Fedral wrote:IronLionZion wrote:Fedral, when you are overwhelmingly the richest and most powerfull nation on Earth, giving out free food (which is rarely done without ulterior motives anyway) does not qualify as heroic or benevolent - it is the minimum acceptable.
Since when does the richest and most powerful nation 'owe' anyone ANYTHING.
If you make more money than me, are you obligated to give me some because you are richer than me??
HELL NO
It's not quite the same thing but, here in Europe, there used to be a concept of "Noblesse oblige" - if you are Lord of the Manor, you make sure that you look after the whole village, to make sure that no one goes without. A feudal system is highly flawed but it wansn't without its own standards of behaviour.
Fedral wrote:It is that sort of 'expected involuntary wealth redistribution' that gives rise to anger among Americans.
If you don't like America, next time , don't ask for American help. If Americans offer help, don't accept. Happens all the time.
We Americans are a generous people, we give a lot of our time and money to help those less fortunate than ourselves. We do this with very little pressure or encouragement. Yet when people like yourself seem to look upon that help as an 'entitlement' is when you cause Americans to close their checkbooks.
Keep in mind just how difficult it would have been after WW2 for Europe to rebuild itself without America.
How difficult things would have been in Japan without massive influx of American money.
We are now competing economically and politically with those nations and they can now spit at us after they grew strong on the economic backs of the Americans.
We give because we want to ... just remember, we can turn the money tap off if we wanted to, then you would see worldwide suffering the likes of which the world hasn't seen since the Dark Ages. I would like to see Europe feed all of Africa. I would like to see Asia provide disaster support during a crisis.
I would like Africa to do ANYTHING for itself.
Just my rant for today.
Fedral, I feel like using language that would be ****'ed out on this forum. It is EXACTLY attitudes such as those expressed in this post that INFURIATE those outside the USA.
Your "I'm alright, Jack" attitude takes no account of social responsibility. The EU (and its individual constituent states) give HUGE amounts of money to Africa.
Don't even get me started on the Marshall Plan and its influence on Europe. Yes, it allowed recovery but its political motive was clear: come with us (Capitalists) - you'll make money, we'll make money (interest and sales to these nations) and we won't have to use force to stop you becoming Communists. Hardly charity, I'd say!
As for the protectionism being used by Bush (e.g. for the steel industry or banana producers - at the expense of Jamaica, etc.) it's such hypocracy to preach economic freedom and then slap tariffs on goods to prevent your funding from drying up.
MY rant over!