, doesn't mean these people
will have the means to survive later on. It is thus a shallow
gesture, and doesn't solve the root of the problem. I don't
believe in a one-time effort. I believe in a long term, consist
solution to the root of the problem, like educating people to
improve their lives, saving up national treasury for rainy days,
or better yet, make the drastic move to turn US more like Denmark
where there are no poor people to kill/starve themselves.
Unfortunately the US government will never do anything. It has
a history of irresponsively externalizing problems to someone or
somewhere else. The US has this mentality that if something goes
wrong with your life, it is always your fault. Well, that is just
heartless, selfish, and wrong. Your problem is my problem, and
my problem is your problem.
my problem is your problem. Let's help each other out. Help
me turn the profit oriented, corporate-run America into a nation
that has more compassion for its people. Join my revolution
and no one will ever have to worry trivial things like donations.
Help me a little and everyone will be greatly rewarded. !che
\_ This is stupid for many reasons, here are some:
1. The U.S. government has already allocated billions to
save New Orleans. Since we all pay taxes, and since
California gets only about 80 cents on the dollar for
taxes sent to D.C., we are all already footing the bill.
2. Americans are amongst the highest, if not the highest,
donors in the world. On a per capita basis, Americans will
donate more to more causes than any other society on the
face of the planet.
3. America is exceedingly diverse. Denmark isn't. You can't
compare a dinky country like Denmark to the U.S. In fact,
you can't really compare any country to the U.S. The U.S.
is unique in terms of composition of its populace and its
place in geopolitics.
4. The U.S. is also the most generous internationally. It
gives out more aid to the world than any other country.
\_ USA actually ranks close to last in aid on a per-capita basis.
http://harpers.org/ExcerptTheChristianParadox.html
\_ God, I can just feel my brain cells dying. -- ilyas
\_ !che is pretty anti libertarian. Sorry ilyas, I'll be happy
to see self-absorbed people like you die.
\_ Almost everybody is self-absorbed including, most assuredly,
yourself. The difference between you and me, is that I am
willing to 'live and let live.' You, on the other hand,
wish me dead. Now lecture me some more about my immorality.
-- ilyas
\_ Almost everybody is self-absorbed including, most
assuredly, yourself. The difference between you and me,
is that I am willing to 'live and let live.' You, on
the other hand, wish me dead. Now lecture me some more
about my immorality. -- ilyas
\_ "Almost everyone is self absorbed" is a blatant
generalization, and almost certainly false.
\_ And calling me self-absorbed without knowing anything
about my life is what? You make me laugh. -- ilyas
\_ I wasn't the person that wants you to die. I
want you to live! The motd would be a less
entertaining place without you, ilyas. -pp
\_ Can you please explain why there are so many people
out there volunteering for nothing in return?
\_ Because it makes them feel good. "But that's not
what self-absorbed usually means!" you ll cry.
My response: "how did the pp know I was self-absorbed
in that sense?" -- ilyas
\_ not the pp but I wish you were dead because you can't
fucking conform to 80 columns. asshole.
\_ You make me proud to call myself a nerd.
\_ I believe in helping people in both cases dumbass.
\- "live and let live" when actually "live and 'there is no
and'" is just sloganeering. the point is that some people
are not "and living" ... without help, the will have a
signifiant probability of dying and almost no chance to
improve their lot in life [nozick's idea of "life chances"].
i believe most of the poverty in this country is not, in
jeffrey sachs poignant expression, "the poverty that kills".
"live and let live" in the global context [as opposed to
say discussions about say social agenda in the us ... drug
legalization, assmaster marriage etc] is like saying "i
believe in equality ... i am happy not giving medicine to
the sick *and* the well". see e.g. A. K. Sen "equallity of
what" essay/sppech.
what" essay/speech. maybe you can change you slogan to
"live and whatever".
\_ Partha you don't strike me as particularly dumb, but when
it comes to libertarian stuff it's like most of your brain
just shuts off. 'Live and let live' is about applications
of state power, not a statement about how one ought to live
one's life morally. -- ilyas
\_ It warms the cockles of my heart to know that somewhere
a taxpayer is being forced at gunpoint to pay for
ilyas to write these sentences for us all to see.
\_ See, Eli, you don't understand selfish behavior.
The libertarian answer to a non-libertarian society
is to game it for all it's worth while pointing
and laughing. -- ilyas
\- i dont think that is true. i just dont fall for the
artificial boundaries libertarians of moderate
sophistication draw. first of all, a lot of these
people will change their tune when they need the help
[orange county bail out] and there really diffcult
problems of "too big to fail" [what is the liberaltarian
answer to LTCM?]. this thread began with the idea of
resource allocation not political liberty, so i think
my continuing to think in that mode is not unreasonable.
i'm actually fairly libertarian when it comes to
people playing on a level playing field except
one has to distinguish between "if i were king"
and "what do we do now" scenarios that take the
the status quo as a given [like you can be opposed
to the iraq war yet feel we cant leave now].
it may be an interesting academic discussion whether
something like federal deposit insurance is a good
or bad thing from a libertarian perspective, but i
think the libertaian perspective has little to say
about what to do about the hundreds of thousands of
people dying of malaria. i dont really care if you
want to throw terms like "state power" around ...
when discussing charity, those are the types of
questions that concerns me, not cancer research
or school vouchers etc. anyway, i was not making
abscract ethical statements like "do not lie" but
my conception of "distributive justice".
\_ Artificial boundaries my ass. Do you fall for
artificial boundaries between moderate socialists
and communists? Why are libertarians so different
all of a sudden? If voluntary charity concerns you,
libertarians have nothing to say about it (not being
moral philosophers). Any other kind of charity falls
under the rubric of 'state power.' -- ilyas
\- i am not defending socialism, communism, anachists
trostskiites, marxists, democrats xtian fruitcakes
randroids, bolshvicks, mamuluks, baski bazouks or
any other group in particular. there are a couple
smart people i list [including the leading light
of smart libertarians, nozick]. i am criticizing
libertairians here because they are the "live
and let live" party. if you want to have a thread
on environmental legislation ot affirmative
action or regulation of barbers or hollywood's
role in diverting $ to pet medical projects
i would probably attack some non-libertarian
group. i have said before a lot of liberals
operate with the assumetion "poor people are
stupid" and get defensive when you call them on
it. i think they shoudl acknowledge that as an
operating assumeption but they cant have it both
ways. libertarianism may have more theoretical
parsimony but has some big empirical problems.
for example if state A > B it not not necessarily
true that C "near" A is better than A. see e.g.
Cancun Fuck You. for the record, i think
televanglists are worse than libertarians.
BTW, are you controled in part by Sander Greenland
in addition to Judah Pearl? --psb
\_ While I am sure you have some choice words to
say about certain Christians (perhaps on wall)
all I see from you on the motd is libertarian
bashing. Libertarians come across as your
favorite political punching bag for some reason,
which I find odd because they, as a group, are
responsible for none of the things you find
annoying (parasite CEOs, etc). In fact, as a
party they are responsible for next to nothing,
good or ill. Why do you care suddenly about
my Sith Lords? I sat in on Greenland's class,
and found him annoying. I couldn't exactly
figure out why. It's 'Judea' btw. -- ilyas
\- when i go to parties with communists in
berkeley, then i attack them. i didnt
realize i had to give equal time to who i
"bash" on the wall/motd. maybe you can
search the wall logs/kchang logs for my
comments on ALGOR and BILLARY. it's not
my fault hillary is no longer public enemy
number one. did sander show you his large
telescope?
\_ You know, if he offered to show me his
large telescope, I don't think I would
have taken him up on it. Do you collect
smart people you know like trophies?
You know, collecting things is the
economic prism through which a
'merchant soul' (Plato) views acquisition
of knowledge. -- ilyas
\- i know ander via the person who was
\- i met sander via the person who was
\- i know sander via the person who was
hiding in the closet in a previous
motd post. i think his house
used to be owned by a sex cult or some
\- i met sander via the chick who was
hidining in the closet in a previous
motd post/wall. i think his house
use to be owned by a sex cult or some
thing like that. that is where he
keeps his large telescope. he also
has a large skaeboard, which i thought
was sort of pecular. hey ididnt know
according to JP terry speed was
involved in the OJ trial.
libertarians have nothing to say about it. Any
other kind of charity falls under the rubrik of
'state power.' -- ilyas
figure out why. -- ilyas
keeps his large telescope.
involved in the OF trial. |
| 5/16 |
|
| harpers.org/ExcerptTheChristianParadox.html Sources Only 40 percent of Americans can name more than four of the Ten Commandme nts, and a scant half can cite any of the four authors of the Gospels. This failure to recal l the specifics of our Christian heritage may be further evidence of our nations educational decline, but it probably doesnt matter all that m uch in spiritual or political terms. Here is a statistic that does matte r: Three quarters of Americans believe the Bible teaches that God helps those who help themselves. That is, three out of four Americans believ e that this uber-American idea, a notion at the core of our current indi vidualist politics and culture, which was in fact uttered by Ben Frankli n, actually appears in Holy Scripture. The thing is, not only is Frankli ns wisdom not biblical; Few ideas could be furth er from the gospel message, with its radical summons to love of neighbor . On this essential matter, most Americansmost American Christiansare simply wrong, as if 75 percent of American scientists believed that Newt on proved gravity causes apples to fly up. When we say we are a Christian nationand, overwhelmingly, we doit means something. People w ho go to church absorb lessons there and make real decisions based on th ose lessons; America is simultaneously the most professedl y Christian of the developed nations and the least Christian in its beha vior. That paradoxmore important, perhaps, than the much touted ability of French women to stay thin on a diet of chocolate and cheeseillumina tes the hollow at the core of our boastful, careening culture. Depe nding on which poll you look at and how the question is asked, somewhere around 85 percent of us call ourselves Christian. It is true that a smaller number of Ameri cansabout 75 percentclaim they actually pray to God on a daily basis, and only 33 percent say they manage to get to church every week. Still, even if that 85 percent overstates actual practice, it clearly represent s aspiration. In fact, there is nothing else that unites more than four fifths of America. Every other statistic one can cite about American beh avior is essentially also a measure of the behavior of professed Christi ans. Thats what America is: a place saturated in Christian identity. This is not a matter of angels dancing on the heads of pins. Christ was pretty specific about what he had in mind for his fo llowers. What if we chose some simple criterionsay, giving aid to the p oorest peopleas a reasonable proxy for Christian behavior? After all, i n the days before his crucifixion, when Jesus summed up his message for his disciples, he said the way you could tell the righteous from the dam ned was by whether theyd fed the hungry, slaked the thirsty, clothed th e naked, welcomed the stranger, and visited the prisoner. In 2004, as a share of our economy, we ranked second to last, after Italy , among developed countries in government foreign aid. Per capita we eac h provide fifteen cents a day in official development assistance to poor countries. And its not because we were giving to private charities for relief work instead. Such funding increases our average daily donation by just six pennies, to twenty-one cents. Its also not because American s were too busy taking care of their own; nearly 18 percent of American children lived in poverty (compared with, say, 8 percent in Sweden). In fact, by pretty much any measure of caring for the least among us you wa nt to proposechildhood nutrition, infant mortality, access to preschool we come in nearly last among the rich nations, and often by a wide marg in. The point is not just that (as everyone already knows) the American nation trails badly in all these categories; its that the overwhelmingl y Christian American nation trails badly in all these categories, catego ries to which Jesus paid particular attention. And its not as if the nu mbers are getting better: the US Department of Agriculture reported la st year that the number of households that were food insecure with hung er had climbed more than 26 percent between 1999 and 2003. This Christian nation also tends to make personal, as opposed to politica l, choices that the Bible would seem to frown upon. Despite the Sixth Co mmandment, we are, of course, the most violent rich nation on earth, wit h a murder rate four or five times that of our European peers. We have p rison populations greater by a factor of six or seven than other rich na tions (which at least should give us plenty of opportunity for visiting the prisoners). Having been told to turn the other cheek, were the only Western democracy left that executes its citizens, mostly in those stat es where Christianity is theoretically strongest. Despite Jesus strong declarations against divorce, our marriages break up at a ratejust over halfthat compares poorly with the European Unions average of about fo ur in ten. That average may be held down by the fact that Europeans marr y less frequently, and by countries, like Italy, where divorce is diffic ult; still, compare our success with, say, that of the godless Dutch, wh ose divorce rate is just over 37 percent. Personal self-disciplinelike, say, keeping your we ight under control? About the Author Bill McKibben, a scholar-in-residence at Middlebury College, is the autho r of many books, including The End of Nature and Wandering Home: A Long Walk Across Americas Most Hopeful Landscape. |