I already explained how you are. Its completely compatible with the baby example. You are responsible, not only for the things you DO, but also for the things you do NOT do.
No you didn't. You did not explain specifically how me buying some luxury item in the U.S. effects a refugee in Africa. I want you to tell me specifically what the causual link is between me and him/her.
Not at all. Wealth does not have to be balanced out. However, it is not ok for the inequality to be so great that people are starving to death while others have huge unnecessary luxuries.
I love it when people make this argument. So you won't mind if come on over to your place, sell all the things you don't 'need', and send the money to charity right?
Newsflash, we don't live in a society based on necessity.
I am all in favor or a free market, but I also recognize that historical circumstances have not allowed everyone to benefit from that free market.
I would much rather look for a solution like that than then constantly throw money at a problem and think it's gonna fix the problem.
Please explain to me what their options are when they are driven out of their villages by militias who are intent on killing them, raping their women, and driving them out. Then they go to refugee camps run by the UN where they are all in tents, have no land to put up a shop, much less a farm to feed themselves. Tell me...what are these people supposed to do?
We help them as best we can. But I think you can agree a hundred dollar bill isn't gonna keep a refugee from being on the run. At the same time, the U.S. can not be the savior of the world, we have plenty of our own problems.
It has nothing about elitism, it has to do with recognizing that a great deal of what we get, and how we get it comes from where we were born and the circumstances of the society we were born in. Warren Buffet once said something to the effect that if he was born in Africa he would have been dead long ago...his skills are useless there.
You can't change that. You can't make life be fair much as you want it to be. Where you are born does play a huge role in the chances you have. But trying to equal everyone out to make up for that someone is not a real solution.
You don't seem to realize the reality of what many of these people are faced with. Its not like they can go and work at their local supermarket. In Zimbabwer unemployment is 80% now and inflation is at something like 4,000%. So tell me...what should they do?
Potential is a lot easier to realize when the society around you isn't completely fucked. It is you who is elitist. After all the logical consequences of what you are saying is that Africa is failing because the people there just aren't as good as us. Untrue...they have been put in a very unfortunate position and it is extremely difficult for them to dig out of the hole they are in.
No one probably realizes what they are faced with. It obvioulsy isn't something taht can be solved with money