Re: Rhetoric You are missing the point, its due to apathy, greed, selfishness that these people are not being helped..its the old adage..I'm alright jack!!!!!sod you I'm O.K.......however aids does not know boundries....and its coming after you!!
IXL777 First, please read all my posts in this thread again. Second, follow the logic: A) 1) Companies in wealthy countries donate stuff. 2) A few people gain temporary relief. 3) Those companies go broke. 4) Nobody gets any medicine. B) 1) Countries that function give to countries that don't function everything they could possibly want or need. 2) The giving countries go broke. 3) The recieving countries, having been reliant upon the others, fall over and lots of people die. 4) What foreign aid actually gets to those recieving countries is in large part wasted, and the money goes into the pockets of people like Robert Mugabe, because those places don't function. C) 1) You can't afford to give medicine to everyone, so you give it to only one in a thousand people. You feel better for having helped. Good for you. 2) 999 people die. D) 1) The corrupt, stagnant cultures in these terrible disease-affected places are invaded by the United Nations. Their governments are removed. Insane cultural idiosyncracies such as stoning rape victims to death are wiped out; those who try to continue with such things are shot and killed. 2) The world makes a concerted effort to build a decent infrastructure there, including dams, hydroelectric plants, irrigation, farming, railroads, highways, hospitals, schools, and more. 3) Rather than being given a fish or two, these places have now been given fishing rods, and can start progressing. 4) With industry and medical systems in place in those countries, those other 999 out of a thousand people can receive treatment. 5) Those survivors now have the luxury of discussing whether rebuilding their society was good or bad. Why? Because they are alive! Which would you prefer? A, B, C, or D? Which makes sense?
Which would you prefer? A, B, C, or D? Which makes sense? None of them, they are all based on negativism..show me a positive stance and I will show you how the mountain will be climbed! __________________
This is a dumb argument. Why would you want to extend the lives of AIDS sufferers in Africa? Then they just have more time to spread the virus. It's unfortunate that AIDS takes so long to kill its host -- viruses like Ebola are much easier to deal with epidemiologically, simply because they burn through their hosts so fast that they can't get transmitted. If we're talking a cure, then I would totally support using American tax money to solve the problem. However, there is no cure. Just a few life-lengthening drugs that will serve no purpose but to encourage the virus to propagate. - Warren
Hi Bridge, You're a good man (even for a non-atheist)! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! My own favorite cause is Doctors Without Borders. Doing even a tiny bit is vastly better than doing nothing at all. I'm happy to share my planet with people like you. tablariddim, I'm perhaps one of the harshest critics of the US government; yet what you're saying is preposterous. When the Bubonic Plague swept across western Europe it was commonly said that the Jews were responsible. The Italians called Syphilis the Spanish disease. The Spanish called it the French disease. It's always convenient to have someone else to blame. Do you similarly believe the Egyptian Air Force secretly dropped West Nile Virus on America? Hi Adam, It's the same "all or nothing" argument again. Here, it's an excuse for doing nothing. Suppose the school bus you're driving behind fell off a bridge, and soon the water was filled with tiny drowning bodies. Do you stand at the water's edge thinking, "Since I can't rescue even one out of ten there's no point in me jumping in the water." Or do you jump right in and rescue children until there's no more left alive to rescue? It's a rhetorical question. Even if I could only rescue three out of sixty, my pathetic ability to save lives would still mean everything to those three children I've saved. I know you'd do the same Adam, because I know you're a good person. Likewise, even if the sum total of a lifetime of striving to make the world a better place resulted in the prevention of only one early death, I'd think my efforts were not in vain. If you wait to act until your actions can make the world a perfect place, in one fell swoop, then you'll never do anything more than wait. The world is as good or as bad as it is, not as a result of the heroic actions of a few, but as a result of the little actions that some six billion people choose to do on a daily basis. Michael
Likewise, even if the sum total of a lifetime of striving to make the world a better place resulted in the prevention of only one early death, I'd think my efforts were not in vain. If you wait to act until your actions can make the world a perfect place, in one fell swoop, then you'll never do anything more than wait. The world is as good or as bad as it is, not as a result of the heroic actions of a few, but as a result of little action that some six billion people choose to do on a daily basis. Michael show me a positive stance and I will show you how the mountain will be climbed! inotherwords,if people thought in a positive way, we could overcome this tradgedy........
Hello Warren, You do realize that there's no cure for death, don't you? All any of us can do is try to extend our lives. It's been suggested that we ought to stop eating rather than pass on this terminal sexually transmitted condition that we call life. I can imagine the Chroot vaccine against the common cold might take the form of a flame thrower. Still, I wonder if your daughter were HIV positive, would you be in favor of killing her as fast as possible so that she doesn't spread the disease, or would you rather that we find a treatment so she might live as normal a life as possible, for as long as possible? We could drop a bomb on every thatched hut in Africa and still the disease would be with us. It's too late for quarantine. Someone living on your street is probably HIV positive. Our only hope is to learn how to live with this disease, and help others live with this disease. It's too late to destroy the village in order to save it. Michael
Orthogonal So you're standing there with a pill in your hand which will ease the suffering, or even save the life, of a person with AIDS. In front of you are 1,000 people with AIDS. Which one do you choose? And what do you say to the others? "Sorry, I had enough money to build you a pill factory which you could all work in, so you could make more pills, but instead I bought this one pill for your buddy over there."
Shall we include the middle east in this "rebuilding something that works", or is that a completely different matter?
The planet had to figure out a way to thin our numbers a little, jeez why are you being so mean to the planet? its doing its best, we have a way of fixing nearly everything else it trys to throw at us what is it supposed to do? I thought AIDS was a rather innovative idea myself, good work mother nature! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! As always you are full of surprises!!! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! :m:
Nightfall..what if the shoe was on the other foot..what then!!! altruism..compassion..not selfishness and self !!Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
The only way to solve the problem is to go completely tabula rasa on Africa, Thailand, and any other places so affected. Wipe out their societies and cultures entirely, and build something new in its place that works. If that is not selfish, Idon't know what is!!! Where did you and Nightfall get the authority to do that...the sheer arrogance, ignorance and self opionated......wipe out societies....and cultures.....sounds like you are in line for the next Hitler...compassion...love...altruism......get it!!!!!!Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
psycho..It is serious..4 million world-wide with aids..no-one is safe!:Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
So, seeing as they actually asked for our help, it means we can only do the right thing... the humane thing... wipe them out and start from scratch. Remember that the next time you need to ask for helpPlease Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
