Here’s the thing, however: I personally believe that feeding them will not end the genocide-the only thing that would probably work would be to hire mercenaries (i.e. Ron Paul’s Afghanistan Plan) to wipe out the janjaweed with heavy bombing, etc.

You keep using Darfur as an example, because it is obviously incredibly in favor of your side. Let’s use another example. Say a company wants to build a factory overseas. The government has no right to take my money to subsidize that company to build that factory. Likewise, I cannot be forced to pay for welfare for people that I may or may not care for. If I want to do it, I will do it, and in my case I have done it. However, everybody has their own sense of morals. You are no better than the Inquisitors in the sense that you criticize people for lack of morals. Did Galileo lack morals?

And in respond to your allegation about the connection between the government: well, I did not state what I meant completely. I meant that there are similar countries that need aid for poor people, yet they also want to kill us for not sufficing with their goals for an . I did not necessarily specifically mean Darfur, I was talking about more about everything else.

One last comment: Are you a Darfurian? No, you’re not. Therefore, how can you be superimposing your thoughts on the crisis onto theirs, and then using that as reasoning for personally attacking me as being a selfish, immoral, pig, who’s willing to condemn people to .

I don’t want to call you immoral, or materialistic, even though you clearly are, because they miss the point. My impression of you from your one response is that you and your buddies are simply self centered. You just care for yourself more than you care for other people.

As Mr Dueck pointed out, it is within America’s power to halt much of the genocide in Darfur at a very low cost. If his numbers are right (I don’t know) then the US could have saved 320,000 people (80% of the roughly 400,000 Darfurian victims), for the low cost of one no-flight zone. Ask yourself - How much of that cost would you feel? With 300 million Americans, how much of that cost would anyone feel? And then compare your answer with hundereds of thousands of innocent lives. Can you seriously say your money is worth more to you?

You do have a point though, that any forceful taxation, whatever the intended use, is an infringement upon you rights. It is. But who are you to say that your rights to you money, your right to make your own way in life irrespective of outside force, is greater than a Darfurians right simply to be alive? We live in a very imperfect world, and neither of the choices we’re arguing about are perfect. Yet it is still wrong, if you have to make a choice between two evils, to chose the one that benefits you marginally, while condeming swathes of people you have never met to poverty, starvation, rape, torture and death.

First, that America has neither an obligation nor a compelling interest to intervene in forign ‘troubles’ and further that to do so is immoral, being as it is without the consent of at least a percentage of the american populace.

Second, that aid to Darfur (or other problem regions) will not accomplish much any way.

The problem with the first argument is that: 1) Every governmental action is, at some level, opposed by members of populace. Whether the government spends money on hurricane relief or old age insurance (social security) someone will cry foul. While the taxation paying for these things may be an ill, hurting long term growth, it is certainly not an evil - it is instead the fundemental result of living within a nation state. Some of the freedoms of the ‘State of Nature’ have been given up in exchange for security. One of those freedoms is total control of individual resources. 2) Governments engage in behavior that has no direct benefit to the vast majority of the populace all the time, namly in the formation of alliances. For example, Europe as an entity posseses at this juncture nearly no meaningful millitary power, nearly nothing that it can sucessfully project to protect American (or even European) intrests. Yet America will continue to stand by Europe (or Isreal, or any other such democracy) regardless of the particular consuquences. We do this not because of some broken calculation of realpolitick, but because there is something extremly important (and benefical) to living in a world populated by stable democracies. It is in america’s best long term intrest to protect human rights and liberties, not because of power politics, but because it makes for a more peaceful (and more profitable) world.

This is especially true when it comes to something like genocide, which has large incidental effects. An event like that takeing place in Darfur, ends up closing the whole region to development, in addition to spreading an ideaology of islamic fundamentalism, and undermining American ideals of human rights and freedoms, which are our greatest ally in any third world conflict. In deed much of the recent progress in Iraq, by way of example, has come about as the surge has begun to demonstrate America’s commitment to its ideals.

Finally, it is clearly true that the only end to this genocide (indeed the only end to any intrenched tyranny) is through our own bullets and bombs trumping theirs. Yet since up to 80% (according to UN records) of Janjaweed killings are being conducted from aircraft, the institution of a no-fly zone would be a cheap and effective way to end the worst of the killings. As for the rest, arming and training them JanJaweed’s would-be victems, would seem to be the best course of action.

Sure forign intervention might be difficult, and sure it could cause problems and costs, yet that does not mean that we should abandon a helpless few to Iranian sponsered slaughter. The ideals which our nation stands for, more even then the cruel calculus of ‘real politick’, damand no less.

Like all liberals, you take only yourself and your high-handed morals in your eyes, never seeing what the individual’s condition is before you rip away their rights. This applies to social conservatives as well. There are two things: either you take into account everything a person is before you do something, or you don’t do anything at all. Anything in the middle is unfair and immoral.

And in case you try to brand me with the discriminatory labels of “racist” or “immoral” or “materialistic” or whatever the new slur of disrespect is, ask yourself: how can I make assumptions on people without knowing what they go through? Do I have the right to make people do or be things that they are fundamentally opposed to? Of course you don’t.

Ryan clearly values American liberty, not money, over the small chance that one government’s intervention would prevent another government from killing someone else (this has worked so well in other places)

It is absolutely immoral and wrong to force, on pain of imprisonment or death, one individual to support your personal political agendas, whether it is attempting to save someone else’s life or saving kittens from trees.