Something To Ponder

[Retro2001]

According to CNN this morning, 2 people have died and 13 have fallen ill due to anthrax. The total deaths from these new problems and the Sept. 11th attacks is a few thousand. In 2000, 16,653 people were killed in crashes involving alcohol. "In 1998, about 13 percent of the U.S. population, or 34.5 million people, were living in families below the poverty line. Of the total number of persons in poverty, 13.5 million were children, 17.6 million were working-age adults, and 3.4 million were 65 years old and over. Almost one-fifth of our nation?s children were living below the poverty threshold in 1998 compared with only one-tenth of persons 18 and over. (from prb.org)" Terrorism is being combated with thounds of soldiers and millions upon millions of dollars. These other two problems seem to be just as invasive. Why are they not recieving the same treatment? Just a thought.

Will

 

[BigJohnKC]

Well, probably because the gov't can't throw the weight of its military at the poverty and alcohol problems of the country, but we sure can throw our weight around over in the middle east. We've never been really good at solving problems of our own at home simply because there is so much political stuff going on. But, in this case, almost everyone in the country is for the bombing of bin laden, so it is easy for the US gov't to go do that. I don't like that they're spending so much money on it, but that's the gov't for ya...

 

[yobarman]

ponder this.. whats the point of helping alcoholics and people below the poverty line if we're living in fear? One thing we must do is protect our country, everything else comes second. Also, it's not that easy to solve all of america's financial problems. And the government is not entirely at fault. Corporations lay people off..people get depressed, start drinking, you're screwed. new technology comes up and makes peoples skills obsolete. with every problem you fix side effects arise. if it were so easy, it would have been done already.

 

[Retro2001]

I'm unconcerned about helping the alcoholics in this matter, I'm concerned about the non-alcoholics that they kill. We spend so many million dollars solving problems else-where, yet we still have so many problems here that could definatly use some funding. I do not believe that what we are doing in Afganistan will solve the terrorism problem. Once again we are taking sides in another countries civil war. There are many poor countires in the world, if the Talibon falls, the terrorist cells will simply find another money-strapped regime to hide themselves behind. What the correct answer to terrorism is, I don't know; however it seems unfair to our society that we spend so much money overseas, on weapons and such when we have so many problems internaly.

Will