[LetsTalkAboutIt]

Here is a question.
If a white guy stole from a minority, was arrested and went to trial, and had an all white jury, do you think he would be guilty?

If you say no, does that mean white guilt does not exist?

[Vera Politica]

I am not a liberal, so 'liberal guilt' is, categorically, inapplicable in my case. But even if I were a liberal I would have no liberal guilt, as Italian-Canadians (as well as Irish and Eastern Europeans) got the worse end of Canada's 20th century liberal beating stick (excluding, of course, the aboriginals). Case-in-point: Italian concentration camps and Goose Village, to name only two examples of systematic exclusion.

[BassHole]

I find this whole notion that I should feel guilty for the African Slave Trade over 200 years ago to be ludicrous, and pretty detestable. I played no part in it, and am not going to play pseudo-intellectual and whine about how lucky I am as a result of it. People who use this whole "things we forget" emotional blackmail make me want to smash a TV over their heads.

[Ombrageux]

I find this whole notion that I should feel guilty for the African Slave Trade over 200 years ago to be ludicrous, and pretty detestable. I played no part in it, and am not going to play pseudo-intellectual and whine about how lucky I am as a result of it. People who use this whole "things we forget" emotional blackmail make me want to smash a TV over their heads.

Lucky that wasn't the subject of conversation.

[Imperial Spaghetti]

How that helps? So many Africans are dying from hunger because of lack of farming territories, and we help them multiply by treating the seek? This means only population explosion in the future and many millions of hunger victims.

What will really help the African continent is free condoms. Much less Aids, a lot less children to feed. I don't see how treating diseases will help in the long term. It might only aggravate the situation.

Pharmaceutical companies in third world companies do not treat the sick, eugene. They are there to test their drugs, and I can vouch for that as I have lived in a third world country as a doctor, and they actually pay us per every patient we bring in for the tests. The results are then published in prestigious medical journals as proof of the drug's safety.

Plus, just because they have a population problem it doesn't mean that we should leave the sick to die. That is barbaric! What are you Arab?

I'm getting the vibe that you hope the means of giving them condoms will produce the end of their reproduction over the prevention of the spread of AIDS. Sure it might contribute to both of those causes but only marginally. I would have to assume the majority of HIV infections are from people who are unaware of having the virus.

I've donated for food, medicine, water, even condoms before and raised awareness for those causes. Is that serious enough or is anything short of going there myself not good enough?

What are you even saying? Eugene's point was that there is no lack in funds to developing countries and we cannot just feel good about donating to some organization hoping that money will resolve the problems. Global development is much more complicated than that. Ever heard of the Millennium Development Goals? And even THOSE GOALS are not as simple as they seem as governments in third world countries, under pressure to meet these goals, simply manipulate data and other measurable indices of poverty in order to APPEAR that they are on the right track. Then you have every problem particular to the third world such as culture, religion, ex-colonial relations, etc. Then the international organizations who are there to "help" that are actually just there to pretend to help while they keep getting tax-free funding and employing thousands of people. You see the contradiction when you look at their paychecks. If they get paid so much then why should they achieve their goals? Then they will be unemployed.

Going back to topic, liberal guilt is not a bad thing, but it is also not constructive or useful. We need a revamping of ideologies and we should convert them to actually useful laws that respects the masses.

[CounterChaos]

I'm a Liberal, but I am not like those liberals that have feelings of guilt on issues; their support however is important because it strengthens resolve.

[Drlee]

Liberal guilt is a misnomer just like homophibic. People are not afraid of gay people they are just ignorant and prejudiced pigs. It angers some conservatives to believe that liberals actually think and relate to other humans. The should be afraid. Ignorance has lost more battles than ever has a lack of martial training.