| Rath said: As far as humanitarian efforts go you really have no earned any good will, there are reasons why the targets are set as percentage of GNI rather than as absolute terms. In fact if anything there would be ill-will from other western nations who could rightfully view you as being scrooges on the money. From countries where you have put aid into though there will be good will (and lasting good will at that, see my comment on Africa again). As for the World War thing, I personally don't have much good will towards your efforts there as it was done (at least in WWII, I'm not that knowledgeable on WWI) clearly and entirely in the interests of your own pride and power. It wasn't a valiant effort to save other countries. But in any case, you should be asking Europeans (especially the French really) whether they feel there was ever any good will earned, not a New Zealander. I'm done with this, it's just going to end up being circular. |
We have no earned good will because nobody gives us the credit we're due. I honestly think it is incredibly sad that you, among others, cannot see the tremendous good that is done by the immense amount of effort the US puts forth in foriegn aid. Scoffing and saying "well you're wealthy, you should give more" is a typical liberal/progressive/socialist/and others/etc.. mindset, so I'm not surprised by it. But to have the gaul to say what we do give is worthy of no good will at all, and it in fact should earn us scorn because we don't give as much as you think we should....well that is downright pathetic. To look at the people who give the most, and do the most and say "you haven't earned any credit because we still think you should give more!...even though we give less..." would be comical if it weren't so pretentious and sad.
I'm sorry Rath, but I have no respect for that position whatsoever. I don't feel at all compelled to dull my words in saying that anyone who believes in that kind of ungratefulness should be profoundly ashamed of themselves.
I'd say I'm sorry if that offends you, but given how much your position offends me I wouldn't mean it. Hopefully that won't poison future discussions but I won't back down from saying something I believe that strongly when I feel it needs to be said.
As for the larger point, you never made an attempt to explain why the issues you claim mean we should get no credit on aid and WWI/II don't also apply to this new policy even though the exact same factors exist. If you want to say we get no good will for those factors in the examples then you have to explain why those factors suddenly don't apply to this policy. This is why the conversation went circular, we got cought up on a side issue rather than trying to bring it back to the main issue.
Even so, it's clear you don't want to proceed so I'll leave it at that. I feel I've made a strong argument for my position, and I'll presume you feel the same, if so there isn't much more we can do anyways, is there?
Edit: Also looking at some of your numbers a little closer you're focusing entirely on government aid. If you look at private philanthropy rankings from the Charitable Aid Foundation (a UK charity itself) the US tops the list, only this time in both raw and % of GDP (ie no excuses not to give credit). In the countries they looked at on the % of GDP list the US was at 1.67% followed by the UK at 0.73%. Oh and new zealand was on that list at 0.29%. And you would argue by the logic presented that personal charity is far more worthy of good will than government charity since with governments there is a larger factor of self-interest than there is in private donations.
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| To Each Man, Responsibility |
