by OLD1953 » Mon Dec 03, 2012 2:19 am
Has there been any news from Israel or Palestine in the last twenty years that could not be summarized as "same song, different day"?
On the nuclear policy, all but three of those countries were in the US "circle" for acquiring nuclear weapons.
Blaming Europe's problems on immigrants is similar to blaming a dogs death on a minor infestation of fleas. The fleas may not be helpful, but they didn't kill the dog. (No, I did not compare immigrants to parasitic insects, I drew an analogy between two foolish claims. To all kneejerkers, please learn to read English.)
It's a dead certain cinch that only a very tiny portion of public funds anywhere goes to immigrants, because they can't vote and have no voice. No politician will place funds in a community that can't vote for him. Dictatorships and oligarchs are much more generous towards such communities. But it is very easy to claim any group that can be differentiated from another is the root cause and source of all problems, get rid of "them" and all the problems go away.
Here's one that's absolutely factual - the average person in the USA thinks 10 to 20% of the US federal spending is for "gifts" to other countries, and that the US is a world leader in aid to foreign nations. That is so utterly false that it isn't even vaguely debatable. In fact, the government portion is so small, private aid from the US is double the size of the public funds. And a lot of the public "aid" is actually military in nature, not humanitarian as most believe. Yet if I had a dollar for every person I've had tell me the budget could be balanced by removing foreign aid, I'd have a small fortune.
http://www.parade.com/news/intelligence ... n-aid.html
That's a clear case of this misidentification of the source of the problem being the "other". Totally removing all foreign aid from the budget wouldn't affect anything, except the defense of Israel.
(Note: Yes, we give more in terms of absolute money than others, but as a percentage of either GDP or government income we are flat at the bottom of the developed nations. And in any event it is FAR less than 90% of voters think it is.)
Has there been any news from Israel or Palestine in the last twenty years that could not be summarized as "same song, different day"?
On the nuclear policy, all but three of those countries were in the US "circle" for acquiring nuclear weapons.
Blaming Europe's problems on immigrants is similar to blaming a dogs death on a minor infestation of fleas. The fleas may not be helpful, but they didn't kill the dog. (No, I did not compare immigrants to parasitic insects, I drew an analogy between two foolish claims. To all kneejerkers, please learn to read English.)
It's a dead certain cinch that only a very tiny portion of public funds anywhere goes to immigrants, because they can't vote and have no voice. No politician will place funds in a community that can't vote for him. Dictatorships and oligarchs are much more generous towards such communities. But it is very easy to claim any group that can be differentiated from another is the root cause and source of all problems, get rid of "them" and all the problems go away.
Here's one that's absolutely factual - the average person in the USA thinks 10 to 20% of the US federal spending is for "gifts" to other countries, and that the US is a world leader in aid to foreign nations. That is so utterly false that it isn't even vaguely debatable. In fact, the government portion is so small, private aid from the US is double the size of the public funds. And a lot of the public "aid" is actually military in nature, not humanitarian as most believe. Yet if I had a dollar for every person I've had tell me the budget could be balanced by removing foreign aid, I'd have a small fortune.
http://www.parade.com/news/intelligence-report/archive/who-gets-us-foreign-aid.html
That's a clear case of this misidentification of the source of the problem being the "other". Totally removing all foreign aid from the budget wouldn't affect anything, except the defense of Israel.
(Note: Yes, we give more in terms of absolute money than others, but as a percentage of either GDP or government income we are flat at the bottom of the developed nations. And in any event it is FAR less than 90% of voters think it is.)