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From: polard@fortune.UUCP (Henry Polard)
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: poor starving people
Message-ID: <4692@fortune.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 28-Nov-84 16:45:24 EST
Article-I.D.: fortune.4692
Posted: Wed Nov 28 16:45:24 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 30-Nov-84 08:08:59 EST
References: <642@amd.UUCP>
Reply-To: polard@fortune.UUCP (Henry polard)
Distribution: net
Organization: Fortune Systems, Redwood City, CA
Lines: 54

In article <642@amd.UUCP> phil@amd.UUCP (Phil Ngai) writes:
>I feel like starting a flame here.
>
>BACKGROUND
>Many people are starving in Ethiopia. Many countries are giving food aid
>and this cause has made even the USA and the USSR temporarily forget their
>differences and work together to help get food to the needy. It still isn't
>enough, Ethiopia says it has only half of what it needs to prevent a
>famine. Meanwhile the US government pays farmers not to produce to keep
>prices up.
>
>But that's not what I want to flame about. Are the United States and other
>countries expected to continually bail out countries which can't feed
>themselves? I think there must be too many people living in Ethiopia.
>I think there probably isn't any birth control there.
>
>PROPOSAL
>The United States should send more food to Ethiopia, but all recipients
>must consent to sterilization.
>
>(go on, flame me, that's what I want!)
>-- 
> This may not even represent my opinion, much less AMD's.

I certainly hope this this unthinking cruelty does NOT represent your opinion.  

What good does sterilizing these people do? They probably have busted ass
trying to keep their families fed and pay taxes - will sterilizing them 
help them do this better?  They've had bad
weather - so sterilizing them is going to improve the weather??
Their government has not been effective - so sterilizing the people 
would make the government effective?
Even if they were lazy and shiftless sterilizing them would not make them work.
It would, in fact, make the situation worse, since on a farm the more people
there are in the family, the more there are to work the land.  If there 
are only a couple people to work the land, food can't be raised efficiently.

We should fed the needy - we have enough food to that easily -
AND we should exert pressure on the governments of developing nations 
to be govern properly.  Most of these goverments only exist to stay
in power so they can rip off those they govern and live high off the hog.
(BTW this happens here too - look at defense procurement).

Please distinguish between people and those that rule them.

BTW - if you were far from home in your car and it died, would you consent 
to be sterilized before receiving help?
Before judging people get to know them and put yourself in 
their place.
-- 
Henry Polard (You bring the flames - I'll bring the marshmallows.)
{ihnp4,cbosgd,amd}!fortune!polard
N.B: The words in this posting do not necessarily express the opinions
of me, my employer, or any AI project.