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Originally Posted by I'm my own MILF
??? I agree entirely that people should think for themselves, but the simple fact is that their beliefs lead them to dying. Lots. And the Pope has the capacity to stop this (Or at least mitigate it), so shouldn't he be doing that?
Well...I guess. I'm just against any system where you rely on one body to tell you what to believe.
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1. What do you mean by "not ruling?" I think that would be a good thing.
2. How much does have to aid its people before it's ok? Is there a specific dollar amount per person?
3. First off, the typical African males refuse to wear condoms outright. Secondly, how much does a government have to educate? I wouldn't consider a country without public education to be evil.
4. How do you judge "corrupt?"
5. So...not wanting change warrants invasion?
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1) Fair point. Not what I was trying to say, of course, but a fair point for Western nations, where we have the resources and access to information to make our own decisions, and we have established and at least reasonably robust systems in place to right wrongs.
What kind of wrongs? Who decides what's wrong? There is an established system: the UN. The "what kind of wrongs" was objectively defined as "genocide" and "invasion." Nothing else - that I've seen anyway - can be objectively defined or consistently acted upon.
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2) I didn't mean aid in that sense, but I didn't clarify so it doesn't matter. My point was a more general sense of 'aid', ie building hospitals instead of funding gangs, and putting people through schools.
But the government is not obligated to build hospitals or schools. These can, and arguably should, be privatized.
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3) Nor would I, but when there are plainly established facts about a situation, and the government isn't trying to educate people, the government is in error. It's like smoking. There's no moral grounds to ban it, but the risks must be told.
Ok...so the government's supposed to sell itself out to the people? Why? For what? What about if they say "no, screw you?"
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4) When they pay people to raze crops, rape women, amputate children, and massacre men with aid money designated for education, food, and medicines.
First off, many of things are not done by(or, at least, not exclusively done by) the government - so that's null. Secondly, again, how many crops have to be razed, how many women raped, how many children amputated, how many men massacred, how much money stolen from its people(which is done every two weeks by our own government through income tax) has to be done before it's "wrong?" If it's wrong, it's wrong to do it once - which means, by that logic, that we have to invade a country where one person's farmland was razed - and not necessarily by the government, either.
I'll ask you again: how can you objectively define the nature of the crimes in Africa that warrant invasion?
A corrupt government does not warrant conquering(unless it infringes on the rights of other countries or is committing genocide). It is up to the people of that area to establish and run its own government - and to make their own choices. If they want to fight against their government, they'll fight. If not, it doesn't happen.
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5) When the absence of change is leading to a reported 30,000 dead children a day, yes. Ok, in general I'm all about reduction of armed forces and military isolationism, but in this instance by far the most assured way of fixing anything is imperialism. Or at the least entirely bypassing local governments, and building and running required infrastructure with their own funding and defending them with their own security forces. Which is tantamount to invasion anyway.
Ok, so you're all for an isolationist policy...except for this case. Why? Is 30,000 dead kids/day where you draw the line? "We shouldn't invade another country unless they invade us first...unless 30,000 kids/day are dying." Does the government have to be killing all of those kids - or, say, if an epidemic(AIDS) wiped through a village, killing 30,000 babies, would that warrant invasion?
"We must invade Africa." "Why?" "Because kids are dying." "But kids are dying here all the time from abusive parents to starvation to disease and any of a whole list of things - what makes Africa special?" There is no objective reason(that I've heard, anyway).