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Solutions?
ok, ya know sorry if it is a diatribe to you. My solution is to help people.
My solution is to actually do instead of say.
Sounds like a great start, but what should we do and for who? How much? How much are we willing to give up in order for others to eat and sleep and live?
You say that other countries
are full of problems as well...true but we live here and not there. I can't
comment on their problems.
Well, if we are going to be giving aid, then we should be prepared to at least be familiar with their pasts and presents before trying to provide them with what we see as their future.
If I'm self-righteous, so be it...I'd rather be
passionate about something and try to make a difference instead of going
along with something I don't believe in.
Good, but be sure that you are not taking action or thought just so that you can say that I am taking action and thought. Someone running off a cliff is also taking action, and it doesn't matter whether they believe in the cliff or not, they are going squish.
And did I go on about my rights
specifically? No. This country is racist still. That makes me angry.
You are right. We are still a racist country. What do you propose to do about it? Anger is a motivator but not a constructive one.
I
propose we screw war and give food to the hungry, and beds to the homeless.
That's my idea.
To whom? From whom? Just in this country? Or everywhere? What are you prepared to give up to do this? Are you prepared to usher in an era of bureacracy that will ensure "fair" and "equal" treatment to all? Who decides what this means? I think that this sort of solution, though noble, is merely replacing one horror with another. Rather than being oppressed by a dictator, we end up stifled by agencies.
And yeah, it'd be nice if our government could spend as much
money on domestic social programs as it does on the defense budget.
Right on! I am so with you on this.
And while
we can't as you say "be held responsible for the atrocities committed several
hundred years ago" I can point to the fact that many of those atrocities
still carry over today. It's hard to have faith and pride in the dead white
guys we all learned were so great in school when they founded this country on
the explotation of others.
You must remember that dead white guys did not originate the concept of oppression. They just have worked to perfect it and gloss it over. But is there any way to build civilzation without the oppresion of someone?
We can do good things but only if we forgo bombing
and waring. How are we going to drop humanitarian aid to people and be
dropping shells as well? This irony is too much for me to bear.
I'm not sure if it is so much ironic and desparately tragic. The problem with being a humanitarian becomes complicated when one begins to try to make it practical and real. One prime example is accounts by humanitarian worker in Africa, especially the recent wars in Rwanda etc. If they offer help to anyone, then they must help both sides of a conflict because to do otherwise would be favoring a political force. However some combatants, especially in civil/ethnic wars, don't like the fact that their opponents are getting any help at all. So in this case, they would prefer to endanger their people's assistance to ensure that their opponents lose help too. To begin to really look at how such things work will truly twist the mind.
This is not to say that it isn't worth trying, but if our history has shown anything it is that throwing money and force at something doesn't make it better in the long run.
Steve Swanson