Sunday, 15 April 2018

Charity Starts at Home for Hedgehogs


Overheard while watching a programme on hedgehogs:

Brian May: "You shouldn't give hedgehogs milk, as they're lactose intolerant"

Hay: "Are they gluten intolerant too? Nut allergy?"

I was having a discussion with someone about foreign aid. The chap said charity starts at home, to which I responded that it doesn't stop there though. He then launched into the argument that aid shouldn't be given to Indians because India has a space programme. I pointed out that you can't not help someone by virtue of a failure on the part of their government - exactly the same argument could be made against giving to British charities supporting the homeless or the elderly.


There's something I don't get about this Syria thing. It's not OK to use chemical weapons on people, but it's OK to bomb the shit out of them with missiles. It's also not OK to give refuge to people fleeing the bombs and the chemical weapons - or indeed to send in a combined UN or NATO force to stop the war dead in its tracks. There's something very wrong about this logic - an overt example of virtue signalling perhaps?


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