I've spent reasonable stretches of time in villages where there was nothing eat but some rice, fish paste and locusts and had malnourished children die in front of me from hemorrhagic fever and malaria. But I was just passing through. Playing at being poor or hungry mocks really being poor and hungry.
From your personal history and your time in the third world you know what I'm talking about. We got to go home, move out, move up.
People in distress don't need the self-righteous to play-act empathy. They are better off with people who cannot even imagine their reality doing the right thing because it is the right thing.
I don't want Bill Gates to fast, I want Bill Gates to fund clean water projects. I don't care if he feels their pain. If what he does is completely from an intellectual understanding of a problem, that's just fine.
>I've been poor. I've been without a roof over my head. I've been without clothes. I've been without food. I see no problem with the idea and anyone who chooses to do so - more power to em in my mind. I fail to though see how others fasting would have helped. There's always a possibility it will spur them to donate? who knows? I don't think going without when the knowingness is there that you can eat if you want, you have a roof over your head, you are not afraid. A little bit of hunger is not even close. Perhaps, if you feel it will help, you could broaden it even more. Show your support for those in jail and voluntarily go spend one day a month in jail. :o)
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>>>>>If I ignore your idea, then I don't care about the poor. Bullsh
it.
>>>>
>>>>It's not my idea.
>>>>
>>>>If you fail to recognize the value of a national day of fasting, then you don't care about the poor.
>>>>
>>>>I'm willing to say that's a true statement.
>>>
>>>That's an absolutely absurd statement.
>>
>>
>>You, and anyone else following this thread, can prove me wrong.
>>
>>Here's how, do not eat or drink anything on Friday.
>>
>>On Saturday, after fasting for a whole day, come back here, and tell me that you didn't change your mind, and my comment is still absurd.
>>
>>My statement can be tested. I've tested it. You can too.
Charles Hankey
Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened.
- Thomas Hardy
Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm-- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.
-- T. S. Eliot
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.
- Ben Franklin
Pardon him, Theodotus. He is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.
