TO: Wim and Erin and anyone else who wants to have a laugh
FROM: Risky
I couldn't help but editorialize...
POLITICALLY INCORRECT:
Transcript for Friday, March 1, 2002
Howie Mandel (America)
Betsy Hart (America)
Ian McKellen (England)
Shakara Ledard (Bahamas)
BILL:
To raise awareness about how greedy, gluttonous and fat with consumption
we are.
You know how we're always complaining about what a ridiculous amount of
everything in America is in the hands of the richest 1% and how much we all
hate Ken Lay and his wife for being greedy and oblivious? Well, to the rest
of
the world, America is the richest 1%, and we all are Ken Lay.
Which isn't really fair because we're not cheaters, and we do work hard for
our money and certainly should be able to enjoy it to a level of absolute
luxury.
But there's a line above even that some of us wanna go, and that's where that
"why do they hate us?" stuff really starts to kick in.
When the country with 5% of the world's population sucks up 30% of the
resources and only gives 0.5% of our worth in humanitarian aid to the people
who live above our oil and our diamonds and pick our food and make our
sneakers, you can see why there's a little resentment.
It looks like we'd rather waste than share when we turn overeating into a
game
show.
A billion third-world people would probably fight to eat what a supermodel
throws up after lunch every day.
RISKY:
Bill starts by comparing everyone in America to today's poster child for
corruption, though he didn't REALLY mean it. Then compares numbers with
totally different bases to each other in a way that can fool idiots that the
numbers are comparable. (The first two numbers were percents of total world
population/resources and the third was percent of US going to humanitarian
aid. No attempt was actually made to show the percent of worldwide aid that
comes from the US.) Then ends with funny joke. So far this guy has made
almost no contribution to the topic.
Howie:
I think our national anthem should be changed from what it is to,
"Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah."
RISKY:
This guy gives less than Zero contribution.
Betsy:
Bill, excuse me for pointing this out, but you're full of baloney.
You know, people get so upset.
"Oh, we consume 25% of the world's resources." Guess what? We produce 30% of
the world's resources including things like medicine, technology, most of the
world's food.
The Internet was not invented in Bangladesh, and a cure for AIDS and breast
cancer is not gonna come from Rwanda.
RISKY:
Finally, an intelligent argument. She clarifies that our contributions to the
world are way beyond our population and that they extend beyond handouts. I
don't know who this lady is, but she is good.
Bill:
But we don't share.
RISKY:
He has already said we DO share according to his terminology by .5% of our
income. What he hasn't given is that number compared to anyone else. Bill is
giving a nonsense argument.
Betsy:
Yes.
The things we export, just in terms of technology and knowledge, as well as
goods and services, are extraordinary.
I'm sick, frankly, of this whining from the third world that somehow we
should
have to explain our prosperity and our hard work and our ingenuity.
We should be more like them.
Sure, we can live in caves and rub sticks together.
They should be more like us, Shakara.
Taiwan doesn't have any natural resources, but it has extraordinary wealth
because it has a relatively free economic and political system.
Cuba, however, has extraordinary natural resources and its people are
starving
because of corrupt political systems.
When people change the political system --
And become more free market, they can be like us.
RISKY:
Well said.
Shakara:
But that doesn't change the fact that America is a gluttonous
country.
And being a foreigner myself, I actually can remove myself from the situation
and look as an outsider coming in.
Americans --
no offense to anyone here --
Sorry, guys.
But have --
they follow this rule of ignorance is bliss.
They don't wanna know what's going on in the rest of the world.
They're so self-absorbed about themselves and their country.
They're not interested unless it hits home.
RISKY:
Is anyone really suggesting that any other country does more for the world
than the US does? Heck, Europe can't even help its own (Bosnia) without the
US propping up (ie funding) their bravery.
Betsy:
How dare you say that? There's no more generous country in the world
than the United States.
Shakara:
How long has the war been going on in Afghanistan?
Betsy:
I don't think that you're gonna walk home tonight.
I don't think anybody here is, and I don't think Bill's gonna cut his salary
in half --
because it's easy to say that somebody else is being gluttonous and
self-absorbed.
Howie:
I think that America and --
Britain and Australia, that's the axis of gluttony.
Betsy:
But they're also the axis of production.
RISKY:
Betsy tries to get the issue back to the initial topic that Bill misled
everyone on. Shakara switches the topic (and yes the US gave more to
Afghanistan prior to the war than any other country and has given more lives
in the war to free it while protecting the world from terror than any other
external government). Howie said nothing again.
No reply from anyone in the group to Betsy's point that they (Howie and Bill
make more money than all of us combined) can start demonstrating their
beliefs with their own actions. It is very easy to spend OTHER peoples
money.
Ian:
Now, wait a minute.
You were talking about people whining because they were hungry and
disadvantaged.
RISKY:
No she didn't ...
Betsy:
No, no, let me clarify.
Betsy:
I'm whining because they say the United States is their problem, when
their own corrupt political systems are their problem.
Ian:
And love thy neighbor as thyself.
RISKY:
Quick, switch the topic on her with some trite saying before people start
listening.
hOwie:
So you don't think we have to give another penny more? Or another
moment more?
Betsy:
No, I'm not saying that at all.
RISKY:
What she said is that we DO give and in more ways than simple handouts, and
that we must not lose sight of the factors causing their inability to
progress. She also said that the quickest way they can get their 'give more
aid' idea going is to give themselves. Why should Howie have to argue with
her actual position though? It is easier to make shit up.
Ian:
Perhaps you don't go to third-world countries as often as I do.
But when you meet someone who's starving and who's asking for your help
face-to-face, love thy neighbor as thyself.
You cannot stop giving what you've got to help, and that's the natural
instinct.
You may want the problem to go away, but you want to help as an individual.
Why can't our governments, who represents us, take on that natural generosity
and give more of the gross national product to help our neighbors?
RISKY:
Starts argument with "I know more than you do" and reverts back to the 'give
more' argument, though he now elevates it to all governments. Implicit is
that governments should take from individuals and re-allocate to other
countries. Still avoids why HE WON'T give as opposed to fanning interest in
forcing everyone else to give.
Betsy: But we do.
Bill:
We don't give.
Wait a second.
We're the richest country in the world.
We give 0.5%, so how can you sit there with a straight face and tell us we're
generous? We're generous to people who we can relate to very directly.
To people who are out of the range of our vision, we are not generous.
RISKY:
He ignores the part of her earlier argument that our contributions to science
, technology, medicine are our greatest exports and goes back to his half a
percent. The empirically correct amount of foriegn aid is of course never
stated.
Howie:
We destroy crops before we give it away.
Betsy:
What other country in the world, when it goes into a country like
Afghanistan to stop terrorism, which affects everybody --
Howie:
You're right, we dropped Happy Meals.
RISKY:
Howie has yet to say anything of any significance or even attempt to engage
in any logical discussion. I am sure someone is swayed by his argumentation
by irrelevent inanities.
Bill:
When they brought that war home to us, we got involved.
Shakara:
Exactly.
That's when we got involved.
Not a second before.
What about when the Africans were slaughtering each other? They were begging
for help.
America did not get involved.
They wanted nothing to do with it.
RISKY:
I want to see the country that has done more for coming to the military aid
of others than the US. Notice Shakara says nothing of the role the Bahamas
took in Somalia or Bosnia, or how many peacekeepers they sent in.
Betsy:
We gave extraordinary amounts of money to Africa.
What about when it comes to countries like the Sudan that people, where you
have all kinds of slavery and horrible situations, the people that are
preventing that kind of greater generosities are actually black Americans in
Congress who don't wanna admit that there are some ugly black-on-black crimes
going on in countries like the Sudan? So there's all kinds of political
corruption that's going on, but that doesn't change the fact that the
Americans are the most generous people in the history of the world.
Our government gives extraordinary amounts of foreign aid, and we still have
people saying it's not enough when they won't change their own government.
RISKY:
The stab at congress was a cheap shot. Betsy is starting to get defensive
and throw out silly right wing dogma.
Howie:
Your numbers are probably compared to other countries that can't give.
But what we can give, we don't give.
At the end of a party, you probably throw your food in the garbage.
RISKY:
Nobody ever offered anyone else's numbers. Bill already established we DO
give, and I wonder what Howie does with his leftovers?
Ian:
Do you really expect that someone living in a township outside Capetown
in Johannesburg to change their government overnight? They've done their
best.
They've got rid of apartheid, no help from the United States, no help from
the
United Kingdom, but they've done it.
They're starting.
How can you say they're whining because they look with mystery and envy that
America's so rich?
RISKY:
She didn't say they should do it overnight. She is saying they should do it,
and notice IAN has shifted from "help us by giving handouts" to "help us
change our governments." A transition that needs better development. One
could argue that this kind of "help" isn't always appreciated.
Bill:
I would beg to differ.
There was some help from the United States and the United Kingdom.
They were kicked out of the U.N.
We boycotted South African products for years over here.
We did as we usually do, a little bit, and patted ourselves on the back for
an
enormous job.
Ian:
That instinct is a good one, and I can't see why you're so vociferously
saying that you've done enough.
When everyone --
Is to give as much as possible, surely.
RISKY:
Note the tendency of the four people to reinforce each other in a way where
they can argue not with anything she ever said, but with what they want her
to have said. Betsy never "vociferously" argued we give enough. She argued
that we give more than anyone else (nobody contradicted her on it either) and
that there is value in these countries assuming some responsibility for
change.
Betsy:
Absolutely.
We have a responsibility to be generous, and we are.
Ian:
A responsibility to be generous, sure.
Bill:
How can you call what we give generous? How can you call 0.5% of this
enormous wealth where people are stuffing food into other food, where we go
to
warehouse stores and shop with forklifts, where we have enormous, huge plates
of food that no one could possibly eat --
Betsy:
You know what? When you go to ABC and say, "Cut my salary in half so I
can give the remainder of it to these people that you're talking about," then
I'll take what you're saying a little more seriously.
People always wanna give other people's money.
RISKY:
I really like this Betsy.
IAN:
And until you understand that there is a resentment and that you have a
responsibility, then the world's not going to get a better place.
RISKY:
She never denied resentment or responsibility. His attempt to blame her for
positions she doesn't hold for the evils of poverty is callous in the
extreme. What she did acknowledge was a shared responsibility rather than the
defeatest cycle of victimology. By the way, the world has become a much
better place over the past 50 yeras as substantiated several times in past
threads on increased wealth, nutrition, lifespan, education, freedom and
several other factors, especially in third world countries. The UN forecasts
continued improvement on many or most of these factors for the future as
well.
This is a classic example of four emotive arguers assuming the moral
highground, ganging up to denigrate rational intercourse and to force a duty
upon everybody else to assist the downtrodden irrespective of the
countersuggestion that there can be some value in the poor accepting at least
a degree of responsibility for themselves.
I love this show, but the basic routine is to get 4 lefties to gang up and
embarass the lone rightie. It backfired this time.
As Wim knows, I, like Betsy, agree that inequality and envy is a problem. I
too am fine with American's giving voluntary aid and in our government giving
some aid in our behalf. I don't know what the optimal amount of aid is, but
I do know that the way to approach the question is to look at the big picture
and evaluate the total impact on current and future quality. The holistic
picture would consider other types of cultural and intellectual/technological
exports as well as the burden of providing the military police force for the
world. Furthermore, the big picture recognizes that handouts are tricky
things. We need to be careful our aid doesn't go to prop up corrupt
exploitive regimes or to mask the need for fundamental reform. Everyone
knows it is better to teach someone to fish than it is to give them a fish.
Until they learn though, it is of high quality to keep them supplied with
tuna, as long as we don't let them become dependent upon our aid. Long
term, we need to help them to become self sufficient.
Risky
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