Andrew L. Urban
They’ve got the wrong comparison when they (voters, politicians and commentators) complain that while the Biden administration is handing Ukraine billions in military support, it is only handing out a mean spirited few hundred dollars to the victims of the massive fires on Maui. Those two bags of money are from different buckets – and have no relevance to each other.
The more apt complaint would be to contrast the billions soaked up by the illegal migration scandal v Maui support. It’s not only closer to home, it’s a more appropriate comparison. Illegal migrants (illigrants?) flooding into America are getting greater levels of cash and support than US citizens and residents on Maui. A study found illegal immigrants are a net consumer of taxpayer benefits worth more than US$100 billion a year, not including the cost of enforcing the border. While federal benefits are supposed to be off limits, in practice many are not. More than 25,000 undocumented workers receive subsidized housing, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Children receive free education and most qualify for English lessons and free school breakfast and lunch.
“I think they ought to spend a lot more money at home and take care of our own people,” said Steven Whitley, a GOP voter in Tupper Lake, a small town in northern New York. Whitley told NPR in August that the U.S. has no business intervening in a conflict on the opposite side of the world. He rejected the idea Ukraine is a democracy and an ally worth protecting.
There is certainly a valid argument that the US$700 offer to Maui households by Biden is almost insulting. It cannot be justified by his pathetic claim of fake empathy by reference to his kitchen fire that was extinguished in 20 minutes.
If I were a Maui fire victim whose home has been burned down, I would draw Biden’s attention to the multi-faceted welfare given to the entitled illegal migrants who can’t even be bothered to keep their free accommodation clean and tidy. One New York City hotel staffer sounded the alarm on how illegal immigrants have trashed a once-luxury hotel and turned it into a chaotic “mess” at the expense of American taxpayers.
How much have these ‘illigrants’, an estimated 5 million of them under Biden and the only ones in America above the law it seems, cost American taxpayers?
As for the broader issue, the absurd (and impractical) notion that the US should simply stop helping Ukraine against the Russian aggressor – the illegal aggressor – it is hardly arguable that it’s a territorial conflict that has nothing to do with the US. What, like the 1939 German invasion of Poland was? Overall, polls show American support for financial aid and weapons for Ukraine remains strong. But surveys conducted over the past year show a major shift among Republicans.
Had we not permitted a United Nations to grow from good intentions to dangerous delinquency, the free world might have had the kind of global policeman that could help keep the peace, protect the weak and stand guard over democracies.
There is nothing more dangerous than a corrupt or incompetent policeman who is relied upon but makes things worse by failing in their duty.
Meanwhile, the UN’s focus is on the dark fantasy of global boiling. That Time cover photo of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres (June 2019) standing knee deep in the supposedly rising seas of the world is unintentional satire: it is the climate alarmist mantra that is rising and boiling.
But back to Maui v Ukraine. The different buckets to which I refer above, help to separate the wild fires on Maui, which do not represent a threat to the world, and the sovereignty of a nation. It would be a damning contrivance to see aid to Ukraine as a partisan issue.
Abandoning Ukraine to Putin’s invasion force would be akin to failing to help a drowning man or woman because he/she was not a relative.
That kind of isolationist attitude has no place in a compassionate and multi-connected world, in my humble but defensible opinion.
They’re a good consequence and a bad consequence to almost everything we do!!
If Australia had not been colonized …..would that have been a good thing.
Would aboriginal lives have been better ? Where would they be today , in their personal
Development or that of their nation. What would Australia be like if the Europeans had not come. ? Would the Aboriginal culture have invented medicines and technologies that
Would give them a chance to survive. Would they have created an Industrial Revolution ? I’m not going to give an answer to that question. The aboriginals should search their own souls for an answer. Without medicines would a virus from PNG or Indonesia or China , have wiped them out ? Probably !
Would Cathy freeman have won Olympic Gold , would Lionel Rose have become world boxing champion , would all those wonderful aboriginal athletes have played rugby league for Australia. Would the Ella brothers have achieved so much in Rugby union.
Hills hoists meat pies kangaroos and Holden cars …. These lyrics would be lost. !
Sir Donald Bradman , Margaret Jackson , Dawn Fraser, Betty Cuthbert , Phar Lap ,
The Americas cup win. Rob De castella and Steve moneghetti winning Marathons ., cochlear for the deaf. Lillee Thompson and so many others . They represented Australia ! Not white Australia or black Australia. Just Australia. ! Australia has done some wonderful things through its citizens. It has also done some terrible things . One such terrible thing was to me. I’m not an aboriginal ! Many bad things are done in this world , and it does not discriminate sometimes. When 25 million people hold hands the chain is strong. Don’t let the Voice separate us. We all need a voice of a different kind. A voice that says we All have the right to justice and fair treatment. Maui should bring us closer together as humans. Ukraine is difficult …,it’s a war of corruption , of Governments but not necessarily of its people. As a very wise woman once said. When I see many men set upon one man I must think of him as my brother. ! Think about that and you may work out why the Ukrainian people must be helped. Not it’s government ! It’s people ! Regards Pv