Questions for Americans, Part V

(Parts 1, 2, 3, 4)

17. What’s worth dying for? What’s worth having sacrifice of American lives for?

I would die to protect my friends or family. There are very few ideas that I would be willing to die for, but to die for a person is a different matter.

To sacrifice American lives one should have willing combatants fighting for the survival of America or justified in the name of human rights violations. I have no problem with a draft if it is for the survival of the country, but that hasn't been necessary since either the war of 1812 or the Civil War, depending on how you view it.

18. What would be the criteria that you would commit troops to end the genocide, for instance, like what's going on in Darfur or could happen in Georgia or anywhere else, a mass killing?

The UN has established thirty basic human rights. If the UN decides that the rights are being violated and other means have been exhausted, meaning military action is the last resort, then troops should be mobilized along with other troops from other countries. Of course, this requires proactive stances on global justice and human rights, not waiting for the genocide to begin before starting negotiations. That would be an administrative and ambassadorial policy change.

19. Would you be willing to consider and even commit to doing some kind of emergency plan for orphans like President Bush did with AIDS almost a President's emergency plan for orphans to deal with this issue?

The transcriber had written "other fan" for "orphan", and it took me a bit to figure out what they meant when I saw "148 million other fans around the world". Tee-hee.

PEPFAR was a great piece of legislation on the whole. However, much of the orphan problem stems from lack of action from rich governments over the past decades. Allowing AIDS to run rampant in the underdeveloped nations is a sin against human rights that future generations will be ashamed of. Many millions of these orphans are alone because their parents died of preventable disease, including HIV/AIDS. Regarding AIDS prevention as a matter of abstinence denies basic facts and repeated research.

I do not believe an emergency plan on orphans would be useful. That's like a patient coming into the doctor with a severe fever, and the doctor only prescribing an antifebrile. Treating the symptoms won't help without treating the cause. Continued comprehensive HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment, other disease-fighting programs, reduction in wars and genocide prevention, refugee aid, and sewage treatment around the world will save lives and prevent orphans.

20. Religious persecution, what do you think the US should do to end religious persecution for instance in China, in Iraq and in many of our allies. I'm not just talking about persecution of Christianity, particularly with the persecution around the world that persecutes millions of people?

The first part of that question I wanted to interpret as: What do you think the US should do to end persecution of people by religions? It's clear that isn't what Warren wanted to ask. Warren wanted to know how the US can protect the spread of christianity around the world. This IS NOT and SHOULD NOT be a priority of the government. There is a difference between protecting people from persecution and making it easier to spread one particular religion.

Here's an interesting fact: the vast majority of religious persecution is at the hand of, wait for it, religious leaders. That's right. Christians are persecuted by muslims, muslims are persecuted by christians and jews, hindus are persecuted by all of the above. Athiests are especially persecuted in the media and culture, not to mention in jobs, in the US. Any human rights that are violated need to be addresses as above. Or, to quote John Lennon, "Imagine...nothing to kill or die for, and no religion too, imagine all the people living life in peace." Getting rid of religion won't end world conflicts, but think of how many fewer there'd be.