Miranda Devine isn't my cup of tea (1 Viewer)

[katie_tully]

A hotmail account. Oh Miranda, how passé ..

 

[katie_tully]

Why is it when Indonesia was flattened, several people in here whinged and moaned about the lack of aid being sent, yet now many of the same people are whinging and moaning about the fact that people affected by the cyclone are demanding aid?
1.5 billion in damage, I think, is quite substantial. Regardless of whether you "planned" for a cyclone, you can never fully prepare.
Log, you suggested they didn't prepare well enough. Do you know first hand the extent of their preparation for such an event?
It's like when you city guys suggest farmers should plan for droughts. Plan as much as you want, when you go 5 years with well below average rainfall, there isn't a lot you can do once it hits a certain point.
One guy lost $900,000 in crops. What do you suggest he do? Get on with it and stop whinging? I didn't see that response from any of you when some Indonesians who had nothing to begin with lost their grass huts. You didn't tell them to get on with it. =)

 

[ohh la la]

as much as i would like to stick a cyclone in miranda devines house to see how much see carries on, don't you think that this was her aim. a bit like shock tactics? she writes ABSOLUTE garbage just to piss off the general population in order to get newspaper circulation for the daily telegraph up? this kind of publicity means that for the next three days at least people will buy the telegraph to see the article and the following public opinions on said article that are bound to feature in the letters section.
miranda devine. whilst being a stupid cow with a large absence of morals is only trying to get her stuff read. so please, don't buy the telegraph.

 

[loquasagacious]

Oh la la you make a vaguely interesting point however she writes for the herald not the tele....

Katie personally I can not see a good economic or social reason to give tsunami aid - however just like the cyclone aid it is political....

By giving indonesia piles of money we forge closer ties, by giving farmers piles of money the coalition hopes to shore up support come election time.

And also the government was in both cases able to make us city dwellers feel better - having seen the devastation many were overwhelmed (or maybe just whelmed...) by 'grief lite' and felt an urgent need to make a token jesture to assuage these feelings and allow them to subside into apathetic happiness.

 

[katie_tully]

We will only forge close ties with Indonesia if we keep pandering to their tantrums. The latest tantrum being over the fact we gave asylum to 41? PNGuinians who feared for their lives after their vocal protests over Indonesia's control of PNG.

I merely get angry at the way people conduct themselves in the aftermath of a natural disaster. Why is death a pre-requisit for aid? Who determines what disasters are more worthy of aid than others, and why do people seem to care less when it happens in their own country?
Innis is only a remotely populated location, but the extent of the damage is overwhelming if you consider the proportions.

 

[HotShot]

its a cyclone, how much can you prepare for it? build barricades aroound ur farms, lol.

 

[loquasagacious]

We will only forge close ties with Indonesia if we keep pandering to their tantrums. The latest tantrum being over the fact we gave asylum to 41? PNGuinians who feared for their lives after their vocal protests over Indonesia's control of PNG.

I merely get angry at the way people conduct themselves in the aftermath of a natural disaster. Why is death a pre-requisit for aid? Who determines what disasters are more worthy of aid than others, and why do people seem to care less when it happens in their own country?
Innis is only a remotely populated location, but the extent of the damage is overwhelming if you consider the proportions.

Perhaps we also pander to the tantrums of farmers? "we need telecommunications/banks/etc".......

I don't think death is a pre-requisite for aid - if people had died it would not change my position. As far as what is aid-worthy it is something where the benefit to us from giving aid outweighs the cost of giving it, and importantly I view this in a long-run scenario. eg the long term benefits of giving aid must outweigh the long term costs.

As far as preparation it does not always have to be the physically tangible of barriers (though water storage in advance of a drought is an example of the physical), I am more referring to measures like insurance.

If my house burnt down tomorrow I would be relying on my insurance to bail me out - not the government.

Which neatly brings me around to another prime (and non-'bush') example of this welfare mentality, the christmas fires of several years ago. They directly effected me, one of the sydney fires began behind my house (my parents house is on a 22acre block and backs onto the wollemi national park they in the national park less than 300m in a straight line from the end of their block). Somewhere in the region of 5-6 houses on my street were destroyed including those of people I went to school with and family friends. So understand that this was very close to me.

However as the fires ended and relief packages went what basically happened was those who had failed to take out insurance or where drastically under-insured recieved government hand-outs while those who were insured recieved little. I would count this as clearly unfair - why then did we (the insured) bother with insurance, why not just save the money and rely on government handouts? This ammounts to rewarding irresponsible behaviour and punishing responsible behaviour.

That the typical recievers of these handouts are so anti 'dole-bludger' is blatant hypocrisy. This is a classic example of the 'aussie battler' - they (or maybe we) like it when we get tax cuts and handouts and resent it when others do, we want governments to tax us less but equally to give us more money.

 

[stainmepink]

might i add, miranda devine has poor grasp of the english language.

 

[Generator]

might i add, miranda devine has poor grasp of the english language.

Though I may not agree with much of what she says, I think that it would be best to point that one when one lives in a glass house, they really shouldn't throw stones.

 

[Nietzsche]

Aptly put.