Saturday digest
- It seems that the purpose of the AIDS conference in Toronto was not just to discuss the treatments or how to provide relief to Africa, but also to state unequivocally that taxpayers should foot the bill for the risky, potentially fatal and downright stupid indulgences of others here in Canada and elsewhere.
I resent that.
Those of us who are either monogamous or regularly practice safe sex should not be put on a guilt trip by Stephen Lewis, Mark Wainberg and Jack Layton because there are still individuals who, despite two decades' worth of public health campaigns, still resist doing what they need to do to prevent themselves from getting infected. There are plenty of other, more deserving issues that need attention from government (how about this, for starters?).
In the West, AIDS is by and large a preventable disease and has been for several years.
And no finger-wagging from the Left is going to change that.
- As France reconsiders the size of their troop commitment to the peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, the UN is reduced to pleading with Europe to get involved because the only countries who seem to want to pony up are those who have no diplomatic ties with Israel (Indonesia, Malaysia). I'd guess that the countries who don't want to participate more than they absolutely have to are either overextended as it is (Canada), don't want to annoy potential business partner, Hezbollah sponsor and thorn in America's side Mahmoud Ahmedinejad (France), or simply realize that the "ceasfire" is basically a farce (Australia).
- By most accounts, with the ever-reliable NYT a glaring exception, the legal reasoning behind the recent wiretap ruling is far from airtight, and ventures into the downright sloppy (see here, here, here, and here)
- The latest example of terrorists plagariazing Michael Moore to make their point, here.
I'm just sayin'.
posted by Road Hammer @ 11:49 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Hammer, a couple of points on your AIDS conference post.
You suggest that AIDS victims have only themsleves to blame, since it's a disease resulting from risky behaviour, stupid indulgences, etc. What about the 100s of thousands who are born with the disease? Are they not deserving of our attention / empathy?
Secondly, to suggest that the high suicide rate among white, elderly men deserves more attention from government than AIDS seems a little contradictory. If AIDS doesn't warrant attention, money, etc. because it's preventable, then how can you say suicide is more deserving? What is more preventable than intentionally killing yourself?
And considering that the suicide rate among homosexual males is consistently the highest of any group, would that not be more worthy of attention from government than the eldery male suicide rate?
In the West, there are hundreds of thousands born with the disease? I'm not too sure about that.
Also, saying that it's largely preventable in the West does not equal suggesting that we let those infected with the disease die because they somehow deserved it so let me make that distinction clear.
What I am pointing out (in the context of the article I linked to) is that there is a certain denial/refusal to take accountability going on among some elements of the AIDS activist community and it is the vast majority of people who do not put themselves at risk who are being asked to enable those who do by funding causes like legalized, government sanctioned whorehouses and the like, on top of more love-ins like the one we saw last week in Toronto. Isn't this disease (again largely preventable in the West) a little over-advertised, especially in comparison to other potentially fatal conditions like mental illness, for example?
On that, I don't think that the majority of those who commit suicide are in posession of all of their faculties, personally, whereas the bulk of the victims of AIDS in the West are when they engage in the kind of behaviour that exposes them to the disease.
In terms of Africa, see also my posts on the role culture plays in the AIDS epidemic (I think they might be in the archives by now).
Just my opinion.
Point taken on numbers of victims born with AIDS in the West. I didn't mark that distinction in your initial comments.
But regardless of where victims of this disease are concentrated, I would say that the West has a moral oblibation to take steps to help eradicate this horrible disease (with agreement that those most likely to be afflicted need to be responsible and help themselves.) And that is why it was so unsettling to Canadians that Harper didn't bother showing up in Toronto.
And if you are of the camp that believes abject poverty in the Third World and global security are intrisically linked, doesn't fighting disease in the poorest part of the world make sense for security reasons?
Still believe your argument that combatting the suicide rate of elderly white males (or any specific group, for that matter) is more worthy of government attention than combatting AIDS (strictly in the West, or otherwise) is a difficult one to defend.
Also think its dangerous to say AIDS is overadvertised in the West, considering the nature of the disease and its ability to spread like wildfire. But as you say, a differnce of opinion.
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