Haitian Disaster Shows World Come Together... Late as Always?

[mrstickball]

Zucas said:

mrstickball said:

Because making charities have only good sides requires ruthlessness and things that aren't so shiny and kid-friendly. The problem is that charities are seen as dispensiaries of love, help, and aid - sometimes to their fault. If you only wanted a 'good' side to charity, you would only help people willing to make their life better. Unfortunately, few charities or government leaders have the quads to actually do that. Usually government-run welfare programs force users (or private charities getting government assistance) to aid regardless of question. The problem with that is that those that really need the help, and can use it, do not get enough, and those that do not need the help, get nothing at all.

That is what the problem is - there are quotas and rules to aid that cause it to not uplift the people that it needs to.

So my question to you is - Do you mind destroying the welfare and charity system as we know it and move it to a system that seeks to help those really willing to change their lives? If so, a majority of charity may be removed, and certain people will invariably die. The system would be better for it, but are you willing to allow them to die?

Well my answer to that is once again you are pretending you have exhausted all options when clearly you haven't.  It's a good thing I'm smart enough to know that, otherwise this world would be in an even worse situation.

My solution to this problem, like a solution to most problems, is you attack the source of a problem.  If you are trying to stop an ant infestation you don't simply hunt every single ant down, you find the source (or the queen) and its home nest.  You have to tackle this situation the same way.  Why is charity unaffective?  Or in the question I proposed, why in a world of good people (or for the religious why in a world of an all loving god) does suffering and evil exist?

Well you have to start considering what is the root cause of all this.  Are people simply born into poverty or do create their own poverty?  Are people naturally evil or is evil something they learn?  Or as you said earlier, do you give someone a fish or teach them how to fish?  These are difficult questions obviously which is what I'm trying to get people to discuss. 

In the world we live in, these things aren't so black and white.  For instance when we give out charity to other struggling nations, there is always the chance it actually wont' reach the people (Somalia for instance).  Point is we weren't actually trying to fix the root cause of the issues in Somalia. 

So no I don't accept your question there because you are telling me all options but those have been exhausted when clearly they haven't.  You find something that seeks to fix the actual problem rather than making a sacrifice towards something that won't have fixed it completely.  Now what the root cause is in all of this, well that's the point of this topic.  No one here has even attempted to try and figure out the answer to this question.  Keep beating around the bush of Nazi ideologies or unrealistic expectations, but why not actually take on the question.  What is the root cause? 

 

But of course, if I were to purely answer that last question without pre-existing knowledge of your false dichotomy, I'd say maybe Che Guevera was right.  World is a shithole and the only way to fix it is forceably.  Considering the opposition here just to the idea of a dream world, maybe he was right.

I don't think your reading my responses properly.

There *is* a cause of the problem. I will highlight it for you:

Irresponsibility

If in case you don't know what that is, it is something that people partake of that is gender, race and religion-neutral. It causes a large amount of problems in society.

I already told you, and will say it again: the best answer is to develop sustainable living practices in communities and people. I've said that at least twice, and you still say I am not getting to the root of the problem. That is the root of the problem. As others have said, if you give people - American, Hatian, Black, White, Mexican, European - simple aid such as food and water, you can create a blowback effect. If the people are recieving aid that they are unaccustomed to, they can and will develop a dependency on it. The welfare system in America, prior to reforms in the 90's was a great example - although welfare is a good idea, some people developed a dependency on it that were otherwise fit for work. Likewise, when food aid has been given to some African nations, it has increased birthrates well beyond sustainable practices which results in more death and famine. I'm not saying all such aid is bad, but you can never use it as a permanant solution.

You must:

• Give quick aid when it is absolutely, desperately needed (e.g. Haiti)
• Give sustained aid in terms of education and sustainable practices when accepted by communities and governments (which is rarely the case, unfortunately)
• Ensure responsibility by aid-recipients to utilize aid in ways that will sustain benefits

For example, you can look at countries throughout the last century that were brought up from 3rd world status due to responsible citizens and government. As stated, Korea is a great example. South Africa is getting there. Chile is rising to be a major Latin American figure of governmental responsibility. We need more nations like those. But for those examples, you have Zimbabwe, Argentina, Laos and many others who squandered their gifts through political and cultural corruption.

 

So going back to the core issue, its a lack of responsibility on a lot of peoples' shoulders:

• Irresponsible governments in undeveloped/impoverished countries that are corrupt and power-hungry that steal from the poor and do not re-invest tax money into building infrastructure and education
• Irresponsible governments in developed countries that have corrupt politicians that steal from constituents and give money to others without ensuring the viability of the projects (again, social welfare systems and foreign aid to dictators)
• Irresponsible citizens of underdeveloped/impoverished countries that do not leave the country, or hold their corrupt leaders accountable for their major problems. In America we had corrupt leaders at one time, we drove them (the Brits) into the sea. Even then, many countries revolt only to put another corrupt person in power.
• Irresponsible citizens of developed nations that don't check in on their charities ensuring they are reaching sustainable goals in impoverished countries. Likewise, some are irresponsible and simply do not give of their time/money to help others.