Only elitists read books anymore.
Real men believe what blogs and talk radio tell them to believe.
I get your point that the government sucks at disaster planning, that it creates bureaucracies, perverse incentives and so forth...but your timing couldn't possibly be any worse, SnC.
The effort to alleviate such massive and acute human suffering doesn't really fit in this conversation. Focusing on the inefficiencies and perversities of aid misses the point right now. The point is millions of Haitians literally fighting for their lives b/c of a natural disaster. Doing nothing isn't really an option, IMO.
I'm not sure why I should be concerned about spending, say, $20 billion to help the people of Haiti. I'm sure most Americans don't either.
There's a time and place for the conversation SnC wants to have about the unintended consequences of aid. Using a natural disaster like this RIGHT NOW to highlight them is chicken IMO.
I guess the point of the blurb from Free to Choose was a backhanded repudiation of compassion for human misery as political opportunism and the desire to help as arrogant meddling in someone else's life.
As a criticism of the New Deal and Great Society bureaucracies it makes some sense.
As a criticism of aid in the acute phase of disaster response it is just cold-hearted and wrong-headed.
He's just detached from reality and has no clue what kind of catastrophe this is.
Free to Choose goes back on the shelf when it comes to deciding which country to invade next, or the MIC in general.
No .
This.Conservatives need to learn how to pick their battles. Breaking off a few billion to help the people of the poorest country in the Western hemisphere after a natural disaster of epic proportions is not such a battle.
I'll have to peruse my copy tonight to see if Friedman even touched on it. Probably in the general 'proper role of government is to provide a legal framework and national defense' sense. I don't recall him as ever really mounting a critique of the MIC. Perhaps if he was a politician he'd end up as Ron Paul...regarded as a good fellow on domestic affairs and a 'dangerous pinko commie liberal isolationist loon' on everything else.
No head. You are detached. You want other people's money to go help through other people's blood, sweat and tears. If you two want to help so much- go. The airlines will give you a good deal. Then after months of your family not seeing you, I might consider you attached to the situation. Furthermore don't ask others to do that, especially if they are already scheduled on a deployment. You have no idea what I think because, in your attempt to discredit me and villify me, you have assumed everything. I think everything, as far as helping, is good( don't make your contribution minimum WH ) but don't think that to be humane you have to be lock step with a re ed innefficient operating procedure. There should be nothing wrong with asking questions. Some more advice is to not assume I am for or against anything, because Rush L. was taken out of context. Then to attack me and when I ask for an instance I get none but something about rush is classless (like brett favre).
BTW the 82nd unit over there just got back from a deployment.
Friedman was for the iraq war.
Reporter:What is the biggest risk to the world economy: America's deficits? Energy insecurity? Environment? Terrorism? None of the above?
Milton Friedman: Islamofascism, with terrorism as its weapon.
now he's endorsing communism to prove his point! but rush, i thought socialism is a doomed economic policy! how is it china does not fit into this?
why stop there rush? why not tell us who put baby doc in power and why? who helped create a ruthless dictatorship?And, of course, the givers are us. Our back pockets are looted by our own government, and the money is redistributed -- and as Mr. Brooks is saying here, there is no upside to this. "In the recent anthology 'What Works in Development?,' a group of economists try to sort out what we've learned. The picture is grim. There are no policy levers that consistently correlate to increased growth. There is nearly zero correlation between how a developing economy does one decade and how it does the next. There is no consistently proven way to reduce corruption. Even improving governing ins utions doesn't seem to produce the expected results. ... . More than 10,000 organizations perform missions of this sort in Haiti. ...
"The second hard truth is that micro-aid is vital but insufficient. Given the failures of macrodevelopment, aid organizations often focus on microprojects. So we have "more than 10,000 organizations perform[ing] missions of this sort in Haiti." It's exactly what I said: We've got charities on the ground 24/7, 365 in Haiti. By some estimates, Haiti has more nongovernmental organizations per capita than any other place on earth. They are doing the Lord's work, especially these days, but even a blizzard of these efforts does not seem to add up to comprehensive change. Third, it is time to put the thorny issue of culture at the center of efforts to tackle global poverty. Why is Haiti so poor? Well, it has a history of oppression, slavery and colonialism." Yeeeees, all the things we pointed out this week: Dictatorships! "But so does Barbados, and Barbados is doing pretty well.
the countries have been on separate economic paths since the island was divided into 2 separate colonies after the treaty of ryswick. the french took one colony and turned into a sugar producing slave colony that gave rise to a massive mulatto population in the process. the spanish in turn made the other colony a subsistent agronomy and the white population stayed the dominant majority (and we know where rush is going here as well don't we? this smacks of the midwest floods/katrina analogy he made a few years ago. again the whites fare better than blacks theory)."Haiti has endured ruthless dictators, corruption and foreign invasions. But so has the Dominican Republic, and the D.R. is in much better shape. Haiti and the Dominican Republic share the same island and the same basic environment, yet the border between the two societies offers one of the starkest contrasts on earth — with trees and progress on one side, and deforestation and poverty and early death on the other. "As Lawrence E. Harrison explained in his book 'The Central Liberal Truth,' Haiti, like most of the world's poorest nations, suffers from a complex web of progress-resistant cultural influences. There is the influence of the voodoo religion, which spreads the message that life is capricious and planning futile. There are high levels of social mistrust. Responsibility is often not internalized."
the domincans and haitians are cultural opposites and there is a deep division between the two nations. presidents such as trujillo and balaguer have committed mass atrocities against the blacks of haiti. when limbaugh mentions the dictators of the domincan republic he fails to mention that they were often the most brutal to haitians!
rush is being more racist here than ever. labeling a mostly catholic nation as voodoo practictioners who can fare no better than the predominantly european based neighboring nation.
and this is the greatest irony of all. rush tells us that obama is going to turn this into a political opportunity in the midst of his own attack against government funded aid. he is using this as an oppurtunity to remind us that there should just be charity and nothing else. our governments have no business starting aid programs that just perpetuate poverty."Child-rearing practices often involve neglect in the early years and harsh retribution when kids hit 9 or 10. ... In this country, we first tried to tackle poverty by throwing money at it, just as we did abroad. Then we tried microcommunity efforts, just as we did abroad. But the programs that really work involve intrusive paternalism. These programs, like the Harlem Children's Zone and the No Excuses schools, are led by people who figure they don't understand all the factors that have contributed to poverty, but they don't care. They are going to replace parts of the local culture with a highly demanding, highly intensive culture of achievement -- involving everything from new child-rearing practices to stricter schools to better job performance," and none and none of these programs are sponsored by government and certainly not by liberal government.
the fact that in this most desperate time, where the most crucial acts are search and rescues, medical treatment, supplying food and water, getting shelter, getting order reestablished he acts as if it is preposterous to do this through federal aid. as if it is not our nation's duty.
one has to wonder what kind of triage he would run in an ER. ("okay. all republicans with minor lacerations to ER stat!" "put any questionable minority with a spinal cord injury in the hall!" )
it is a truly machiavellan speech that sends a chill up my spine.
That's right. I think it was his wife who was opposed to the war.
I guess this bothers you re: the earthquake in Haiti. It doesn't bother me.
Your approval of my opinion means nothing to me. We all do what we can.
WTF are you talking about?
There isn't. You just don't like the responses you're getting.
What he said was asinine, regardless. Your own take is even worse IMO.
WH: what bothers me is someone thinking the giving of money makes him humane when it doesn't hurt him in the least. It might as well be pretend money. Also agreeing with someone for using someone elses money doesn't make you compassionate either. Your opinion means nothing. My own take is worse. Really? Which part exactly? You don't even know my opinion.
How are we even equating this to 'foreign aid' (as in the long-term programmatic variety)?
Again, of all the things to critique, why this? We just saw a GOP candidate win a US Senate seat in MA on a campaign against mammoth government and someone wants to about this?
Further, Limbaugh doesn't give a about the GOP, or "conservatism" in general. He just looks to make a $, or 20 million of them a year, getting people to pay attention to him. If the GOP wins, it's because of him. If it loses, it's because it didn't do what he said. Fairly obvious formula.
I will admit that I am curious as to how he spins the win of a pro-choice RINO as his doing. Not enough to listen to him though.
So, just to be clear for everyone:
Haitian family: We need water, as we have not had any in a week.
SnC: Sorry, I can't give you water, because my government paid $3 a bottle for it and I disagree with that. I want more a efficient government. So until then, I'm going to ridicule effort to help you and your country full of starving people who are dying of thirst and don't have a single possession to their name.
And, oh yes, keep calling me names, SnC. It really strengthens the context of your argument. But really, I'm done with you. I have no interest in trying to convince an absolute fool of the idiocy of their position. I'd make better progress bashing my head into a concrete wall. As an added bonus, the wall would likely provide better conversation. You would never admit to being wrong about something you care about, so I'm done.
Last edited by Cry Havoc; 01-20-2010 at 06:02 PM.
Monopoly money would be, ah, far less effective.
Haiti needs help. The state of mind prompting the assistance is neither here nor there.
Sure. So what? Haiti needs our help.
Resent direct US aid all you want, SnC. It's politically appropriate and it's arguably the humane thing to do. That you're fighting it so hard reveals more about you than it does the help itself. I frankly don't care if the people giving it are hypocrites. The plight of Haiti puts all that in the shade.
Your obvious resentment of direct US aid to the poorest country in the New World, after the worst earthquake there in over 200 years.
Last edited by Winehole23; 01-20-2010 at 06:18 PM.
Whatever winehole. You attack me, and have no actual quote of what i said that you think is so wrong. Everything that you have assumed about my view is wrong.
I doubt you have failed to express your own opinion accurately, or that I have misrepresented it, but for the record, would you care to state it for all of us?
Set the record straight SnC.
Exactly. You assumed everything. YOu went straight to slandering me and demonizing. For what exactly?
FWIW: your record.
I criticized you and what you said. Big boys can take it. You just whine. Thanks for clearing that up.
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