Economic Issues - Foreign aid

[ShapeShifter]

Based on the world's smallest political quiz @

http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz.html

[dunn]

no

[Bleeding heart conservative, HTMLdon]

NO

[PBrunsel]

YES!

[Sibboleth]

NO

[PBrunsel]

How do you indent like that?

[Sibboleth]

[] with a b inside, then after the word [] with /b inside

[dunn]

like that

no[/no]
no[/no]

[The Duke]

No.  We need to send military aid to countries like Israel.  Foreign aid can also be a useful tool in negotiations with other countries (it helped get the accord between Israel and Egypt).

[PBrunsel]

Thanks for telling me how.

[angus]

Yes.

Just say no to publicly financed imperialism!

[© Tweed the Younger]

Yes

[TexasGurl]

no

[© Tweed the Younger]

It looks like this was one of my 'conservative' answers.

[Michael Z]

NO. We have a duty to poorer countries.

Besides, foreign aid means less poverty in third world countries, meaning less breeding grounds for terrorism.

[Dave from Michigan]

NO

[angus]

NO. We have a duty to poorer countries.

Spoken like a true imperialist.  Let's hope that's not the mainstream view.

[Michael Z]

NO. We have a duty to poorer countries.

Spoken like a true imperialist.  Let's hope that's not the mainstream view.

Why's that imperialistic? I'm suggesting we help out poorer countries and ensure their citizens can enjoy a decent standard of living. I'm not saying we should invade them or enforce our beliefs on them...

But then I'm one of those 'one human race'-people, so if anything's it's more idealistic than imperialistic.

[© Tweed the Younger]

My stance is, with a 500B defecit and a 7T national debt, we can't be bothering with aid to other countries.  america first.

[Dave from Michigan]

My stance is, with a 500B defecit and a 7T national debt, we can't be bothering with aid to other countries.  america first.

the U.S. should come first

[© Tweed the Younger]

My stance is, with a 500B defecit and a 7T national debt, we can't be bothering with aid to other countries.  america first.

the U.S. should come first

thhat's what I said.  america first.

[opebo]

Foreign aid is a good way of controlling lesser countries.  It is one of our 'carrots', which we need as much as the sticks.  Lets keep it.

[Dave from Michigan]

My stance is, with a 500B defecit and a 7T national debt, we can't be bothering with aid to other countries.  america first.

thats a very good point we can't afford it

[angus]

NO. We have a duty to poorer countries.

Spoken like a true imperialist.  Let's hope that's not the mainstream view.

Why's that imperialistic? I'm suggesting we help out poorer countries and ensure their citizens can enjoy a decent standard of living. I'm not saying we should invade them or enforce our beliefs on them...

But then I'm one of those 'one human race'-people, so if anything's it's more idealistic than imperialistic.

The bolsheviks and nazis were very idealistic.  But idealism and imperialism are not mutually orthogonal concepts, by any means.  Invasion doesn't have to involve armies, it can involve technology, food, people, ideas, etc.  At least you choose the adjective 'poorer' rather than lesser'  I'll give you credit for being less ethnocentric than opebo.

[Michael Z]

NO. We have a duty to poorer countries.

Spoken like a true imperialist.  Let's hope that's not the mainstream view.

Why's that imperialistic? I'm suggesting we help out poorer countries and ensure their citizens can enjoy a decent standard of living. I'm not saying we should invade them or enforce our beliefs on them...

But then I'm one of those 'one human race'-people, so if anything's it's more idealistic than imperialistic.

The bolsheviks and nazis were very idealistic.  But idealism and imperialism are not mutually orthogonal concepts, by any means.  Invasion doesn't have to involve armies, it can involve technology, food, people, ideas, etc.  At least you choose the adjective 'poorer' rather than lesser'  I'll give you credit for being less ethnocentric than opebo.

I'm not entirely sure what you're implying with the first sentence, but I personally find the wealth gap which exists between the West and the third world to be almost perverse. (In that view, I actually find that Marx's model of the superstructure is not defunct, not by a long shot. It's simply the case that it applies no longer to individual countries or societies, but the entire world.) Besides, it cannot be a coincidence that aforementioned wealth gap is wider than ever and we are also witnessing the rise of religious extremism and groups like al-Qaeda. Redressing this imbalance, or at least aiming to redress it, would go a long to way to solve many of the world's problems, at least in my view.

If anything, it's imperialists who want to keep poorer countries poor, since it provides them with a cheap labour force and governments willing to do their bidding at the tune of the almighty dollar (or euro, or pound).