The left is constantly arguing for so-called “fair trade” to make up for previous unfair financial practices. “We need economic justice,” they scream.
I agree. It’s time for those greedy ingrates to pay their fair share.
I mean the third world of course. For too long the United States has carried the third world on its back, providing jobs, emergency aid and never-ending charity. Throw in a world’s worth of technology, countless vaccines, food and military aid and it’s no wonder that the world was even more messed up before 1776. Count the contributions of the rest of the developed world, the third worlders look even greedier.
How do these money grubbers repay us? They want more.
It’s like an epic game of extortion. Third world nations call us "exploiters." They act like spoiled children demanding more goodies and threaten to hold their breath if the rest of the world doesn’t do as they demand. Lately, those demands have come in the form of increased aid, especially in climate change bills.
India just announced it’s not going along with global warming weenies. But those same eco-nuts will want the U.S. to ship money and technology to India, while cutting our own emissions and jobs. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton groveled to the Indians, laying the groundwork for shipping even more goodies abroad, claiming “we along with other developed countries have contributed most significantly to” climate change.
She left out that we, along with other developed countries, have contributed most significantly to everything – freedom, art, computers, space travel and medicine to name a few. When you work for the Apologizer-in-Chief, blaming America gets easier.
Former Vice President and would-be eco-fuhrer Al Gore is one of many on the left who want America to fork over tons of green to make up for our green failings. Gore said recently that the cap-and-trade bill roaming through Congress would “drive the change” “through global government and global agreements.”
Global government. The mere term gives liberals goose pimples as they envision a multi-hued global entity running every aspect of our lives. This is the “Star Trek” future where even the evil Klingons finally see the error of their ways and become multicultural.
But whether that one-world government would be based in New York, Geneva, or Havana, one thing is certain – it would soak American taxpayers as often as humanly possible. One group called the Jubilee Debt campaign is “calling for 100% cancellation of unpayable and unfair poor country debts.” “Unpayable and unfair” means all of them. If Gov. Mark Sanford so much as loaned a quarter to his Argentine lady friend, that debt would be canceled.
The news media constantly complain about American debt. Our rising debts are the stuff of countless TV broadcasts about what ABC called “the American nightmare.” The housing crunch and recession are two of the pieces journalists have dwelled on. But you don’t see news stories about us cutting back global aid so we can pay our bills.
And the world’s debt to the America doesn’t just include loans. We just give money outright to nations all around the globe. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development In 2008, direct foreign aid by the United States was $26 billion last year. That’s a 16.8% increase in the midst of a huge economic downturn. Even the recent low for U.S. foreign aid hit $8.4 billion in 1997. Think California wouldn’t have a use for $8.4 billion? But we just give it away and get slapped in the face for it. Maybe piggy third-worlders might remember that rather than bash the U.S.A.
Our largesse doesn’t end with aid. A national survey of U.S. religious giving found that “religious congregations gave $8.6 billion to the developing world in 2007.” That startling fact about American generosity came from the Hudson Institute's Center for Global Prosperity and shows how hard people of faith try to live the golden rule. For that, they get mocked by the left, ignored by the media and targeted by radical Islam.
All of those billions piled upon billions barely scratch the surface of what the globe owes America. Our soldiers keep the peace and often die trying. That same military responds to natural disasters, such as aiding the people of Indonesia after the 2006 typhoon.
Want to see the real face of America? It’s Jonas Salk curing polio and Willis Carrier inventing air conditioning. Both make the world – even the third world – a much better place. Or even Bill Gates or Steve Jobs spreading computers around the globe. Those annoying little PCs might have environmentally unsound nasty bits, but they’ve taken mankind to new heights in science, too.
That’s what this is all about, making the world better. America isn’t perfect. But it’s taken minerals from the third world and turned them literally into gold for all of mankind. That’s the real fair trade.
Dan Gainor is The Boone Pickens Fellow and the Media Research Center’s Vice President for Business and Culture. His column appears each week on The Fox Forum and he can be seen each Thursday on Foxnews.com’s “Strategy Room.”
