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Major Earthquake in Haiti (7.0)


ReconRat

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No sympathy, sorry. We need to be spending money on our OWN country. :nono:

I dont want to sound cold and heartless but I kinda agree. CNN keeps talking about getting 100mill there to help the homeless and hungry , weve got homeless and hungry here and it seems whenever we send aid to corrupt countries it never gets to the people that need it anyway.

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No sympathy, sorry. We need to be spending money on our OWN country. :nono:

I can certainly agree that we DO need to be spending money to improve conditions in our own country; I am, after all, a liberal.

However, I will also point out that foreign humanitarian aid makes up a pretty ridiculously small part of our federal budget (google for yourself, but the average estimate is like 1-3% of the budget). Compared to some of the things we find to waste money on, I'm really not upset about some small portion of my tax dollars being used in that way.

You can be pragmatic and say that we need to fix things here, and I'd agree, but that needn't preclude having a bit of sympathy for people suffering in one of the poorest countries in our hemisphere.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and Pat Robertson really is a vile fucking pustule. Wasn't he involved in some crooked diamond-mining deal with Charles Taylor in Liberia? Apparently overthrowing French slaveowners is evidence of a pact with the devil, but dealing with crooked Liberian war criminals is perfectly acceptable.

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I'm on board with spending more $$ at home, that's a no-brainer. I also don't have a problem with helping a country and their people when they need it most. The Haitian's that live there didn't invite the poverty and BS they have to deal with on a day to day basis. I'm sure if you asked someone on the street, they would tell you life sucks there.

Helping a country get back on it's feet..hell, just helping people EAT and find shelter is preferable to letting a country and it's people decend into chaos. An unstable country and government will breed radicalism...and there are a few groups who come to mind who thrive in those conditions. I'd rather the US drop some food and fix some buildings now, than dropping bombs later. Yup..it's charity...but considering the state of the world right now, I'd rather spend a little money on good will (assuming we're not hanging OURSELVES out to dry) and hope it pays off....as opposed to sitting back and doing nothing.

How many people who say "Fuck em", would say that if they had family there?

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No sympathy, sorry. We need to be spending money on our OWN country. :nono:

I think you can be sympathetic and still think we should be spending money on our own country.

I look at Haiti, and I see a country that is much older than the US, yet centuries behind us.

I hope this is a wake-up call for Haitians. Your corrupt 'government' doesn't give a shit about you. All these other countries are having to come in and help you instead. Start a fucking revolution and DO something.

yes, it's easy for me to arm-chair QB their revolution from the comfy old US of A, but I'd like to think my balls are big enough to walk the walk, if it becomes necessary.

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I'm on board with spending more $$ at home, that's a no-brainer. I also don't have a problem with helping a country and their people when they need it most. The Haitian's that live there didn't invite the poverty and BS they have to deal with on a day to day basis. I'm sure if you asked someone on the street, they would tell you life sucks there.

Helping a country get back on it's feet..hell, just helping people EAT and find shelter is preferable to letting a country and it's people decend into chaos. An unstable country and government will breed radicalism...and there are a few groups who come to mind who thrive in those conditions. I'd rather the US drop some food and fix some buildings now, than dropping bombs later. Yup..it's charity...but considering the state of the world right now, I'd rather spend a little money on good will (assuming we're not hanging OURSELVES out to dry) and hope it pays off....as opposed to sitting back and doing nothing.

How many people who say "Fuck em", would say that if they had family there?

Agreed. Pragmatic charity= helping people who could feasibly become radical assholes before they become radical assholes. It's hard to motivate people to move against us when they all have vivid memories of American military and civilian personnel digging their family members out of the rubble, providing emergency medical services, and helping them rebuild.

We get to charge in and be the 'good guys', which is good for us, and we also get to do it (relatively speaking) on the cheap. Even a massive aid effort is much cheaper (both in resources and American lives) than a prolonged military operation. May as well take the goodwill where we can earn it.

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We get to charge in and be the 'good guys', which is good for us, and we also get to do it (relatively speaking) on the cheap. Even a massive aid effort is much cheaper (both in resources and American lives) than a prolonged military operation. May as well take the goodwill where we can earn it.

But the government shouldn't be a charity. For anyone; not its own citizens, and definitely not for the citizens of another country.

What do we stand to get in return for our aide? "goodwill" doesn't mean shit in the political arena. Are we going to call upon Haiti to back us up in the UN the next time Korea wants to do some nuclear testing? Are we going to look to Korea and say, "but we gave all that aide to Haiti. clearly we're nice guys - please stop your nuclear testing," and expect that they'll listen?

it's not the government's job to make the USA popular - it's their job to protect us when we're not. I agree that aide costs less than a prolonged war, but why would we fight one on their soil? there's no reason.

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it's not the government's job to make the USA popular - it's their job to protect us when we're not. I agree that aide costs less than a prolonged war, but why would we fight one on their soil? there's no reason.

I won't get into a debate about popularity...mainly because I'm working from home, cooking lunch and doing laundry.

It's not our job to be popular..but it's also not our job to piss off the rest of the world by shoving our policies down their throats. I'm all for protecting our own interests..but doing so without regard to other countries sovereignty only ends up making us 'unpopular' which inevitably breeds war. I don't see how anyone could say it's ok for our government to fuck anyone over they please...because their only responsibility is to protect us when the fruit of that labor comes calling upon us.

I'm not saying we should kiss ass and forsake our own interests. I'm saying that if the government has an obligation to protect us when we aren't popular, there should be an equal obligation to prevent it from getting to that point in the first place...as long as our values and interests aren't compromised.

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Oh yeah, and Pat Robertson really is a vile fucking pustule. Wasn't he involved in some crooked diamond-mining deal with Charles Taylor in Liberia? Apparently overthrowing French slaveowners is evidence of a pact with the devil, but dealing with crooked Liberian war criminals is perfectly acceptable.

Well, apparently it's without as much consequence as having made a pact with the devil.

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I'm on board with spending more $$ at home, that's a no-brainer. I also don't have a problem with helping a country and their people when they need it most. The Haitian's that live there didn't invite the poverty and BS they have to deal with on a day to day basis. I'm sure if you asked someone on the street, they would tell you life sucks there.

Helping a country get back on it's feet..hell, just helping people EAT and find shelter is preferable to letting a country and it's people decend into chaos. An unstable country and government will breed radicalism...and there are a few groups who come to mind who thrive in those conditions. I'd rather the US drop some food and fix some buildings now, than dropping bombs later. Yup..it's charity...but considering the state of the world right now, I'd rather spend a little money on good will (assuming we're not hanging OURSELVES out to dry) and hope it pays off....as opposed to sitting back and doing nothing.

How many people who say "Fuck em", would say that if they had family there?

i think i just shed a tear

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But the government shouldn't be a charity. For anyone; not its own citizens, and definitely not for the citizens of another country.

What do we stand to get in return for our aide? "goodwill" doesn't mean shit in the political arena. Are we going to call upon Haiti to back us up in the UN the next time Korea wants to do some nuclear testing? Are we going to look to Korea and say, "but we gave all that aide to Haiti. clearly we're nice guys - please stop your nuclear testing," and expect that they'll listen?

it's not the government's job to make the USA popular - it's their job to protect us when we're not. I agree that aide costs less than a prolonged war, but why would we fight one on their soil? there's no reason.

+1

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But the government shouldn't be a charity. For anyone; not its own citizens, and definitely not for the citizens of another country.

What do we stand to get in return for our aide? "goodwill" doesn't mean shit in the political arena. Are we going to call upon Haiti to back us up in the UN the next time Korea wants to do some nuclear testing? Are we going to look to Korea and say, "but we gave all that aide to Haiti. clearly we're nice guys - please stop your nuclear testing," and expect that they'll listen?

it's not the government's job to make the USA popular - it's their job to protect us when we're not. I agree that aide costs less than a prolonged war, but why would we fight one on their soil? there's no reason.

Because desperately poor countries are natural breeding grounds for extremism. The leaders of the various terrorist groups around the world may be wealthy and well-educated, but the people who do their bidding generally come from situations of overwhelming poverty/ignorance/overall helplessness.

One of the easiest ways to slow down enemy recruiting in our fight against terrorism is to reduce the number of poor, disaffected people in the poorest countries in the world. Another is to be seen by the people in those countries as someone who helps them.

So far, Haiti isn't a hotbed of anti-American extremism. But it could feasibly happen, under certain circumstances. Therefore, making a fairly small investment to engender general goodwill from the Haitian people is a fairly effective way to help prevent those circumstances from coming to be.

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^^ Thank You. I hadn't figured out how to say that yet.

You speak quite well, and have pointed out the basic truth.

Haiti is rather close to home for us here, and it wouldn't work out well for either side.

We wouldn't tolerate it, and it's way better to do something about it before hand.

And to be doing so in a more humanitarian way, of course.

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i say fuck the rest of the world and lock down the borders. you guys in the city stay in the city, i will stay in gods country with a shotgun a rifle and a 4 wheel drive. life is good.

Okay. Have fun with that. I bet you typed that post on a computer your pappy built with his own two hands from tree bark and rocks, huh? :rolleyes:

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I really dont have a problem with our gov't helping them but where does it stop? $100 mil will end up being more like 400mil. Then the next 3rd world country has a disaster and we help them. Then the next one. Just think that we should start saying no. We are helping countries that hate us. Why? They hate us until they want our freebies. Then when everything is rebuilt, they hate us again.

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