Student Columnist says AIDS funding is "not in our interest"

[bluestateguy]

http://www.dailytexanonline.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2003/07/09/3f0bb58fc23a9

If a mother bear gives birth to an invalid cub, she doesn't spend her time nursing the weak cub. Instead, she abandons the weak and nurses the strong. She knows she can't give her milk to the weak cub and expect it to grow stronger while her stronger cubs grow weaker. Such an action would sacrifice the strong to the weak.

cut

Obviously, giving money to Africa is not in our best interests. For something to be in our interests, there has to be an exchange where we receive something of equal or greater value in return. Any exchange where something of a lesser value is received in return is a sacrifice. How likely is it that America will benefit from giving these African countries $15 billion? Not likely. According to the CIA World Factbook, the combined debt of these five countries is nearly $65 billion.

[Loonman]

1. How about

How about if someone had unprotected sex with her brother and gave him AIDS? Would that be in her interest?

[karlschneider]

4. Uh, his name is Gretchen........

:eyes:

[JohnKleeb]

12. Gretchen is he a drag queen or does he have bad parents

Thats my cousin's name, Gretchen that is. Lucky her got to go to Myrtle Beach. She just graduated from High School.

[imax2268]

Well...

let's not forget that the area near there is being called the "New Gulf"...there's a buttload of oil down there...

Second of all...with all the corruption in Africa...that 15billion will probably get taken and not go to where it's supposed to...

just my opinion...

[Brian34986]

17. We don't have to wait for the corruption in Africa

to hijack the money. It'll be done first by the US drug companies, who have had their own installed by Bush as the "foreign AIDS czar".

The left-overs from that will go to the faith-based "charities" who will provide training in abstinence as the solution to the AIDS problem in Africa.

If anything's left over, it might actually be helpful in the fight against this disease, but the GOP Congress is making sure that the US doesn't live up to Bush's PR "pledge" of $15 billion....so there probably won't be much left over anyway.

[CO Liberal]

2. Encouraging This Moron is Not In Our Interest

Sounds like this numbnuts junior dittohead learned everything she "knows" from the likes of Limbaugh, Hannity, and Coulter.

I hope someone sets her straight.

ON EDIT: The article states that the writer, Gretchen Thomas is a "philosophy freshman". Sounds to me like her philosophy is all wrong.

[ibegurpard]

3. Darwinist ethics

Makes sense on paper but who wants to be the one to tell the PEOPLE that if affects...and like the previous poster suggested, would this idiot feel the same way if it was his SISTER? :puke:

[NormanConquest]

6. That's our right wing...

Totally against the idea of evolutionary Darwinism, but totally FOR the social variety.

[sandnsea]

5. Thomas needs to spend a year in Africa

What a completely self-centered little twit. Not to mention that he doesn't understand anything about the world economy, terrorism, spread of diseases, or a host of issues that are in "our interest".

A freshman in college or maybe a freshman in high school? Whichever, his parents need to take away his television.

[eyesroll]

7. Hmm...

Let's say I'm a 17-year-old AIDS patient in Africa. My parents are dead; my siblings are dying; there's little food and no work to be found. And I blame the U.S., for knowing they could help but doing nothing.

And then, an Al Qaeda recruiter shows up at my door, offers me some cash to feed my family and a chance to die quickly, as a "martyr," instead of slowly and painfully...

America's interests aren't always economic, Gretchen.

(Oh, dear God, I'm agreeing with * on something!)

[jiacinto]

8. He is off base completely

AIDS is a threat to national security. It destablizes countries and their economies. When people are that down and out terrorist movements become much more attractive. Controlling AIDS should be a key priority.

And the comparison of Africans to bears and animals plays on crude racial overtones.

[Bob3]

9. Define "strong" waterhead

First off - by this kind of twisted thinking Stephen Hawking should have been left to die on an ice flow. This kind of social darwin gibberish drives me insane. It is the voice of greed, a whining sound that assumes their fortunate circumstances are theirs by right.

You just want to slap little jerks like this right in the mouth just to stop their lips from flapping around and wasting air that other people could use.

As far a benifits go, well how about not allowing Africa to slip into pit of violence disease and dispair that breeds the kind of fanatics that are willing to fly airplanes into buildings? Hmmm?

Ugh.

[thermodynamic]

10. Says a lot about the "humanity" in humans

It's amazing how some people will call certain things "acts against nature" while doing things that only animals would do.

May they get the disease. Then we'll see how quickly their attitudes change. I apologize for being so harsh (nobody should get it), but what else can be done to convince them of the humanity involved?

Also interesting is his puke viewpoint "Don't do a thing for them unless we get something in return". Very Christian, that attitude - NOT!

Yeah, the combined debt too. Debt which the IMF and World Bank (along with "US interests" no doubt) happily gave them so we could expand our own little animal farm and done in the name of improving their lives... :grr:

Fuck capitalists. Fuck the IMF and World Bank.

[Syn_Dem]

11. He ever heard of generosity and being a good samaritan?

n/t

[Yavin4]

13. Everybody Is A Darwinist, Until

they lose.

[GOPisEvil]

14. I can't believe I share the same air as this brain-dead simpleton.

Yes, Virginia, there are whack jobs in Austin.

Has dear Gretchen ever heard of being a human being? Trying to alleviate the suffering of others? I guess not.

But, when you're 18 years old, and omnipotent, who cares about other people?

[ibegurpard]

15. I remember my first exposure to "lifeboat ethics"

In a college philosophy class. I thought it made GREAT sense...thank God I progressed beyond that. Hopefully this person will as well.

[The Backlash Cometh]

16. Don't you just love it when they show themselves

for the bastards they are?