Monday, September 24, 2007

One American’s Odyssey

The Baron’s recent graphs about population growth in Sweden got one of our readers reminiscing about the changes in his thinking over the years since childhood. It’s a transformation that many Americans can identify with…at one time or another, most of us went through a similar sea change in the way we saw the rest of the world.

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It’s obvious now that First World’s chickens are coming home to roost. An evil brew of Marxist social engineering combined with our Judeo/Christian ethos in the West has created mechanisms in the Third World which have triggered these various population explosions. As a result of our unintended consequences grave threats now confront us.

Trick or Treat for UNICEFI’m not by nature an isolationist. However, I’ve grown increasingly convinced that all those nickels which UNICEF pilfered from me and others (when I often went without my milk for the day as a child to “feed the children”) were naïvely misguided.

And I began wondering about this much earlier than 9/11...
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During the 80s and 90s I’d begun to notice how, with few exceptions, nations which Americans had sacrificed to help most often were the same countries which seemed to hate us the most profoundly. It was a shock when I went to Europe for the first time — 1980-81 — and found it to be a nest of anti-American hatred. Germany, France, and to a lesser extent the UK all featured a venomous regard for anything American. This was also a period when it was clear that the Muslims were gunning for us after a number of hostile events had occurred, e.g., the 1974 oil “crisis” or the 1979 revolution in Iran. There were many more, including murders of Americans in terror attacks.

I began to think that the theory which underlay our foreign aid policy, coupled with our largesse as a nation, had done much to empower people we thought to be friends but, who, in the end turned out to be our enemies.

If it hadn’t been for our aid-money , medicine, engineering, etc., much of Africa, most of the Muslim world, and Asia would be much sicker. They would also be much less productive and far less populous than they are now. Ironically, many have observed that our own population trends now are going in the opposite direction.

It certainly seems to be long past the time to reconsider all of our “do-gooder” projects. Recently you’ll recall Bill Gates and Warren Buffet joined forces to lavish sixty to eighty billion dollars on malaria eradication and clean drinking water projects. These staggering sums will flow into the coffers of people who are most likely to become even more our enemies.

If the past serves as any indication, I surmise that the most benefit will accrue to various Communist and Muslim societies. As such, rather than being a moral “obligation” or “good deed” on our part, we will have instead engaged in the most thoughtless and staggering orgy of self-destruction the world has ever known.

Have we learned nothing?

— JS

8 comments:

herself said...

No, Dymphna, sadly we haven't. I live in Ireland now, where they hate us as much as they and the Brits did when I lived in London in 70 and 71. They were envious of us then, but loathe us now. (exaggeration, and stereotype, but not by much)No good deed goes unpunished.

History Snark said...

My dad always told me: feed an animal, and you have a friend for life. Feed a human, and he'll hate you forever, cuz he'll resent the fact that you have more than he does.

That being said, in theory I have no problem with things like malaria eradication and clean water creation. But I agree that the areas that get the money are the most dysfunctional places.

PapaBear said...

Part of that European hate comes from the elites, I think. They resent that the opinions of their most prestigious members matters far less on the world stage, than the opinion of the most junior member of the US Congress

Regarding foreign aid: the global welfare state has a similar effect to the domestic welfare state: it enables the underclass to have lots of kids, while the members of the middle class who pay the bills find they cannot afford to have large families.

The net effect is that eventually the dwindling middle class will no longer be able to pay for the Welfare State, either domestically or globally.

The resulting crash will not be pretty

Dan said...

When we send food aid, to whom does the food go? The neediest or those the ruling clique must appease to maintain power? We support the regime or they will refuse the aid, after all who will accept aid that weakens their power? Thus we will be seen to support the ruling clique, which is generally unpopular, regardless of our intent.

Try to imagine a Liberal securing welfare for their state but instead of the usual needs test the benefits are only for democrats who regularly vote, regardless of income.

Nancy Reyes said...

What racist twaddle.

Maybe feeding the starving children in Europe led the Germans and the French to hate the west, but if you bother to look at opinion polls, the three countries that support the US are India, the Philippines and Kenya.

And India is the country with the second largest Muslim population in the world.

Subvet said...

My own experiences with the "man in the street" types in Spain, Italy, France, Scotland and Israel was that they respect and admire Americans.

IMHO we spend too much time focusing on the opinions of the upper crust who share the disdain of their American peers for John Q. Public.

We mock and ridicule the intelligentsia and other elites when talking about our own citizens, why give credence to their counterparts overseas?

Unknown said...

Keep in mid that much of our aid to Africa went directly into the pockets of dictators who were doing our bidding - it's no wonder we are hated. I am not an isolationist, but our constant meddling in the affairs of other nations (of a type we would never tolerate here) has created much of this mess. As long as we do the bidding of the globalists we will have problems. Ron Paul is the only candidate with a rational view of foriegn (and domestic for that matter) policy.

Profitsbeard said...

If you do not know what kind of seeds you are watering, you are merely being silly wasting H2O on them.

But, if you feed cute little tiger cubs thinking they will grow up to be cuddly pussycats, you'll end up as their last supper.

Former Congressman (and doctor) Bill Frist is off on one of these "help the poor unfortunates" gambits in Bangladesh.

Forgetting the law of unintended consequences:

Strengthening those who hate you only makes stronger hate.

As the future paradoxical blowback ("No good deed goes unpunished") from our feckless philanthropy will demonstrate.

We should only help those who are on our side, philosophically/ideologically/morally.

Otherwise it is taking bread from your childrens' mouths and putting in in the maw of those who will flourish and devour them.

People's instincts have withered under the unreality of modern education.

No Aesop, even, to remind them of the deviousness of nature, human and otherwise.

They now think that being peaceful encourages peace, instead of what it usually does: luring the predatory toward apparent weakness.