Is there a difference between being a humanitarian versus a religious 'liberal?'

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Robert_Sock said:
My apologies. I did not mean it like that. I meant it that you are eliminating one major way in which extreme poverty may be overcome.

Education and the creation of new jobs are essential in overcoming poverty. I honestly see no other way. Simply having an outpouring of Catholic aid is like a bandaid on an infected wound.
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OK, I see what you are saying.

Yes, expanding economies and education both are components of reducing poverty. Continuous aid in the form of sending money and food are not solutions.

However, your solution involves many, many aspects. It is like saying to someone: all you have to do is to move this fallen redwood from your driveway and you’ll be able to get to your house when the problem is that the house owner does not have the money to hire the crew of people and the machinery necessary to move the tree.

IOW, we all get that expanding economies lead to increased education and these lift people out of poverty. But the government cannot command businesses to expand.

How much do you think it would cost to educate each person through high school? Surely more than $1000, no? But consider that the cost of educating even 1/2 the world’s population would be $3.5 trillion *per $1000 *spent on each student.

Now, when there is a problem that people want to solve, if they do not define the problem correctly, they will not be able to find a good solution. For example, I had a problem with my car which two people disagreed on. One thought it was the alternator and the other the battery. Replacing either one when the problem was the other would not have fixed the problem, no?

The next component to solving a problem is to consider the solutions. Once it has been determined that the problem with my car is the alternator, we must find the correct alternator. Putting a Ford alternator into a Chevy would also not fix the problem.

We have seen in other threads that the problem of poverty in the world is actually several problems: here a drought, there political turmoil, in another place tyranny. There is no way one solution will fix all these problems. Expanding businesses would not be allowed into North Korea, businesses would not be able to afford to run the risks of setting up shop in Somalia, and neither education nor business expansion would help the area plagued by drought and might even worsen the problem, since businesses need additional water.

So I do not agree with you that your proposal is possible or even helpful. You have simply stated that the components which lift people out of poverty should be put in place. Well, that’s like saying we need to move the tree out of the driveway so we should move the tree.

The problem is that moving the tree *is *the problem. The problem is tha lack of business and education *is *the problem. The solution has to come from *outside *the problem.

Take just one problem causing poverty: drought. What can be done about that? First, there have to be immediate steps of aid. Second, the cause of the drought must be determined. Do droughts come every few years or did some change occur which has caused a permanent change in rainfall or riverflow? Was the land overfarmed so that the real problem is not too little rain but too little for the land the way it is now?

Once the problem has been determined, steps can be taken to deal with it. In one case, the people may need to increase their production to have some extra for when the cycle causes a drought. In another case, farming techniques may need to be taught to the people so they can deal with changed conditions. In other cases, maybe the fact that a city upstream is using all the water needs to be addressed.
 
St_Francis said:
OK, I see what you are saying.

Yes, expanding economies and education both are components of reducing poverty. Continuous aid in the form of sending money and food are not solutions.

However, your solution involves many, many aspects. It is like saying to someone: all you have to do is to move this fallen redwood from your driveway and you’ll be able to get to your house when the problem is that the house owner does not have the money to hire the crew of people and the machinery necessary to move the tree.

IOW, we all get that expanding economies lead to increased education and these lift people out of poverty. But the government cannot command businesses to expand.

How much do you think it would cost to educate each person through high school? Surely more than $1000, no? But consider that the cost of educating even 1/2 the world’s population would be $3.5 trillion *per $1000 *spent on each student.

Now, when there is a problem that people want to solve, if they do not define the problem correctly, they will not be able to find a good solution. For example, I had a problem with my car which two people disagreed on. One thought it was the alternator and the other the battery. Replacing either one when the problem was the other would not have fixed the problem, no?

The next component to solving a problem is to consider the solutions. Once it has been determined that the problem with my car is the alternator, we must find the correct alternator. Putting a Ford alternator into a Chevy would also not fix the problem.

We have seen in other threads that the problem of poverty in the world is actually several problems: here a drought, there political turmoil, in another place tyranny. There is no way one solution will fix all these problems. Expanding businesses would not be allowed into North Korea, businesses would not be able to afford to run the risks of setting up shop in Somalia, and neither education nor business expansion would help the area plagued by drought and might even worsen the problem, since businesses need additional water.

So I do not agree with you that your proposal is possible or even helpful. You have simply stated that the components which lift people out of poverty should be put in place. Well, that’s like saying we need to move the tree out of the driveway so we should move the tree.

The problem is that moving the tree *is *the problem. The problem is tha lack of business and education *is *the problem. The solution has to come from *outside *the problem.

Take just one problem causing poverty: drought. What can be done about that? First, there have to be immediate steps of aid. Second, the cause of the drought must be determined. Do droughts come every few years or did some change occur which has caused a permanent change in rainfall or riverflow? Was the land overfarmed so that the real problem is not too little rain but too little for the land the way it is now?

Once the problem has been determined, steps can be taken to deal with it. In one case, the people may need to increase their production to have some extra for when the cycle causes a drought. In another case, farming techniques may need to be taught to the people so they can deal with changed conditions. In other cases, maybe the fact that a city upstream is using all the water needs to be addressed.
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We can argue back and forth, but it would take knowledgeable economists, educators and social planners to see what alternatives could be put into place. The first step is public awareness of the problem, and a subsequent outcry from the public for economic reform/enhancement. It’s all in the hands of the media and politicians to get the ball rolling; it’s a question of moral responsibility.
 
Robert_Sock said:
We can argue back and forth, but it would take knowledgeable **economists, educators and social planners **to see what alternatives could be put into place. The first step is public awareness of the problem, and a subsequent outcry from the public for economic reform/enhancement. It’s all in the hands of the **media and politicians **to get the ball rolling; it’s a question of moral responsibility.
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Now we are back to the beginning again. Why is it the responsibility of theedia and politicians? This is liberalism! A government-controlled economy is liberal; it is certainly not humanitarian. A top-down solution which is the responsibility of “others,” not ourselves, is liberalism. A solution imposed on those it is meant to help… liberalism.

What would really help? Prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Pray for conversions to the Catholic Faith, which is the one institution which has *really *helped people cnsistently over the centuries. Pray that people’s hearts are softened, so that the poor will be helped more. Perform acts of mortification to increase the amount of grace in the world. And give alsm to directly help those who are around you in their need.
 
St_Francis said:
Now we are back to the beginning again. Why is it the responsibility of theedia and politicians? This is liberalism! A government-controlled economy is liberal; it is certainly not humanitarian. A top-down solution which is the responsibility of “others,” not ourselves, is liberalism. A solution imposed on those it is meant to help… liberalism.

What would really help? Prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Pray for conversions to the Catholic Faith, which is the one institution which has *really *helped people cnsistently over the centuries. Pray that people’s hearts are softened, so that the poor will be helped more. Perform acts of mortification to increase the amount of grace in the world. And give alsm to directly help those who are around you in their need.
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We are back to the questions posed in the original post of this thread. Call it ‘liberalism,’ if you wish, but I call it humanitarianism. What is the difference?
 
Robert_Sock said:
Using extreme poverty in the world as an example, I would view a humanitarian ‘liberal’ as one who wants to use government subsides to house and feed those in extreme poverty; a humanitarian ‘conservative,’ on the other hand, would use the government to create jobs and to provide mandatory HS education for all children.
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A humanitarian ‘conservative’ would not use the government. I think your list of government uses would all be ‘liberal.’
 
Robert_Sock said:
We are back to the questions posed in the original post of this thread. Call it ‘liberalism,’ if you wish, but I call it humanitarianism. What is the difference?
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I would say that a liberal expects others to do something, conservatives expect the people with the problem to do something, and a humanitarian expects himself to do something.

On this basis, those who complain that others are not doing something and thinking that they ought to are liberals, and that is why I answered your question in your OP this way.

I would like to point out that there can be difficulties with each position: for example, Bill Gates would be a humanitarian under my definitions, but the solution he works on is immoral (spreading abc around the world); many US conservatives ignore in their pontificatikns that some are unable to help themselves due to circumstances beyond their control and so do not sufficiently consider our obligations to our neighbors; and liberals take the easy road of waiting for others to act.

Now, I have a bad habit or vice: I often am moved to alleviate a problem for another, and I say I will take some action. The problem is that I then may not take the action :o What i need to do is to back off, to realize I cannot solve even little problems of other people. I need to learn to *accept *my limitations.

I also have a bit of a philosophy which is that if I see a problem, I shouldn’t complain about it unless I am willing and/or able to participate in the solution. If I cannot participate in the solution, I keep quiet and accept the problem as a cross. (I am not always good at this, I admit!)
 
St_Francis said:
I would say that a liberal expects others to do something, conservatives expect the people with the problem to do something, and a humanitarian expects himself to do something.
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What about those of us who believe that everyone, including oneself, should be doing something?
 
Robert_Sock said:
What about those of us who believe that everyone, including oneself, should be doing something?
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How does the Church look at this? That is the way I try to see things.

The Church not only believes that everyone should contribute, but makes it possible for even thise with no material capability to help, through prayer.

But the Church also realizes that everyone has limitations, and thus, not everyone can help with everything. The Church teaches about this in a specific way in Her teachings about one’s state of life. The responsibilities of one’s state of life come before responsibilities to the rest of the world; we must accept the limitations of our states of life.

Cosider the Acts of Mercy. We have the 7 Corporal works, which in their grand sense refer to relieving the material deprivations of others, but these works also refer to what we do for others in our normal course of life: we should not while working for the drought-striken fail to make sure the workman in our house has something to drink, has time off for lunch and something to eat for lunch. Parents should make sure their children have sufficient clothing, etc.

The Church also has the Spiritual Works of Mercy. Here they are:
To counsel the doubtful
To instruct the ignorant
To admonish the sinner
To comfort the sorrowful
To forgive all injuries
To bear wrongs patiently
To pray for the living and the dead

As you can see, there is plenty of scope for action here as well.

I remember reading about a nun who became completely paralyzed. She could not move any part of her body except for her eyes, but she and the other nuns worked out a system for communication and the paralyzed nun let them know she would like them to put a Rosary on the wall across from her bed, which they did.

When they looked in on her, they found that she was praying the rosary by keeping her eyes on the beads one at a time. She spent hours each day in prayer this way.

Altho she had lost the capacity to do any material thing, she did not give up. She considered her new limitations and sought out what she could still do and she did it.

I am sure the poor were among those for whom she prayed, but I am sure she also prayed for the Holy Souls, for her fellow nuns, the convent’s neighbors, the leaders of her nation,…

I see that you have a lot of compassion and a great desire to do something, but that your desire to do something is limited by circumstances beyond tour control. What I think we are all hoping for is that you use your limited resources in an effective way.

But also realize that the media does inform about many aspects of life which, while not necessarily directed towards extreme poverty, does allow us to read the paper and perform Acts of Mercy. Once when I was moving across the country I heard about a family whose house and everything they owned had burned up in a fire. I contacted some people and said I was giving away a lot of household items (kitchenwares, ironing boards, etc). Normally I am not in a position to give a huge amount of my belongings in a situation like that, but these went together, and my act was more helpful than having a yard sale.

Every day the newspaper lists people who have died, for whom we can pray.

Every day the paper tells us of people in trouble, for whom we can at least pray.

The fact that the media does not cover one particular aspect of life is a side effect of the paper’s being *in business, *the fact that they would shortly be unable to inform anyone of anything is they were to stop adjusting to what their customers want; it is simply not their responsibility.

But what you yourself do is your responsibility. Have you spoken with a priest about what you *can *do? Have you considered not complaining here about the lack of media coverage and using that time to write and send Letters to the Editors, perhaps even informing them (they might not know) of some of what is happening? This too would be an act of mercy, a spiritual act of mercy of instructing the ignorant, no?

And if you informed us of your efforts, perhaps some others of us who are in a position to do so would be able to join you in your efforts, and something could be done in that area.
 
Robert_Sock said:
I’m personally do not consider myself to be a ‘liberal,’ and I do not like people labeling me as such,…
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Robert_Sock said:
Taxation to end extreme poverty is not morally wrong.
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You are a liberal. Forcing people to do what you want them to do.
Stephen168 said:
should (charities)=humanitarian
required/forced (government)=liberal
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St_Francis said:
I would say that a liberal expects others to do something, conservatives expect the people with the problem to do something, and a humanitarian expects himself to do something.
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Robert_Sock said:
Taxation to end extreme poverty is not morally wrong.
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The level and use of that taxation is up for debate, in particular situations. Often, taxation has been used to fund criminal activity, or been diverted by corrupt officials who have skimmed from particular “entitlement programs,” resulting in taxation not being directed to its intended target.

In any case, any immoral action is wrong, according to Catholic Moral Theology. Doesn’t matter what the “ends” are, because in Catholic theology the ends never justify the means, if the means are immoral (such as killing an abortionist).

And taxing to “end” poverty will not happen when the causes of poverty – First World or Third World – remain.
 
You certainly can be a humanitarian and still be politically or fiscally conservative.

For instance a businessman could build a pumping station with a small reservoir and irrigation system. The water could increase crop production and improve sanitation, both of which would help to lift the village out of poverty. To give the people a sense of ownership the businessman might lease it to a village for low cost with the village owning the water system in 10 years.

Now a liberal might object that it was private business asking for a small payment rather than a government so it can’t be humanitarian. Humanitarian does not require that everything is done for free, it simply means that one is interested in bettering a peoples’ lot in life. Its the whole concept of a hand up rather than a hand out.

As said earlier, a humanitarian sees a problem and does something about it. I do not think someone who sees a problem and tells others to do something about it qualifies as a humanitarian. Coercion does not change hearts.

While using tax policy *might *work in the very short term, it will eventually backfire. Instead of the rich pulling the poor up it would go the other way; the poor would overwhelm the rich and pull them down so that everyone would be wallowing in the same pool of mud. Eventually the resources of the rich would be exhausted. Even the poor in the US would eventually be pulled lower to bring the billions in poverty up to an equal level if we follow the standard humanitarian aid route.

Humanitarianism is an act of will, not something one is coerced to do.

(PS - don’t even get me started on how humanitarian government policies are often tied to population control)
 
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