I realize this isn't really the forum for this kind of rant, but there are two things that always make me froth at the mouth when someone complains that "America is next to last" in foreign aid (besides the fact that "America" refers to a pair of continents when they mean the country known as the United States of America)
1) The U.S. gives more money in foreign aid than any other country. It may be low as a percentage of our GNP, but it is the highest in terms of raw dollars. Furthermore, there is no country that gives more than 0.4% of its GNP, despite a promise made by the 22 nations mentioned above at the UN General Assembly in 1970 that they would increase giving to 0.7% by the middle of that decade. (Right now the EU is promising to meet that goal by 20152) The citizens of the U.S. give more in charity than any other country; our average rate is 2.2% of our income, compared to, say, 0.5% in Briton or about 0.65% in Canada
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I appreciate the data. I don't have any facts on this particular subject, and was more highlighting the general themes of his statements. Those being that if you are going to vote with your values at all and those values are informed by the bible, then you need to broaden your efforts to include more humanitarian endevors which are a key part of the teachings of Christ.
The political choices of how that should be done are still up for debate, but I still agree that if there were as much passion invested in these issues as there is in the policing of individuals privet lives, we might stand a chance of making some real improvements in the quality of life. I am under the impression that money, while important to any cause, isn't his main beef with extreame right Evangelicals, or the silent moderets in main stream churches.
Yeah, I realized that one little bit wasn't really the point of the post, but I just hate seeing people parrot that figure so often without saying (or, I'm pretty sure, realizing) what it actually means in the real world.
Well, I hate seeing people do that with any of their fancy statistics, but I've seen that one before multiple times and it just particularly sticks in my craw.
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1) The U.S. gives more money in foreign aid than any other country. It may be low as a percentage of our GNP, but it is the highest in terms of raw dollars. Furthermore, there is no country that gives more than 0.4% of its GNP, despite a promise made by the 22 nations mentioned above at the UN General Assembly in 1970 that they would increase giving to 0.7% by the middle of that decade. (Right now the EU is promising to meet that goal by 20152) The citizens of the U.S. give more in charity than any other country; our average rate is 2.2% of our income, compared to, say, 0.5% in Briton or about 0.65% in Canada ( ... )
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The political choices of how that should be done are still up for debate, but I still agree that if there were as much passion invested in these issues as there is in the policing of individuals privet lives, we might stand a chance of making some real improvements in the quality of life. I am under the impression that money, while important to any cause, isn't his main beef with extreame right Evangelicals, or the silent moderets in main stream churches.
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Well, I hate seeing people do that with any of their fancy statistics, but I've seen that one before multiple times and it just particularly sticks in my craw.
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