Quote:
Originally Posted by OracleOfCalgary
So what all of you are saying is that you don't care if this is a big waste of time, energy, and CO2, it makes you feel good to pack your little boxes and convert a few savages to Jesus and that's all that counts. I will have to give them credit, at least they are making it very clear now that these boxes are used in conjuction with an evangelical cruisade. When my sister had participated in this program in the past, she was compeltely unaware what they actual intent of these boxes was.
These people don't need a bunch of Chinese manufactured junk, they need the money flowing into their own economy. All of these things can be purchased locally and dollars spent locally have a multiplier effect that ripples through the economy. Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
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Give a child a gift and you let him... smile.
I'm as much a secular humanist liberatarian as anybody, but this is what happens when people become so selfish and self-righteous about their own "enlightened" beliefs that they'll deprive people of things they have nothing to do with. You have a good academic point, that these people really need is a decent economy rather than toys...but then again maybe as a kid you recieved a baby bonus cheque or maybe a life insurance policy in your stocking instead of that Lego set you wanted for Christmas?
Who are you to judge what is a waste of C02 or not? Sorry I didn't realize you were the international arbiter of "wastes of time" and the universal authority on what savages need the most. Do you really think an orphaned kid in the war-torn Balkans or in the middle of Africa can really go out themselves and purchase clean paper and crayons? A teddy bear? There's a point where intellectual thought about welfare and humanitarian aid gets too academic and everybody becomes a statistic and you forget what a difference you can make in the life of one person by giving them something to feel prideful about.