What exactly is wrong with helping haiti?

**Heel31ok** · 19th January 2010 06:44 AM

[quote name='boontito' date='18 January 2010 - 10:03 PM' timestamp='1263870237' post='101330']

But that wasn't the argument being made. It wasn't how the money was collected, but the amount given compared to the resources available.

[/quote]

then that changes the whole intent and does not apply in context to the argument. How the money was collected is the point of the story.

**Heel31ok** · 19th January 2010 09:00 AM

I want to know what are the "real" reasons for the plight of Haiti and the extreme issues they have had for decades?

**Disappointed not surprised** · 19th January 2010 09:12 AM

[quote name='Heel31ok' date='19 January 2010 - 08:00 AM' timestamp='1263916817' post='101468']

I want to know what are the "real" reasons for the plight of Haiti and the extreme issues they have had for decades?

[/quote]

So do I.

Is it the fault of the French? Evil Haitians in the government stealing everything?

It is curious to me that the Dominican Republic shares the island but is a different sort of place. There is certainly abject poverty in the DR too, but it is not as horrific their neighbor. Even back 10 or so years ago the AIDS epidemic in Haiti was not replicated in the DR. There weren't Dominican "boat people" but there were/are Haitian "boat people". The UN has been in there for 10 years and what has changed? The DR produces some of the greatest baseball players in the world... Haiti no.

It is weird.

**Dr.Knuckles** · 19th January 2010 09:34 AM

Even more than that - the actual physical environment is totally different. I've been speakign to some old fogey Mounties who did UN missions and they talk about how DR is a lush, green, tropical Carribean island and Hati is a dustbowl.

but as has been said and ignored before, they difference is education. It's one of the world's clearest demonstrations of it.

People talk about construction materials. They look at the rubble and say "what were they thinking". But the fact of the matter is nobody here just 'figured out' how to build with modern and safe material. We learn from our parents, we go to trade schools, we get entry level jobs and learn as we work about materials and methods of construction, and we follow government regulations.

Take a baby, raise him in abject poverty in a place where 50% of the population is under 18 and 100% of them came from former slaves without a single day of education, take away his parents while he's still a toddler, give him no school, give him menial labout devoid of the lightest challenge, and give absolutely no regulation or oversight.... it's not an indication of the resulting young man's intelligence or work ethic that he doesn't magically infer 21st century construction skills and run to the nearest non-existant Costco to pick up some re-enforced concrete at 10,000 times his yearly salary.

In fact I'd say it's pretty fucking unbelievably ignorent to say that him having to hold down his daughter while someone saws off her leg without anesthetic is his fault, and he should face the consequences of his failure and stupidity.

That's white guilt? Fuck me it is.

**boontito** · 19th January 2010 09:57 AM

[quote name='Heel31ok' date='19 January 2010 - 05:44 AM' timestamp='1263908686' post='101438']

then that changes the whole intent and does not apply in context to the argument. How the money was collected is the point of the story.

[/quote]

Wrong. Jesus doesn't care how the old woman got her two coins. She could've gotten them paid to her for performing an illegal or immoral act, she could've received them from panhandling, she could've even stolen them. The story is used to point out that someone who gives a higher percentage of what they have is being more generous than someone who gives a greater amount, but a lower percentage of what they have. Jesus is all about the accounting and percentages... he was a math whiz.

**Disappointed not surprised** · 19th January 2010 10:41 AM

[quote name='boontito' date='19 January 2010 - 08:57 AM' timestamp='1263920238' post='101492']

Wrong. Jesus doesn't care how the old woman got her two coins. She could've gotten them paid to her for performing an illegal or immoral act, she could've received them from panhandling, she could've even stolen them. The story is used to point out that someone who gives a higher percentage of what they have is being more generous than someone who gives a greater amount, but a lower percentage of what they have. Jesus is all about the accounting and percentages... he was a math whiz.

[/quote]

Does it really take the Son of God to figure out that if you give a larger proportion of your wealth you are more generous? Even a Haitian getting his leg sawed off should be able to see that pretty easily.

Even more than that - the actual physical environment is totallydifferent. I've been speakign to some old fogey Mounties who did UNmissions and they talk about how DR is a lush, green, tropicalCarribean island and Hati is a dustbowl.

I guess sometimes accidents of birth, which side of the island or which side of the fence you pop into the world on, matters a lot.

More questions: WTF has the UN been doing down there for the past 10 or so years? How much US tax money has been spent there and what has been the result?

**boontito** · 19th January 2010 02:39 PM

[quote name='Disappointed not surprised' date='19 January 2010 - 09:41 AM' timestamp='1263922868' post='101509']

Does it really take the Son of God to figure out that if you give a larger proportion of your wealth you are more generous? Even a Haitian getting his leg sawed off should be able to see that pretty easily.[/quote]

I wouldn't think so, but one cruise through this thread shows differently.