There is NO HUMAN right to anything except, life liberty and the pursuit of happiness and those can be taken away at the governments choosing. . . That is a false concept. I do not owe anybody, anything but I can CHOOSE to help somebody, if I want to. The government has no HUMAN RIGHTS obligation so support anybody for any reason.
I agree with you. I don't believe that the government should be in the business of supporting people. I'm not a socialist.
There is a huge difference between acknowledging a responsibility for helping the poor.....and saying that we should be supporting them.
There is a difference between helping people who need it, and enabling them. I do recognize that boundary between these two concepts can be a very grey area and somewhat indistinct, but I think that it's worth it to explore this grey area and figure out exactly where the line should be to distinguish between helping people and enabling them.
If we send huge amounts of foreign aid to other countries, then we can certainly figure out how to help (not enable) people here at home.
And yes, there are reasons why foreign aid helps us here at home.
As an example, a poor country might be next door to a nation that's hostile toward the U.S., so foreign aid can be compared--in this example--as something akin to an ongoing bribe that keeps that government friendly so that they are on our side....an ally next door to the hostile nation. I imagine that South Korea falls into this category, as does Israel.
I do understand that much of our foreign aid supports corruption*, but I'm talking theory here in order to make a point.
My ultimate idea is that helping (again, not enabling) the poor would have a return on the money that everyone would benefit from.
My issue is that I don't see how to go about doing it. I guess that social scholars would have to study game theory and run different scenarios to see how things would play out so that--finally--we can figure out how to benefit everyone from helping the poor.
As an example of how capitalism can be used to fix social problems, I tossed out an idea in a different thread that I'll bring up again here.
Great white sharks are endangered from overfishing. In Australia, a great white shark might bring in about $20,000.00 in terms of fees paid to fishing charters, meat, hides, shark fins, and so on.
This is a big incentive to keep fishing--sometimes illegally--which (while bringing in money) will ultimately lead to this animals' extinction.
I just so happens, however, that each great white shark can bring in over $100,000.00 if we support ecotourism, and people get to take pictures while in a shark cage, and the shark doesn't have to die. There is now a financial incentive to keep these animals alive, and people police themselves and don't fish illegally. There is also a huge return in terms of the local economy, and everybody wins....including the sharks.
This is the type of mentality that I'm speaking of when I talk about helping the poor and addressing poverty.
I sometimes have problems communicating, but can you guys see my points even if you don't agree with me?
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* The best example of this corruption is Haiti. I know people who are deeply involved in Haitian politics, and you can assume that almost all foreign aid sent to Haiti will automatically end up in the pockets of high-ranking government officials. Haiti has an extremely kleptocratic government.
