EPA to ease back emissions standards

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Theo520 said:
ROFL, heck no.

Opening schools and improving education is a key component in improving governance. It gives you the chance to instill hope and change expectations that people have for what their government should provide.
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So we agree. Then what is your point?
 
Theo520 said:
A focus on improving governance doesn’t preclude also providing food aid to prevent starvation, BTW.
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It might. One of the unfortunate things about providing aid is that the people who need it never get it. Governments or warlords seize in-kind aid and sell it, sometimes not even in the country to which it was sent. Money, of course, is easily stolen.

And so, if providing, say, money aid to Somalia simply results in the purchase of AK-47s from Romania used to kill people in Kenya, have we performed any kind of charitable act? If providing food aid has the same result as if we had stacked it in a field and burned it, does the 'virtue" turn into the 'evil" of destroying food wantonly?

I am far from being a theologian, but on the other topic being discussed; the “Lexus dilemma”, my recollection of such issues is a little hazy, but I think it depends. If the nature of my life causes me to need a Lexus, there is no moral obligation for me to drive a low-end Chevy instead, so long as I am not just ignoring altogether those who do not have the necessities of life.

So, if I live in the Texas panhandle someone mentioned before, and if my spine is such that my functioning suffers if I do not have that “perfect ride” of a Lexus, and if I donate a reasonable amount for the starving or otherwise severely afflicted, I am not obliged to break my back driving over Texas panhandle potholes (if they have any) with the Chevy. And I am truly not obligated to provide for the “sort of” needy, e.g., those in Africa without a cell phone or car but are otherwise reasonably well fed and provided with reasonable health support, to so much as reduce my standard of living below what is reasonably expected of me by my society.

That’s going to vary. In my part of the country, a millionaire lawyer is probably driving a pickup and wearing jeans in the office a good part of the time. In St. Louis (more likely Clayton), he had better have a membership in an excruciatingly expensive country club if he expects any shot at major corporate clients. And he had better live in Town & Country, Mo. and drive a Lexus or better. The first guy has extra money to give to the poor. The second one probably has trouble paying his mortgage.

But then, the second guy probably knows some people who are in dire need, whereas the first guy probably doesn’t. So maybe Africa isn’t the first guy’s charitable beneficiary.
 
Why do we still have/need missionaries when a large chunck of the population was converted to Christianity well over a century ago?

We certainly failed miserably if that is still how things work there, that foreign benevolent Missionaries are still needed to operated basic services such as schools and simple medical clinics, after several hundred years of our guidance.
 
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Ridgerunner said:
I am far from being a theologian, but on the other topic being discussed; the “Lexus dilemma”, my recollection of such issues is a little hazy, but I think it depends. If the nature of my life causes me to need a Lexus, there is no moral obligation for me to drive a low-end Chevy instead, so long as I am not just ignoring altogether those who do not have the necessities of life.
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Actually, I never said anything different than this.
 
Theo520 said:
Why do you refer to the early missionary phase of the Church in Africa as if it is still the modus operandi?

We certainly failed miserably if that is still how things work there, that foreign whitey has to still run their schools after several hundred years.
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Are there or are there not missionaries in Africa? I never said anything but the fact that the Church has sent missionaries to Africa.
 
Ridgerunner said:
t might. One of the unfortunate things about providing aid is that the people who need it never get it. Governments or warlords seize in-kind aid and sell it, sometimes not even in the country to which it was sent. Money, of course, is easily stolen.

And so, if providing, say, money aid to Somalia simply results in the purchase of AK-47s from Romania used to kill people in Kenya, have we performed any kind of charitable act? If providing food aid has the same result as if we had stacked it in a field and burned it, does the 'virtue" turn into the 'evil" of destroying food wantonly?
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Yes I tried to point this out earlier, that just providing aid enables the existing bad governance to steal and keep doing what they have been doing.

I’m all for air lifting aid during a famine (bypassing the warlord), but we must also address the governance issue or the problem only perpetuates.
 
Theo520 said:
Yes I tried to point this out earlier, that just providing aid enables the existing bad governance to steal and keep doing what they have been doing.
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Providing aid can do this. It doesn’t mean it must do this. Sometimes aid projects actually do help the people they are intended to help. That doesn’t mean that all aid is good, but there certainly can be aid that actually gets to people in need.
 
stinkcat_14 said:
Are there or are there not missionaries in Africa? I never said anything but the fact that the Church has sent missionaries to Africa.
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My question to you is why do you still need to fund the electric bill on a school that has been operation for over 100 years? We’ve obviously done something wrong, if they still don’t see any value in education (ie we’ve not done a very good job educating them).

it sounds more like we’ve made them our dependent than we’ve helped them learn to stand on their own two feet, at least for the basics of subsistence. That’s the problem with much foreign aid, it seems more about virtue signalling than actually making a difference.
 
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stinkcat_14 said:
Actually, if you bothered to read what I said, I actually said governance is important. Now, I never said we owed a blank check to anyone. There is nothing in Church social teaching that suggests that because there is bad governance that we are exempt from our obligation to the poor. A beggar on the street of Nairobi is going to be hungry regardless of whether the government is corrupt or efficient. While we must be prudent in our assistance, we still have an obligation to the least among us. Whether they are in Africa, London or Washington.
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A beggar on the street of Nairobi should be helped by the local Catholic parish, not a foreign NGO. That is what subsidiarity teaches.

And only if that Parish is asking for our outside help, then we should help This assumes the Parish is reputable in what they do of course.

But the reality is the foreign NGO has an excellent marketing team and they use the disparity in expectations to solicit donations, then swoop in to supplant the work of the local Catholic Parish, in some fashion.
 
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Theo520 said:
A beggar on the street of Nairobi should be helped by the local Catholic parish, not a foreign NGO. That is what subsidiarity teaches.
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A beggar on the street should be helped by whomever is able to help him. If I walk past a beggar and I am able to help him, I should.
Theo520 said:
But the reality is the foreign NGO has an excellent marketing team and they use the disparity in expectations to solicit donations, then swoop in to supplant the work of the local Catholic Parish, in some fashion.
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In my experience, NGOs have provided expertise and support that is not available locally. I have not seen too many NGO soup kitchens. I have seen NGOs provide medical support. Physicians and other healthcare practitioners are often short in supply. Particularly for those who make less than $100 a month.
 
Ridgerunner said:
And so, if providing, say, money aid to Somalia simply results in the purchase of AK-47s from Romania used to kill people in Kenya, have we performed any kind of charitable act? If providing food aid has the same result as if we had stacked it in a field and burned it, does the 'virtue" turn into the 'evil" of destroying food wantonly?
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Providing food aid to the hungry is never the wrong choice. A hungry child is hungry today, and withholding food aid from that child to (possibly) improve governance and the local economy somewhere down the road leaves that child hungry. It is that simple. Nothing is simpler than hunger.
Ridgerunner said:
That’s going to vary. In my part of the country, a millionaire lawyer is probably driving a pickup and wearing jeans in the office a good part of the time. In St. Louis (more likely Clayton), he had better have a membership in an excruciatingly expensive country club if he expects any shot at major corporate clients. And he had better live in Town & Country, Mo. and drive a Lexus or better.
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This is in no way a criticism of you, or the place where you live, but a system that requires (even if it’s de facto and not de jure) someone to drive a luxury car and belong to an exclusive (and think about what that word means) and expensive country club to carry on his or her business is morally corrupt.
 
Naturally if you are walking the streets of Nairobi, you should help the beggar in front of you. But then you are physically there, right. You should probably also stop in an the local parish.

Agree that Doctors with borders can come in and make a huge difference. In particular I’ve seen such used as a method to train local surgeons on techniques they would not have learned in their training. Treating cleft pallets comes to mind.
 
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Theo520 said:
Treating cleft pallets comes to mind.
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Absolutely. It’s one of my pet charities, for personal reasons that I won’t go into on a public message board. I contribute as much as I can to an organization that provides surgery (in many places around the world) to children with cleft palates, and often (not always) the accompanying facial disfigurement.
 
Inisfallen said:
This is in no way a criticism of you, or the place where you live, but a system that requires (even if it’s de facto and not de jure) someone to drive a luxury car and belong to an exclusive (and think about what that word means) and expensive country club to carry on his or her business is morally corrupt.
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And I thought you lived in NYC.

Why do you live in a place so morally corrupt?
 
Theo520 said:
And I thought you lived in NYC.

Why do you live in a place so morally corrupt?
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Because I was born and raised here, because my parents were born and raised here, because my elderly father, who needs a lot of care and is far too old to move out of his home now, lives here, because I’m used to it, because I’m a city guy at heart. Because a lifetime’s worth of friends live here. Because my brothers, and their families, live here. My nieces and nephews live here. Because not everyone here is corrupted – it’s just a minority that screw things up for everyone (and most of them work on Wall Street 😉). For a million reasons.

The world is morally corrupt. Short of moving into a monastery, I’m not going to find some oasis of moral purity anywhere in the world. And the monastery probably wouldn’t let my wife and kids come with me anyway. 😁
 
I was just making a point.

Many many reputable fields have expectations that one must show competence in subtle ways, one of which is that their enterprise is financially successful, often shown in attire, housing, auto, etc.

Business people network, and this does often occur over a round of golf, not at the municipal course.
 
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