Foreign Aid

http://www.netnomad.com/might.html

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0684828006/ref=ase_nomadnetA/102-6518303-3880969?s=books&v=glance&n=283155&tagActionCode=nomadnetA

>>1 I remember reading something like that a while ago. Good that you remind us. "Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you will feed him for a lifetime".
     What we are doing is drip-feeding the entire continent, and we are doing this because we feel that our own wealth is a result of their poverty. In a way, this is true, but if we want to get results, we need to form boycotts against companies that thrive on the horrors and sometimes even further civil wars in order to profit more (Kongo. Remember Kongo?).
      We can not let companies like that participate in our economies and we can not purchase their wares unless they better themselves. We need to further feminism (or equalitism if you want to be finicky) and trash Bush's "Easy as A-B-x" plan for contraceptions. There are more things than just blood diamonds, if we look around.

>>2
I think feminism is fine as it is.  Women should have voting rights, and equal rights under the law, so long as they are legal citizens of this country.  What more do you want?

I am a capitalist.  Your boycotting sounds dandy, so long as it is done voluntarilly.  I myself now avoid Yahoo and yahoo.com after hearing of some pretty disgusting dealings between yahoo and the Chinese government. 

Regarding the quote, I agree, self-reliance and rugged individualism are what we should strive for.  Socialism, of course, is the opposite.  The socialists would have you continue giving men the fishes, rather than teaching him how to get his own. 

Unfeterred free trade is the answer, mercantilism is selfish and just damned selfish. Can we call ourselves a democracy if we abuse the economic freedom of foreigners we trade with? No, we cannot. If our government treads on one person's rights, even if they are foreigners, it means they are immoral enough to do the same to us and should face immediate trial and execution for soliciting a military coupe.

mercantilism is socialism and just damned selfish*

hehe, what a funny freudian slip

>>4
Even as a 'capitalist', the thing I see wrong with GLOBAL free trade is that I don't like the idea of some dictators in other parts of the world who abuse human rights mooching off the labor of the peasants from those countries through taxes. 

>>6
Then vote for the neocons.  They'll open up global free trade, and remove the dictators for you. 

>>6
The easiest way to a man's heart is through his stomach, this wonderful quote which all truly succesful women follow does in fact have greater social implications. The easiest way to inject democracy into a country is through free-trade. As the man who lives alone on a hilltop is never going to learn the value of mutual cooperation than the people living in the village in the valley, the tyrannical nation will never learn the value of liberty if other countries do not permit mcdonalds franchises and coca cola factories to built apon it's soil. USA fought ww2 for the right to drink coke and eat a hamburger more so than to liberate oppressed peoples, it's how we won.

>>8
Convincing.  But we've been trading with China for a while now, and they seem just as oppressive as ever, no?

>>9
That's cause China is opressive non-democratic police state and trade is heavily restricted. Sure goverment and goverment approved companies can trade, but it prettymuch ends there. It's not free market by any means.

>>9
Wrong, China has made more progress from tyranny to democracy than England did in 500 years after the magna carta. China in the early 70s was comparable to England at the time of King John, China today is comparable to england in the 18th century.

The modern world has seen a huge acceleration towards democracy and it is almost entirley due to the economic strength of nations blessed with liberty. We won the cold war because the Russians saw we were doing better, they had more nukes than us just before the communism broke down. Japan still has the hegemony that started it's war against america. Hirohito would have never thought that his descendants would actually try to emulate american values.

It is a revolution by example, even people who profit from tyranny benefit by allowing greater liberties to their people and sow the seeds for a slow evolution to true-democracy.

>>10
Ok, so, with this in mind, we should set up trade barriers between us and countries with governments of this sort.  We don't want to help, condone, or support governments of this kind any more than we have to. 

>>11
"It is a revolution by example"

But if it is just impressing them with our prosperity that we want to do, we don't need international trade to accomplish that. 

>>13
By example I meant the profits they gain from free trade with us and the exposure to our techno-economic practices. The result is them discarding the tools of tyranny and to let them have an influence in the economy relative to how much they have achieved in the past.

Tyrants keep their minions illiterate and prefer if they were occupied by labour all day even if their labours are useless or unneccesary. Imagine what a change it would make if all of a sudden tyrants profitted by allownig their minions economic freedom, wanting them to read so they can operate machinery, wanting them to get an education so they can perform the various fnctions in their profitable businesses. It may still be tyranny, but what is more stupid than standing still during a flood because whatever you do you will still get wet?

>>14
And then of course, that education leads people to wonder if the grass is greener on the other side, right?

>>15
Actually they already know it's greener on the other side, if they are educated however they stop being lower class and become middle class and realise that they need to unfuck their own countries instead of being pussies. Contrary to belief the civilised man is more masculine than the 'noble' savage. A war horse trained and raised in artificial conditions is much stronger than a wild pony. Muscle mass and testosterone production doesn't stop someone from being a coward. I would prefer 20 lanky 15 year olds embued with a moral conscience and wisdom to 100 thugs.

>>16

but who would win in a knock down, balls out rumble?

the thugs.

duh.

>>17
Because every real life encounter is a knock down balls out rumble? Do you know how difficult it is to control 100 thugs? It's like trying to control people in a multiplayer game on the internet, they are unlikely to understand the merit of your ideas, have no reason to follow them and most likely they will react with hostility to your suggestions perceiving you as attempting to exert power over them and a comical threat. The only way you can get them to serve you is by posing as a figurehead for collective efforts towards mutual gain and having the charisma and image to prove you are worthy, part of their group or what they expect and not a liability.

Good article..

Exactly why tax funded foreign aid is such a disaster, and moreover, that you shouldn't donate to these companies anyway.

lol, cheney profiting off foreign aid.  funny shit