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From: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor)
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: poor starving people
Message-ID: <1228@dciem.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 27-Nov-84 14:08:46 EST
Article-I.D.: dciem.1228
Posted: Tue Nov 27 14:08:46 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 27-Nov-84 16:51:47 EST
References: <306@amdcad.UUCP>
Organization: D.C.I.E.M., Toronto, Canada
Lines: 35

==========
I can believe the first part, that the US has more productive land
than Ethopia. I question the second part. If you decide to live in
a desert and I decide to live near a lake am I obligated to pump
water to you? Better you should move where there is water, eh?
(for the sake of argument, let's not talk about Los Angeles)
==========

Most of these people didn't DECIDE to live in Ethiopia.  They were born
there, and lots are still not old enough to even try to emigrate, if there
did happen to be somewhere for them to go.  Would the US (even the
Great Lakes States) agree to take them all?  N. America isn't noted
(these days) for its welcoming attitude toward unskilled immigrants
who may be diseased and possibly brain-damaged from the effects of
malnutrition.  As far as I can see from the news reports, the people
who have chosen to be in Ethiopia (relief workers, for example) are not
themselves starving.

Where do you suggest the people of Sub-Saharan Africa should move to,
assuming removal of all immigration restrictions world-wide?  How about
the people of BanglaDesh? How many of those people could N. America,
Europe, Argentina, or the USSR handle?  Not very many, compared to
the numbers that are in trouble.  Even their population increase per
decade would be too much.  The world has to solve the problem of
population overload, or nature will solve it for us in the classical
way that it deals with species that overgraze their resources.  We
must be wiser than a herd of deer ... mustn't we?

Now, if you want to talk about the ethics of trying to pump Great Lakes
water into the American Desert, where people CHOOSE to live ...
-- 

Martin Taylor
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