“Actually, I think America gives a little more…”

It may be a good idea for you to try reading my posts correctly before you start, Asa. Did I not say it was an old post, therefore an old amount was quoted? Also, was it not a LOT more?

Then we have the obvious, pathetically desperate, last resort: 'but it’s such a teeny-weeny amount as a percentage'. Surprise, surprise!!! Bloody hell. I don’t give a frig about nought point one eight five three two nine nine of a percentage point difference; it’s still billions and billions and billions and billions and billions of dollars in aid!

“In the Indian budget for FY 2003-2004, an amount of Rs.653 billion has been earmarked for expenditure on defence. It represents an increase of 16.6% over the last years budget estimates of Rs.560 billion.”

Six hundred and fifty three billion rupees (which was last year’s allowance for building walls between India and Pakistan and weapons to arm herself against her poor and desperate and miserable and dying people and stuff; this year’ll be far more!), as against zilch aid, Asa. MORE than a bit embarrassing, I'd say, wouldn’t you, Asa??
Want to try Pakistan?

“There's loads more, but it is probably too much to take in all at once.”

Go on, give it a go; you can’t come out any worse than you just have.

P.S. Better a world under the rule of the US than India. Just to stay inside the header!

"Defending the pillars of Saddam's power until the end, embracing the evil that their hatred of America makes them love."

Also, was it not a LOT more
I'm not given to superlatives.

Yes, it's a lot of money to you - but in America's context it isn't.
Especially when they get more than 70% back.
That's the point America profits from the aid she gives the 3rd world. Don't give this holier than holies attitude.

as against zilch aid for whom?

By the way the US India debate is next door - this is World under one rule.

More
The US, Europe and Japan spend $350 billion each year on agricultural subsidies (seven times as much as global aid to poor countries), and this money creates gluts that lower commodity prices and erode the living standard of the world’s poorest people.
“These subsidies are crippling Africa’s chance to export its way out of poverty,” said James Wolfensohn, the World Bank president, in a speech last month.

Mark Malloch Brown, the head of the United Nations Development Program, estimates that these farm subsidies cost poor countries about $50 billion a year in lost agricultural exports. By coincidence, that’s about the same as the total of rich countries' aid to poor countries, so we take back with our left hand every cent we give with our right.

In fact, J. Brian Atwood, stepped down in 1999 as head of the US foreign aid agency, USAID. He was very critical of US policies, and vented his frustration that “despite many well-publicized trade missions, we saw virtually no increase of trade with the poorest nations. These nations could not engage in trade because they could not afford to buy anything.”

In 1995, the director of the US aid agency defended his agency by testifying to his congress that 84 cents of every dollar of aid goes back into the US economy in goods and services purchased. For every dollar the United States puts into the World Bank, an estimated $2 actually goes into the US economy in goods and services.

In some ways it's surprising that America doesn't give more aid - they'd be richer for it.

Get Curious!

[This message was edited by Asa on 01-13-06 at 03:40 PM.]

OK guys,
Since we can't be sure that your discussions on oil, American foreign aid, etc. are not simply tangents necessary for you to make a greater argument related to the main topic of this thread, the previous posts will stand. However, in your upcoming posts, please clarify the connection between American colonization and these tangents if you wish to continue to debate them, or post them to their relevant threads or a PT instead. Otherwise, they will be deleted.

Furthermore,
Direct personal attacks (name-calling, etc.) have been deleted. The more ambiguous comments were given the benefit of the doubt and left alone, but please be respectful of your fellow debators and their arguments when posting in the future. Thank you.

-------------------------
"The sleep of reason produces monsters." ~Francisco de Goya

[This message was edited by Katelyn on 01-14-06 at 01:07 PM.]

i am not one sided as to the argument of wether the world under one rule would be a better place. the truth of it is that if someone wants to be the ruler of the entire world they have an underlying and dangerously engrossing addiction to power.i am not in any ways saying that all who would have the world under one banner would be dead bent on power but it is too large a risk to take. in addition to this i believe that no-one man or women could understand world culture enough to be able to cater for the population of the earth.surely putting the world under one banner is to drift into the waters of a worldly monarchy. monarchy as a means of ruling has been tried and failed and we must not drift back into the past else we are doomed to repeat it. i understand why people believe that the world under one rule would mean less conflict, but would it? surely some are not easily pleased and the world could fall into global civil war. i may be going a bit far here but. you have to think of the long term effects. government internationnaly has proven succesfull with or without its many flaws, but for one man to go into earthly rule alone would be a dangerous risk to take

Reading through this debate for a few times, makes me itch to correct many assumptions people hold about the effects of colonisation.
Dogsi, for one, has misconceptions about colonisation and its impacts. Subjugation of the colony's economy, people, rights for the benefit of the Conqueror is the main reason for colonisation in the first place. It's a practical side to life, we can't all afford to be purely altruistic always.

Besides that, America and Russia are actually anti-imperialist. Read Woodrow Wilson's 14 Points made after WWI and also know that Roosevelt told Churchill(UK) to give up it's empire after WWII. However America has some times betrayed its founding principals in trying to progress, so it's not entirely impossible for it to turn imperialistic. I'm not trying to critisise America here, but to state that on relative and subjective issues such as Rights, Liberty, Democracy, Equality, it is inevitable that there are clashes.

You would think the fact that throughout both Asian and European history, countries never stayed colonised for long, as well as the fact that 2 World wars occured because of the direct impacts of Imperialism, would be proof why World under one rule (WUOR) will not work. Mel Gibson's William Wallace and his "Freeeedommmmm!" wasn't just limited to Scotland. William Wallaces surfaced in many forms, people, countries, cultures and so on. Your neighbourhood nationalist is a Wallace in disguise, sans face paint.

But for now I shall just post a short argument on why the World under one Rule will be disastrous.

The biggest problem will be the sheer size (pun pun) of the land under control. If you take notice, the world's biggest countries like China, India and Russia suffer from a multitude of problems that comes with the governments being unable to have effective total control.

Governments normally have a centralised bureaucracy, and control delegated to various regional/provincial governments.
There's a chinese saying that goes, "The mountains are high and the Emperor is far away."
Distance and the vast number of regions, will shield many provinces from the focus of the Central Authority. And since the Central Authority isn't watching, the provincial governments, as well as the people themselvs can pretty much do what they want.

Recent examples include Shanghai, where several top officials (including the Governor of Shanghai) are under persecution for embezzlement and corruption. Classic example of mountains high and emperor far away.

Indonesia too suffers greatly from the government's inability to have effective control. Indonesia is made up of thousands of islands, can you imagine the headache in trying to govern all of them?

One very recent case in point is the haze issue, SEA countries were affected by the smoke coming from Indonesia due to clearing of land through burning. Imagine again living among the clouds, except that the clouds are filled with soot, sulphur, carbon dioxide etc etc. It's more than an irritant, it's a health hazard. ASEAN tried to force Indonesia to tackle this problem for years with no result.

That's because the different provincial authories aren't doing much to follow what the Central Authority says. Farmers, companies could just set fire to a land without anyone knowing, and even the provincial government can't control them.

Added proof that smaller countries are more efficient and less corrupt? Look at the rankings of the Corruption Perception Index. You'll notice that the chart-toppers are relatively small countries. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perception_Index
Iceland, Finland, New Zealand ranks as the top 3. (Maybe we should name countries to end with -land.) Iceland's population is under 500,000. Finland under 6m, New Zealand under 5m.

There are so many inherent flaws in the idea of world under one rule, it'll take me days to list them all and that's not even going into the classifications of indirect or direct rule, economic or millitary imperialism.

Besides, who's going to be the absolute ruler? Let me quote Machievelli here, "Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely." It's like wearing the ONE RING (to rule them all) in LOTR. Even our favourite Gandalf isn't impervious to the effects of being all-powerful.

This topic is fun to debate, although I have a feeling that I'm posting this for my own benefit since I may be the only one interested enough to read my post.

"Perhaps no person can be a poet, or even enjoy poetry, without a certain unsoundness of mind."
- Thomas Babington Macaulay