Do we even 'deserve' to celebrate the 4th?

[jordandog]

It's great that families can take their kids to parades and then have a picnic in the park before the fireworks. How many of your neighbors suddenly become 'patriotic' because they stick a flag up for a weekend on a couple holidays, the 4th of July included? Do half the people here on FC even know what the history of this country is and why we have the 4th of July, Veterans Day, or Memorial Day designated? I highly doubt it and that is sad. Why can't this country live up to all the hype and take care of it's own?

I just saw the below from a friend, don't know where she got it, but it made me put this topic up.

In the U.S.A. Homeless go without eating.
In the U.S.A. Elderly go without needed medicines.
In the U.S.A. Mentally ill go without treatment.
In the U.S.A. Troops go without proper equipment.
In the U.S.A. Veterans go without benefits they were promised.
Yet we donate billions to other countries before helping our own first.

[DanielKorycki]

I agree that we should be dealing with our own problems, but a lot of the money we send overseas goes to countries that are a lot worse off than us. For example, countries in Africa where a large percentage of children don't even survive to become adults because of starvation, malaria, violence, and other problems. Comparatively speaking, though we certainly have our issues, we are better off as a whole than much of the world.

[jordandog]

I understand what you are saying, but the U.S. is close to being 11 TRILLION $$$$ in debt. Why are we still sending what we do not have somewhere else? I am not being mean here, but your thinking is what makes me crazy, no matter how you try to justify taking care of other countries and their children, what about us? I'm sorry Somalian children are hungry, but I am far more upset children in my own city won't eat tonight!

[kords21]

I agree with your jordandog. Everyone that talks about "we have to send money to poorer countries to help them" probably don't help the homeless in their own city cause they have to take care of their own household first. Why should people who have worked their whole lives, paying taxes and the sort have to go without so people in other countries can get something for nothing? Call me cold or whatever, but I think American resources should be used on it's people first. If the crooks in DC wan to cut spending and save all of these social programs, then end all of these endless wars and spend that near $1 trillion/year on people, infrastructure here at home. The whole system is ludicrous to me.

[dreamyxo]

There will always be poor people.  Been that way since time began and will be that way when the earth is no more.  Do you always make good decisions with your money?  Everyone wastes money and resources it's nothing new.  That's human nature.  No one is perfect not even the ideal of America.  I don't really celebrate.  I have a day off from work that's it.  Today will be the same as always and tomorrow will be back to the grind again back to the same problems that have always been.  All I can do is to try to live the best life I can and try to do some kind of good in what little ways I can.

[trucktina]

I agree with your jordandog. Everyone that talks about "we have to send money to poorer countries to help them" probably don't help the homeless in their own city cause they have to take care of their own household first. Why should people who have worked their whole lives, paying taxes and the sort have to go without so people in other countries can get something for nothing? Call me cold or whatever, but I think American resources should be used on it's people first. If the crooks in DC wan to cut spending and save all of these social programs, then end all of these endless wars and spend that near $1 trillion/year on people, infrastructure here at home. The whole system is ludicrous to me.

We don't only send money to countries because they're poor. It's in our vital national security interests to make sure that some of them aren't controlled by terrorist organizations or the states that sponsor them (Iran, N. Korea). If we sat back and let that happen, there would have been more 9/11s on our soil. As far as all of the spending on foreign wars, what is the alternative? We were attacked on 9/11. When we're dealing with terrorists, who have no leaders or government like conventional wars, there's no quick end to conflict. You're the one being ludicrous to expect there to be.

[tammypete]

I agree that we don't need to go to another country to help people who are starving, have no homes, no running water!  Its here in the U.S.   In every state and city!     And to pay all of these other countries for "being our friends"  PLEASE!!!!  No wonder this country is going down daily!

[dreamyxo]

I agree that we don't need to go to another country to help people who are starving, have no homes, no running water!  Its here in the U.S.   In every state and city!     And to pay all of these other countries for "being our friends"  PLEASE!!!!  No wonder this country is going down daily!

Even if the US stopped giving other countries money today there will still be poor people in the street hungry and with no running water.  It's not going to change.  There have always been poor people and there will continue to be poor people it's not going to end.

[kords21]

If we have to "buy" our friends around the world to keep us safe, that doesn't say too many good things. You do know we supported, armed and trained Bin laden in the 80's and help create the radical islam sect that we're fighting today don't you? How did all that spending to protect us from the russians work out? These terrorists dont' hate us simply because we're free, no that us for our foreign policy when we're bombing them, occupying them and telling them how to live. At the same time this country is going deeper into debt and the standard of living is decreasing rapidly for a lot of people. Meanwhile we waste all this money overseas. We supported the recently deposed Egyptian dicatator for decades and how'd that work out? He pocketed that money and then we hung him out to dry and now there's a new faction in charge that wants to see Israel gone. If you think that just throwing money overseas will magically keep us safe from any more attacks and such, it's not going to work. History has proven that. As far as Israel goes, we give her enemies twice the amount of aid that we give Israel, so who's really winning that one?

Would we like it if China was occupying our cities and just randomly bombing targets in the states? I highly doubt it, so if we'd object to it here, then you better believe that these people in other countries aren't too happy about it either. All we're doing is creating more and more people that hate us and we're paying to do that. Doesn't make much sense to me to do that and then tell Americans to suck up the cutbacks, the lowering wages, higher taxes just to keep us "free". Doesn't sound like a good deal to me. Bin Laden said that one of his goals was to bankrupt this nation with the war in Afghanistan and that's what we're doing. Didn't we learn from the Soviet's experience in Afghanistan? Ultimately it's not going to matter one way or the other when the dollar crashes hard and this economy goes with it, there wont' be any money for endless wars and entitlement programs.

[ULuvCeCe]

We definitely have a lot of poverty here and I am not against helping other places but it's almost like that saying you can't be happy in a relationship, if you're not happy with yourself. Well America, lets work on us. Maybe we should just try it for 6 months, see how much money we can save/how much we can get ourselves out of debt

[amyrouse]

How many people are going to jump up and cry out about food stamps, section 8, WIC, medicare/medicaid, etc if this did happen, though?  We already have a multitude in our country whining about people on these social assistance programs...will that whining end?  I don't see it happening either way.  Yes, there are so many who are needy...if we didn't have social assistance, how many more would be hungry and homeless?  I take offense to how many people complain and whine about assistance that would come into a topic like this and say we need to stop helping other countries and take care of our own.  Oh really, whiners?  How do you suggest we do that?

This is in no way directed at you, Jdog, just venting in general about it, especially considering I was just targeted by some of those whiners over $100 a month in food stamps.

[constance312003]

I have been working in the social service field most of my life.  I agree that some programs are great.  I am sure WIC has saved many children's lives.  Unfortunately, I have seen great abuse of the the programs through the years as well.  People making more money than I did and still not being able to pay their bills.  You cannot make people do as you would want them to, you can only hope that some of what you say to them will get them to change.  I always tried to get the children to realize it was up to them to create a better life for their children.  I have come to realize that if you had three people in the world you would have three classes (poor, middle and rich). 

[kords21]

I'm certainly not a big fan of welfare in general and think that our current economic model of the federal reserve in charge is the root of a lot of our problems, I would still rather all the overseas money be spent on Americans in some fashion and welfare is a part of that. Just seems crazy to me that we give out all this money overseas, then we have to borrow from china/federal reserve just to keep the daily operations going, incurring more debt which is just going to harm our way of life in the long term. End the foreign aid, endless wars and then figure out how to overhaul the welfare programs to cut out the abuse. You really can't do any of that until you end the federal reserve, abolish the income tax (america did fine without it until 1914 or so).

[SherylsShado]

How many of your neighbors suddenly become 'patriotic' because they stick a flag up for a weekend on a couple holidays, the 4th of July included? Do half the people here on FC even know what the history of this country is and why we have the 4th of July, Veterans Day, or Memorial Day designated?

     I thought that was just something that happened in my town!  (seriously!)   On July 2, there was a woman (white/approximately in her 50's-60's), I told her to have a safe holiday weekend and she asked me "what holiday is it?"    If I went down the street randomly asking people why we have July 4, the kids would say "fireworks" and the adults would say "beer".  God Bless America... 

[kords21]

This video backs up your point Sheryl:

http://youtu.be/6JEjXbLQOOE