What do you think about this statement?

So the people of Haiti should suffer? Who is more important? Who has more basic resources available?

The idea that it’s a choice between the two is fallacious.

@Jeruba I like your big word use :P

@gemiwing It’s not who is more important. Haiti’s infrastructure has been demolished, and it is close to impossible to get help in. Not to mention the political people going over there to look good for their state and potential voters.

I don’t think that nothing has been done, or is being done, for the starving children, mentally ill, homeless, and elderly. But Haiti has received an overwhelming amount of publicity. The people of Haiti do need help, and we as a country are stretching our hand out to help.

Yeah, I saw that go around on Facebook, too. It started with “Shame on America” there, though, and I think that’s the key point that the Faceboogers were trying to make – that America needs to take care of our own first, and only then reach out to help third world countries in distress.

First, I don’t think there’s ever any shame in showing compassion to those more needy than we are. Face it – there’s a huge difference between being poor in the U.S., and being trapped in rubble for a week in the hemisphere’s only Third World country, hoping you don’t die.

There’s also this: to be the Big Man On Campus In Hemisphere and not help out (like so many smaller countries helped us after Katrina) would be a public relations nightmare. Whether or not we have the largest economy on the globe (we do), the global image is that we’re large and in charge and if we don’t reach out, there’s something deeply wrong with our foreign policy. Plus, have you ever noticed that hungry people are seldom content to just go die in a corner? No, they usually cause social and political unrest. What we don’t need is a world full of hungry people with a bone to pick with the United States. I know we could smoosh Haiti with our thumb, metaphorically speaking, but this is actually my argument for all foreign aid.

There’s always going to be a huge need for help. It’s a hole that will never be filled, so people sometimes tune it out. On the other hand, we have images of, frankly, hell coming from Haiti, and that slaps people across the heart and makes them want to help. Let them! I bet, in the most Utilitarian manner, that a dollar spent ending suffering in Haiti, is a dollar well spent.

@MebiByte I don’t see how either of those things should eclipse sending help. I do feel that the question was ‘why send them things when we need things here’ so in my opinion yes, it would be a matter of who is ‘more important’.

I understand what is being said. And you are right.

Something seems not right with helping others and not helping the ones close to home.

But, to have compassion is to have compassion for all.

In our country, the homeless without shelter, children going to bed without eating, elderly going without needed meds, and mentally ill without treatment.

Are in better shape then the Haitians are. So we help.

Uhh… yeah we have some homeless, some lower class children not getting enough to eat. But in the end we have a massive welfare state, and hundreds of programs to help these people. Countries like Haiti have nothing, I mean nothing.

No one made this sort of statement when it came to helping the victims of the Boxing Day Tsunami in 2004.

Just sayin’.

Haiti is such a close neighbor (geographically speaking). . . given the current situation, would you rather care for them in their country or after they land in the US after they are driven to seek “greener pastures” across the sea?

Besides, I don’t see any reason why any American child should go to bed hungry, when aid is available to them. It is all a matter of accessing the services. . . . maybe the blame should be put on their parents.

Yes, it’s a shame we don’t take better care of our citizens in need. That doesn’t mean we should be heartless and selfish, especially considering Haiti is a country with a lot fewer resources than the U.S. In addition, if something that disastrous happened here, I would hope for an outpouring of help no matter the source. Think about it, 75,000 people dead.. when has anything of that scope happened here?

What else is new…......? Maybe whoever said that should open their mind up enough to realize that you can’t help everyone. What is up with these super nation lover people that think their country is the only one on the planet? If they have such a problem with it, they can go give their money and resources to all their helpless americans, meanwhile they’ll cuss at one of their americans for cutting them off on the highway…...

It’s all about scale. Some of the situations you have listed are based on choices. Now don’t everyone pile on. I have been down to my last few $$ with only Ramen in the cupboard but I also see families who get an EIC of thousands and then go on a shopping spree instead of saving it for hard times. As a sr, I can tell you if my dying a year sooner would help children live to be my age instead of dying of dehydration, I say “See you on the other side.”

I’m willing to put my money where my Isosorbide is and I don’t need any pseudophilosopher to speak for me.

Compare Srs not being able to afford expensive meds that slow down the natural process of aging or the unhealthy choices made in life to a million people without potable water.

@galileogirl, I salute your position. I don’t see how that is about scale, though. Isn’t what you said actually about responsibility? The people of Haiti were not responsible for the earthquake. A family that spends food stamps on chips and soda and then has a problem with nutritional deficiencies or buys a VCR instead of clothes for the kids is making a choice and bears some responsibility for its condition. Isn’t that what you’re saying? And so it seems as if you are arguing that rescuing them is a different matter.

Or did you mean scale of need? I heard an interviewee in NPR last night, a doctor volunteering in Haiti, saying that some people with injuries need amputations, but that that’s only the beginning: they also need prostheses and they need physical therapy. To me those are needs on a different scale. Not to seem hard-hearted, but the amputations are life-saving, whereas plenty of people who have lost limbs have got by without prostheses or PT.

@Jeruba One priviledged old lady losing a year of retirement compared to a million people losing decades=scale

@MrGeneVan, you do have a point. It’s too bad we can’t take care MORE of our own, and Haiti too.

Ah, ok. I didn’t realize that that’s how you were applying the term, @galileogirl. Thanks.

It’s true that if I gave up one or two of my medications, the sum of the insurance company’s payments and mine would probably support several Third World families. That’s something to think about.

This year my Christmas gifts were from Heifer Intl…I seem to be leaning more that way as I age

Lets put this question into perspective: have you ever heard of the word triage? this means taking the most serious problems and injuries first and line the rest of the people in order, based on need.

This is the way hospitals, doctors, nurses, police officers and firefighters work. take care of the imminent danger first. Haiti is the imminent danger.

@aprilsimnel Maybe no one on Flluther made that statement, but I saw it mentioned on several other sites.
People sometimes think if you give to one, you are somehow taking from the other, but that is not the case. It’s a good method to get more people involved in helping.

For better or for worse, we’ll all forget about Haiti the next time some celebrity does something stupid. Our own systemic problems have already been forgotten about.

Please don’t give me lurve for this answer; I’m angry just writing it.

Excised.

Are there any published statistics showing that the men, women, and children suffering from poverty, hunger, or homeless in the US are the cheif architechts of their misery?

Haiti has been in rubble for decades and people are just now standing up?

Haiti is no stranger to earthquakes. The nation, which occupies the western part of the island of Hispaniola and is situated between Puerto Rico and Cuba, has experienced numerous slight to moderate earthquakes in the recent past. The island is caught between two tectonic plates. The North America and the Caribbean tectonic plates are sheering the island, crushing it, grinding it. And as that occurs, earthquakes pop off. That being said, an earthquake did not hit Haiti because they are poor. An Earthquake hit Haiti because the island is near a fault line. Haiti has virtually no building codes or regulations. Had a real government been put in place, prior to this disaster maybe some or even most of that damage could have been mitigated.

But Haiti has no government because they are a poor country and it is their own fault. What is Haiti’s main source of income you may ask? Its from the drug trade, what does that tell you?

What gets me is stuff like this happens all throughout the world, all the time. Not entirely sure why the action going on in Haiti is so significant when there are far worse atrocities being committed right now. In the USA and EVERYWHERE.

ts not even about being human and helping. Don’t pull the “It’s our jobs as human beings to help” cards out because 95% of the people posting these messages to attracting more attention to Haiti as well as celebrities online and in the media saying oh help Haiti help Haiti are only doing it to make themselves look better, for publicity and not because they actually care at all.

America’s failures to fulfil obligations to the weakest and sickest in its country is a national disgrace. Its misguided expenditures on waging wars of economic opportunity are no excuse.

The obligation to reach out to others in need in Haiti is not negated by its failures at home or its misdeeds abroad.

@whyhelphaiti – they haven’t had an earthquake this major in something like 200 years.

I’m one of the people out there who think America has a crisis as big as the one in Haiti in it’s own backyard. The millions of homeless, jobless, hungry and sick citizens here is, like Dr. Lawrence says, a national disgrace. But I don’t think NOT helping the people of Haiti would solve this countries problems. I’m just glad they are helping someone other than the banks or insurance companies or other corporate dead weight.

@Silhouette Our crisis is only bigger than Haiti in that if we go down economically all the countries already on the edge of the abyss will fall into chaos. There would be people actually dying in the 100’s of millions from starvation and disease around the world without help. Barring an asteroid smashing into the earth, that kind of human destruction is not going to happen in the US. We have the resources to overcome an economic crisis. Life may change but we will survive. Haiti can’t do that on it’s own.

@galileogirl Like I said, while I acknowledge the problems the US have, I don’t think it’s a reason to deny the people of Haiti help. I also don’t think the problems in the US are any less a catastrophe.

Losing your job with a govt safety net vs losing your home, your source of income and half your family with no functioning govt——potayto/potahto

@galileogirl think the difference between our opinions is that you and I don’t agree on how desperate the American situation is. I don’t think there is a workable government safety net left here in the states. I think many of our citizens have also lost their homes, their source of income and many of them are losing family member everyday to unaffordable health care. potato/potato