We need to share more

Here’s some more BS I learned at university. This time its Microeconomics.

A nation’s wealth and economic strength is measured by its Gross Domestic Product (GDP). GDP is the total market value of the country’s entire end product of goods and services. GDP is often measured per individual, or per capita. While some countries are rich with rich individuals, others are desperately poor. And luck is the main reason why.

Geography, availability of resources, and history are among countless other factors that have helped nations to create the wealth they now enjoy. You see, it’s all about luck. Some of us in the world are lucky enough to be born where we are, and some of us aren’t. None of us did anything to deserve where we were born, it just worked out that way. And we either enjoy a life full of the fruits of that luck, or one that is denied them. Therefor, since it’s all really just about luck, maybe those of us at the top (The United States is ranked in the top 10 of GDP per capita) should share more of what we have with those at the bottom.

I’ll be the first to admit that I am lucky to have been born in America. But I can’t help but remember the kinds of things that have happened in the past when we have tried to share.

Operation Restore Hope (The war in Somalia) was a US/UN attempt to bring food to people being starved by factions engaged in a civil war. This eventually led to the Battle of Mogadishu. After a horrific battle, the bodies of dead United States soldeirs were stripped and dragged through the streets of the capital city by some of the very people we were supposed to be “sharing” with. The event was covered live by CNN.

Kinda gives you a warm feeling all over, doesn’t it?

 UPDATE: And here is another example of people being treated well while they attempt to share! (H/T: The Sophist)

KHARTOUM, Sudan – Gunmen ambushed a United Nations convoy in Darfur in the first attack against the peacekeepers since their mission began this month, the U.N. said Tuesday. A Sudanese driver was wounded and in critical condition after the U.N. road convoy was attacked late Monday in a volatile area near Sudan’s border with Chad, the U.N. mission, known as UNAMID, said in a statement.
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A fuel tanker truck was destroyed by the assailants, and an armored personnel carrier was damaged, the U.N. said. Peacekeepers said they did not return fire and that no U.N. staff was injured.
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“The is the first time UNAMID is attacked, and we hope it will be the last,” mission spokesman Noureddine Mezni told The Associated Press. “We are in Darfur to bring peace, not to fight.”
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The U.N. mission is the latest international attempt to quell the violence in Darfur, where more than 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million have fled to refugee camps in nearly five years of fighting between the Sudanese government and local rebels.
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A previous African Union force was unable the end the chaos and suffered dozens of casualties.
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Under a compromise with the Sudanese government, the new U.N. force incorporates the African peacekeepers already deployed and is to remain predominantly African.
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The mission is due to number 26,000 peacekeepers and police, but the deployment is far behind schedule and Western countries have so far failed to commit heavy fighting equipment such as helicopters.[Link]

You remember Darfur. That’s the place we refuse to help because they don’t have any oil for us to steal.

I’m sure the world won’t be satisfied until they see some of our dead troops drug through the streets of the Sudan.