The US is not responsible for fixing every world issue. Just because they've helped in the past doesn't make them morally responsible for every current and future crisis.
No but keeping Ebola from becoming a world wide problem is in the US interests and USAID was a very cheap way to advance that goal. We funded USAID out of decency (and to gain a reputation for decency, which is worth a lot of money) sure, but also to protect ourselves.
>> It receives relatively little attention now, but in terms of sheer numbers the cuts to the USAID program have had and will continue to have the largest death toll of anything this administration does.
> The US is not responsible for fixing every world issue. Just because they've helped in the past doesn't make them morally responsible for every current and future crisis.
Your answer doesn't quite respond to the GP but instead feels like an expression of political opinion.
From a moral stance, the action of stopping something seems quite distinct from a position in which the thing had never occurred.
I'm not a highly religious person so I may well be wrong about this, but my understanding of Christian principles (as you referenced in your Bible quote) is that you, the individual, should do these kind things to other individuals personally; and in that act of doing so personally, you become closer to God.
What we have instead is that taxes are collected by an entity with the monopoly on violence (and of course, it's understood that the people making more than you are not paying their "fair share") whether you like it or not, spent by people who generally have boundless disdain for the very people who pay those taxes, on people and causes on the other side of the planet. There's no connection between people, or between people and God, in this scenario.
> I'm not a highly religious person so I may well be wrong about this, but my understanding of Christian principles (as you referenced in your Bible quote) is that you, the individual, should do these kind things to other individuals personally; and in that act of doing so personally, you become closer to God.
Why not read the verse and see that this refers to collections of people? The source material is readily available, no reason to speculate.
I have read the source material. It says nothing about the morality of an intermediary forcibly redistributing wealth.
Again, the onus is on the individual to act kindly. If anything, handing that duty off to a third party is a reduction of morals. You are also speculating if you claim that there is a moral equivalence between the two.
I think we're going to disagree, which is fine, but I'll post the text and let others assess what the meanings of 'nations' is in the context of the quotation.
31“When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the [c]holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. 32All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. 33And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left.
[...]
41“Then He will also say to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels: 42for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; 43I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.’
44“Then they also will answer [d]Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?’ 45Then He will answer them, saying, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ 46And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
No dollar was ever spent by the US government outside of the US if not in self interest. Failing to see these cuts as sabotaging US interests is very, very naïve.
It's simple self-interest. Sure, sit on your money and smile while your neighbors die of Ebola. It won't happen here? Sure it could. When the chumps in DC tear down the infrastructure that managed things like this, then we become massively vulnerable.