• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Helping Jose

Are you helping or just enabling by giving Jose money

  • You are helping, give him the money you tightwad

    Votes: 5 25.0%
  • You are just enabling an unsustainable culture

    Votes: 15 75.0%

  • Total voters
    20

sawyerloggingon

Banned
DP Veteran
Joined
May 6, 2011
Messages
14,697
Reaction score
5,704
Location
Where they have FOX on in bars and restaurants
Gender
Male
Political Leaning
Independent
You have probably seen these commercials to help some poor kid in South America where they claim just a dollar a day will change a child's life. It tugged at my heart strings so I called for more info. They sent me a bio of this kid from a very poor family with eight kids. They said that if I helped feed him he could grow up to someday have a family of his own. It occurred to me that all I was doing by helping little Jose was enabling a culture that has to many kids per family too even feed. They need to learn to live within their means and by giving Jose money I was just helping to perpetuate a culture that needs to change. Give Jose money so he can grow up and have more kids than he can feed? WTF is that about. Anyway I didn't join the charity. So I wonder how others here feel, are you helping or hurting when you sign up for this program.
 
Last edited:
You have probably seen these commercials to help some poor kid in South America where they claim just a dollar a day will change a child's life. It tugged at my heart strings so I called for more info. They sent me a bio of this kid from a very poor family with eight kids. They said that if I helped feed him he could grow up to someday have a family of his own. It occurred to me that all I was doing by helping little Jose was enabling a culture that has to many kids per family to even feed. They need to learn to live within their means and by giving Jose money I was just helping to perpetuate a culture that needs to change. Give Jose money so he can grow up and have more kids than he can feed? WTF is that about. Anyway I didn't join the charity. So I wonder how others here feel, are you helping or hurting when you sign up for this program.

I understand what you mean. In some of those dirt-poor countries, people have multiple kids to use as slave labor - much like America did 300 years ago, where large families were essentially producing farmhands.

I won't send money over there for that. If I'm going to send charity, it's going to be for Americans.
 
You have probably seen these commercials to help some poor kid in South America where they claim just a dollar a day will change a child's life. It tugged at my heart strings so I called for more info. They sent me a bio of this kid from a very poor family with eight kids. They said that if I helped feed him he could grow up to someday have a family of his own. It occurred to me that all I was doing by helping little Jose was enabling a culture that has to many kids per family to even feed. They need to learn to live within their means and by giving Jose money I was just helping to perpetuate a culture that needs to change. Give Jose money so he can grow up and have more kids than he can feed? WTF is that about. Anyway I didn't join the charity. So I wonder how others here feel, are you helping or hurting when you sign up for this program.

I may be overly cynical but it seems that these charities

spend more on bs ads,and salaries than on actually helping.

I also agree that to me too many kids and not enough

resources is a problem waiting to happen!

I also prefer helping in my community in


the US of A then helping foreigners.

Not necessarily right but thats my feeling.


USA
 
You have probably seen these commercials to help some poor kid in South America where they claim just a dollar a day will change a child's life. It tugged at my heart strings so I called for more info. They sent me a bio of this kid from a very poor family with eight kids. They said that if I helped feed him he could grow up to someday have a family of his own. It occurred to me that all I was doing by helping little Jose was enabling a culture that has to many kids per family to even feed. They need to learn to live within their means and by giving Jose money I was just helping to perpetuate a culture that needs to change. Give Jose money so he can grow up and have more kids than he can feed? WTF is that about. Anyway I didn't join the charity. So I wonder how others here feel, are you helping or hurting when you sign up for this program.

I think you're helping, although I don't know how much of one's donation is actually going to the people it's intended to help. I don't do it myself -- though I don't use your rationale to make that decision. I generally donate every year through an organization that provides, say, a flock of geese or a goat to a family in a Third World Country. This seems like more ongoing help than dollars, in my opinion. Unfortunately, I don't remember the name of the organization right now.

Here's one that does pretty much the same thing: World Vision Donations: Gift Catalog
 
I think you're helping, although I don't know how much of one's donation is actually going to the people it's intended to help. I don't do it myself -- though I don't use your rationale to make that decision. I generally donate every year through an organization that provides, say, a flock of geese or a goat to a family in a Third World Country. This seems like more ongoing help than dollars, in my opinion. Unfortunately, I don't remember the name of the organization right now.

Here's one that does pretty much the same thing: World Vision Donations: Gift Catalog

Interesting link, thanks.
 
You have probably seen these commercials to help some poor kid in South America where they claim just a dollar a day will change a child's life. It tugged at my heart strings so I called for more info. They sent me a bio of this kid from a very poor family with eight kids. They said that if I helped feed him he could grow up to someday have a family of his own. It occurred to me that all I was doing by helping little Jose was enabling a culture that has to many kids per family too even feed. They need to learn to live within their means and by giving Jose money I was just helping to perpetuate a culture that needs to change. Give Jose money so he can grow up and have more kids than he can feed? WTF is that about. Anyway I didn't join the charity. So I wonder how others here feel, are you helping or hurting when you sign up for this program.

You have a good point. It almost reminds me of this Sam Kinison clip

 
What is too often ignored, IMHO, are the obscene salaries/benefits of the "executives" of these charities. Quite a few make more than the POTUS. Also much of your contribution goes to advertising simply to get more contributions. There needs to be a law passed that defines net money spent on the advertised purpose of each "charity" per dollar of gross donations recieved.

snopes.com: Executive Salaries in Charities

Top 25 Compensation Packages from the Charity Rating Guide

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B8LHEIgBvQJRUVhMTzF0aWZ5UVk/edit?pli=1
 
IMO, the majority of problems on earth comes from over population. In many areas the land cannot sustain the human population that lives their. It could be food, it could be water. Charity should starts at home.
 
Damn. Jimmy beat me to it. Just barely.
Don't worry about it. It's good enough to watch twice. It did remind me that it's time for me to go where the work is.
 
Don't worry about it. It's good enough to watch twice. It did remind me that it's time for me to go where the work is.

That's what I do...and did. I was born and raised in Michigan, but if you're going to look for a job, you don't look in the state with the highest unemployment rate in the country.
 
You have probably seen these commercials to help some poor kid in South America where they claim just a dollar a day will change a child's life. It tugged at my heart strings so I called for more info. They sent me a bio of this kid from a very poor family with eight kids. They said that if I helped feed him he could grow up to someday have a family of his own. It occurred to me that all I was doing by helping little Jose was enabling a culture that has to many kids per family too even feed. They need to learn to live within their means and by giving Jose money I was just helping to perpetuate a culture that needs to change. Give Jose money so he can grow up and have more kids than he can feed? WTF is that about. Anyway I didn't join the charity. So I wonder how others here feel, are you helping or hurting when you sign up for this program.

A few decades ago I ended up in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. As I was driving into town I saw a huge white building on a hilltop which was the presidential palace. To my right, on a hillside adjacent to the highway, were hundreds of people living under scraps of plywood or tarps. Most of the kids were naked and there was a dead horse at the bottom of the hill. I'd never seen that kind of poverty before and it was striking. As time went by I noticed that in most of the towns the majority of people lived in what was no more than a stable...kind of a row house with one room apartments and dirt floors. The men worked in the fields and the women made hammocks from kits that got distributed as some kid of economic incentive. The kids sold the hammocks or pimped their sisters.

The land owners sold their crops and paid the elected officials who turned the other way when claims of abuse were presented and the cops would beat anyone who complained and then steal whatever money they had....unless they were a drug dealer or whore monger in which case they would be "enforcers".

There is no charitable organization that is going to be able to fix that. Not for a dollar and not for a million dollars.
 
You have probably seen these commercials to help some poor kid in South America where they claim just a dollar a day will change a child's life. It tugged at my heart strings so I called for more info. They sent me a bio of this kid from a very poor family with eight kids. They said that if I helped feed him he could grow up to someday have a family of his own. It occurred to me that all I was doing by helping little Jose was enabling a culture that has to many kids per family too even feed. They need to learn to live within their means and by giving Jose money I was just helping to perpetuate a culture that needs to change. Give Jose money so he can grow up and have more kids than he can feed? WTF is that about. Anyway I didn't join the charity. So I wonder how others here feel, are you helping or hurting when you sign up for this program.

So, you had to send away for the literature to figure this out? I would have bet most had that part down pat while watching the commercial.

Anywho you are not feeding Jose to stay in his native land and make a dozen kids of his own... you are making him strong enough to come up here!

Course one thing you might have overlooked is 2-3 of his siblings won't live to be old enough to reproduce.

Now that you have been 'enlightened' to want to help a poor kid, will you in this country or are you going to claim you will be doing the same thing here... helping perpetuate a culture that needs to change...

Your rational is the bedrock of those who refuse to give for the 'betterment' of society.
 
Publishing pictures of starving kids and asking for money is just another form of exploitation. Sure, we'd like to help, but you have to ask yourself just how much of the money you donate actually gets to the hungry in the form of food that they can eat.

Find me an organization that uses volunteers to distribute food to the hungry, that uses every dime it collects to buy food and send it to them (not to the guy living in the mansion on the hill) and I'll donate. Is there such an organization anywhere?
 
I won't send money over there for that. If I'm going to send charity, it's going to be for Americans.

Ummm your hubris or ignorance is showing.... all of the 'New World' is American- North, Central, South. While few outside of the United States refer to themselves as Americans they are infact just that.

You most likely meant Citizens of the United States, or here in this country...

IF is a mighty big word, do you actually give to charity to feed hungry kids? Or just typing... :peace
 
Ummm your hubris or ignorance is showing.... all of the 'New World' is American- North, Central, South. While few outside of the United States refer to themselves as Americans they are infact just that.

You most likely meant Citizens of the United States, or here in this country...

IF is a mighty big word, do you actually give to charity to feed hungry kids? Or just typing... :peace

It's not ignorance, but if you want to call it hubris, so be it.

And yes, I do give to charity. I'll continue to do that, and you continue to be annoying on the internet. SSDD
 
Ummm your hubris or ignorance is showing.... all of the 'New World' is American- North, Central, South. While few outside of the United States refer to themselves as Americans they are infact just that.

You most likely meant Citizens of the United States, or here in this country...

IF is a mighty big word, do you actually give to charity to feed hungry kids? Or just typing... :peace

It appears that demorats like to use the "I gave at the office" (meaning that they paid taxes) instead of personally giving to private charity which is more the republicant kind of charity.

Who's More Generous: Republicans or Democrats? - Clearwater, FL Patch

Democrats Are More Generous Than Republicans, But With Other People's Money - Investors.com

Dataset of the Day: Who is more Generous? Republicans or Democrats? | GeoIQ Blog

For a real hoot look at this site. It considers the oppostie to be true but look at what they count as "giving" and "activism" - yep, supporting income redistribution via tax money.

Liberal Dems Top Conservative Reps in Donations, Activism | Pew Research Center for the People and the Press
 
So, you had to send away for the literature to figure this out? I would have bet most had that part down pat while watching the commercial.

Anywho you are not feeding Jose to stay in his native land and make a dozen kids of his own... you are making him strong enough to come up here!

Course one thing you might have overlooked is 2-3 of his siblings won't live to be old enough to reproduce.

Now that you have been 'enlightened' to want to help a poor kid, will you in this country or are you going to claim you will be doing the same thing here... helping perpetuate a culture that needs to change...

Your rational is the bedrock of those who refuse to give for the 'betterment' of society.

Feel better? Sheeesh :lol:
 
It's not ignorance, but if you want to call it hubris, so be it.

And yes, I do give to charity. I'll continue to do that, and you continue to be annoying on the internet. SSDD

Good to see you do give to charity. You calling someone else annoying is a good laugh...thanks I appreciate that! :mrgreen:
 
It appears that demorats like to use the "I gave at the office" (meaning that they paid taxes) instead of personally giving to private charity which is more the republicant kind of charity.

Who's More Generous: Republicans or Democrats? - Clearwater, FL Patch

Democrats Are More Generous Than Republicans, But With Other People's Money - Investors.com

Dataset of the Day: Who is more Generous? Republicans or Democrats? | GeoIQ Blog

For a real hoot look at this site. It considers the oppostie to be true but look at what they count as "giving" and "activism" - yep, supporting income redistribution via tax money.

Liberal Dems Top Conservative Reps in Donations, Activism | Pew Research Center for the People and the Press

Ummm what does that have to do with the price of eggs in China or Sawyer's n Gipper's silliness? but now that you mention it I wonder how that would work out if using charity as a tax dodge, claiming a donation at a much higher value than it will sell for was to be tightened up?
 
Ummm what does that have to do with the price of eggs in China or Sawyer's n Gipper's silliness? but now that you mention it I wonder how that would work out if using charity as a tax dodge, claiming a donation at a much higher value than it will sell for was to be tightened up?

Umm...wouldn't work well since charity has a very low %AGI cap. Also, if you make obviously fraudulent claims on Schedule A deductions, you can expect a call. If you claim more than 500 dollars in charity, an audit is probable.

I'm waiting to be judged on my "silliness" now.
 
Sometimes having more people producing helps feed the existing ones. Farmers use to have large families for working the crops.

The problem with not directly giving is that many charities are high cost management and very little gets into the hands of the poor.
Though something sounds wrong with, "go away and starve to death child because your life is only making the world a worse place for me."
Faced directly with them we probably wouldn't act that way.
 
Back
Top Bottom