Was South Africa better off under apartheid?
Let's look at the new South Africa: There are 15000 murders a year. The violent crime rate is a massive 8 times higher than the world average. Rapes are the norm and have only a 5% conviction rate. The Safety and Security minister's "solution" to crime is to tell people to get out the country. The AIDS epidemic is ravaging the country, 12.5% of all South Africans have the virus. The ex vice-president believes that a shower could prevent the risk of contracting AIDS. Millions of tax-payers money is blown on bullshit. The country is held to ransom by Cosatu whenever they feel like it (watch out for this during the 2010 WC) Public Transport is falling apart. A favourite past-time of some groups of people is to burn trains, or even more fun, to throw people off them. The President seems oblivious to all the problems. Children are raped since it "cures AIDS" BEE has resulted in people not yet capable of doing the job being forced into a position thus resulting in a set-back to the economy. Morals towards other people and animals seem to be non-existant in large sectors of the population - The recent case of a policeman killing a goat in front of a police station with a blunt butter knife serves to illustrate here. A walk through most city centres or areas which were previously a hub of entertainment places will reveal a disgusting situation where crime is rampant, with filth and litter everywhere. Hillbrow, Sunnyside and Church Square are classic examples. Many children do not have schools. The rate of poverty affecting children is sitting at 50%. That means that half of the "future of South Africa" are starving to death. The white population of SA is being eradicated through murder and the goverment feels it necessary to take the means away for whites to defend themselves. The list goes on and on. So is South Africa better now than 20 years ago? No.
What are the pros and cons of free school meals?
Pros -Reduce hunger. It’s free so kids who are hungry at home can get some food and be able to have more energy to pay attention in class. There is massive income inequality around the world, including in the U.S. A lot of kids come from families where they often go hungry at night or are malnourished.Cons -Food quality. I attended public schools in the U.S. from kindergarten through senior year in high school But the school food pretty much always sucked.I bet it will suck more if they just give it away because there’s more demand for stuff that is free than if you have to pay.Look at how much time we waste on Facebook, giving away all our data just so everyone can save 5 cents a week.Cost. Most things schools do for free for kids tend to be very expensive for taxpayers. Given the true total costs, you are almost always better better off giving kids lunch money to go to a private place like Souplantation or Whole Foods (now discounted prices with Amazon Prime Now delivery!), etc.Stigma. If you give free meals based on need and not to every kid, you should do it in a way so that no kid figures out which kids are too poor to pay for their own lunch and are getting a free lunch. S. John mentions in their comments below one way to do this.Quick story:“The other parents and I paid for him to come out here because his parents, well, couldn’t afford it,” said my wealthy, former (after he said this) friend in a patronizing tone to his son.I was there.I thought “Wow, I can’t believe you just outed your son’s teammate. Way to teach teamwork and team spirit! Stay classy, bro.”Right after Lehman imploded, then US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson made every big bank - even Wells Fargo - take government bailout money. Wells Fargo didn’t need it but Hank used a heavy hand to make them take it.[1] He didn’t want the ones who were about to be unable to pay their bills and debts (but for massive bailouts) to be singled out (which was basically the rest of them). He didn’t want Citi, Goldman, Morgan Stanley, BofA to have any stigma.Same thing here.Kids are kind of mean sometimes. They will ostracize other kids who are different.Don’t make poor kids have to use vouchers or food stamps to get their free lunch.Give everyone a free lunch or don’t do it at all. Find another way to get poor kids fed.In this case at least, can we not treat poor kids worse than Goldman Sachs?Footnotes[1] How Paulson forced bail-out on the banks
Is mass starvation and poverty a result of natural selection?
Don - I think you missed the point here. The perspective is not so much "I'm stronger than those starving kids in Africa, therefore my life is more valuable." It's more like "Maybe if we stopped helping those people and just let them die, then the world's already enormous population would be restored to a sustainable level, and resources can be distributed better." (I would like to remphasize that I do not agree with this.) Is it fruitless to provide charity, meager in proportion to the amount of suffering out there? Maybe we should stop providing food and let the world naturally restore balance so that the cycle of poverty stops and the standard of living for each person is more equal. Of course, one can't help but look at this from a moral standpoint because of course if it were your mother or children you would do everything to save them, but I ask that you distance yourself slightly to think about the problem.
What do you think about celebrity charity work and politics?
I think it's great people like Angelina Jolie and Geroge Clooney get involved but why don't they ever get involved in charity here? What about all the starving children and family's here? Why can't they help them? What makes people in Africa, ect. better than the ones here? What about Katrina victims? What about St. Judes charities? Why don't they adopt children from here? Why do all the celebrities adopt children from from other countries? Why not America?