SurviveNthrive

I think I do...those around me matter...I don't want to talk to anyone unnecessarily or interact more than required, but I'd not want to see anyone suffer.

Certain situations matter...and when it comes down to it, while I like to see people held accountable, I don't think anyone should be hungry, wet, cold, and miserable...human predators should be put down, but that's a different matter.

Well...

Telemarketers...I think they should suffer...perhaps two hours in the freezing rain and a day without food for each call they make to me.

Magnum88C

While I voted I care about everyone, everywhere in disasters, understand that there is a hierarchy. I will not be helping people in India if my own community gets hit with a hurricane, for instance.

Coyote

I care for everyone, everywhere.

Watching the recent disasters in China and especially Burma was pretty wrenching.

A nations government can't make me hate its people. If it did we'd all have to cheer when natural disasters struck our own countries, so long as a detested politician was still in power.

RIKA

This may be a bit with shtf in mind. I care about people, all people, but you can't help everybody. Family and friends come first. Other people I would try to help on a need basis, especially children. Those who DEMAND or try to TAKE anything get NOTHING fast as far as I am concerned.

Call me hard-hearted but I am me.

RIKA

7of7

That's why I love RIKA.... her thoughts are my thoughts,.... our minds are as one... Oh,.. sorry, watched an old Star Trek episode... You know the Vulcan mind meld thing....

7of7

That's why I love RIKA.... her thoughts are my thoughts,.... our minds are as one... Oh,.. sorry, watched an old Star Trek episode... You know the Vulcan mind meld thing....

neolithic hunter

well 7of7 was the second post a re-run?? yup rika has it in a nut shell. i will take care of me and mine, a few others. the rest can take a long walk on a short pier for all i care.

cutter

I voted for those in my country. While I do not wish bad things on most in this world, I have a certain expectation that the citizens of a given nation bear responsibility for how that nation handles disaster. Yes, I feel bad for the Burmese, but the Burmese citizenry allows the junta to continue to hold power so they bear responsibility for their own treatment at the hands of their government. Yes, I feel bad for the Chinese, but the same applies to them as the Burmese above and the Chinese government seems to have a much better handle on things than the Bumese do.

I didn't see the whole world clawing their way to the front of the line to assist us after Katrina, Andrew, the Northshore Earthquake, or the current Iowa flooding. Call me cold hearted, but quid pro quo .

jasper

Kinda what Cutter said....My caring would probably radiate outward from the center, center being family and those I could actually help. I have never understood how a government, such as Burma, could let it's people suffer for the sake of political pride...

Garand

I completely agree. During times of upheaval, your family takes priority, there is only so much an individual can do.

SurviveNthrive

If everyone just took care of their own family and really did it, we'd have few folks to worry about.

packnrat

i can only help those i know.

if i tried to help others i would fail.

my taxes are waisted helping out "others" that just do not care to help themselvs.




.

SurviveNthrive

Oh, they care about themselves, a lot, and they're supported by those who care about them, at our expense.

brass hammer

so,other than "porn/ porn/ratchet-jaw" from the 'internet'!, WHAT IS IT THAT YOU REALLY DO
UP IN 'canada'?,,,FOR THE ENTIRE 10 MONTHS OF FRICKIN' WINTER!,,,HUUUMMmmmm.

RorionP

I voted "I'm only worried about certain folks I know and am related to." Which means to me my wife and kids. I kind of think on the same lines as SurviveNthrive. If everybody just took care of there family's we'd be alot better off. I'm stubborn I don't expect or take help from anyone and if its the Govt helping I'll make sure I'm going in the other direction when they come.

SurviveNthrive

There's probably no reason we can't have enough food stored for seven years each person in the US alive and all those who will be born.

cutter

In answer to the question, yes I care. My concern is not without limit however. I am about tired of the world demanding, and the US aquiesing, that we save the world. How would it have been if during WWII the rest of the allies had just said "Save Us!"? Where would the world be now if the US had shouldered the full burden and American troops had been alone in storming the beaches of Normandy? My money is on the theory that the entire world would have spoken German or Japanese and we could not be having this conversation.

As a Christian man, I'm all for helping others; but there is some point where the others should help themselves as much as they are able. I heard an on scene reporter on the radio today saying that Haitians were sitting on the side of the road, bleeding and sobbing, just waiting for someone to come help them. That is not the behavior of a person or people who are willing to help themselves.

I don't think we are there yet, but there will come a time, perhaps soon, when we will simply be unable to render aid. What's the world going to do then?

jasper

I agree with you Cutter....But when I think about anytime I see a news story about earthquakes or tornados, or whatever... Here in the U.S, it seems it's always the rural or small city/town folk that are immediatly starting their OWN recovery...The city dwellers here have the same affliction...govt. dependence....i.e. Katrina, etc.

cutter

That is true, Jasper. This begs the question of "Why?". Why is it that city dwellers and the populations of so many foreign countries do not start recovering from disaster on their own but wait for the Government to come in and "fix" everything for them? I believe the answer lies in conditioning. Rural folks, especially rural Americans, are socially conditioned nearly from birth to accept responsibility for their own welfare and needs. It seems to me a natural outcome of the lack of readily available social services in rural areas. In the cities and places like Haiti, Government intrusion into the daily lives of citizens, whether effective or not, is so pervasive as to condition those citizens to blindly accept the premise that Government will always be there and take care of everything. Moreover, they believe that Government not only will do so, but is obliged to do so.

Such attitudes weaken the individual, weaken the ability of Government to make a difference, and make the individual a much lesser person. It is a triple threat from which no good can come.

Pistolero

Personally, I have to wonder how long any particular sense of social altruism is going to endure in the face of cold, hard, and ruthless, 'me first' reality - hmmm?

Most of my life I've been a very giving person - The one other people in trouble would always come to first. As I've aged, I've changed. In fact, I can honestly say that the majority of the people I've help either forgot, or almost forgot, to say, 'Thank you'.

I'm, also, positive that among those who did remember to say, 'Thanks' very few actually meant it. That's people; and, as the world continues to get worse and worse, everybody seems to be going along with the trend.

My guns, and my skill with them, are primarily for me and mine. If some nut job is going to shoot up the mall, I'm going out the nearest exit. Sure, I'll be glad to spend the price of a cell phone call to the police; but that's as far as I'm willing to go.

Hopefully, some of the sheeple left behind will have had the common sense to arm themselves because this is one NRA member who isn't going to risk his life covering for them and making up for their mistakes.

cutter

If helping is a question of engaging a bad guy or not, im in. If I believe I have a shot that will stop the bad guy and not get me killed in the process, I'm taking the shot. It has nothing to do with the herd that the bad guy is threatening and everyting to do with the safety of me and mine. If they get away, they might come to my house next. I would much rather take the fight to them than to have them bring the fight to me. If I wait for them to bring the fight to me, I will probably have nowhere to run. I like having options. If that action happens to benefit the herd, so much the better.

AARTY

Not hard hearted, realistic and practical.

Glenn Bartley

I voted that I care about everyone, everywhere, but it just does not quite fit the ticket. I care people I consider to be good guys or innocents or maybe even neutral no matter where they are located. I do not care, in a generous manner, about anyone I think is a bad guy, evil or enemy of the USA no matter where they are located.

How much I care depends on many variables. My family and myself come before others. Friends or other loved ones in need next. Good neighbors in need next and on and on down the line to absolute strangers in far off lands whom I likely will never meet but may need help. If the others are doing okay and do not need my help, then I will almost certainly give to help disaster victims who are more remote to me than those above.

I volunteered to go to New Orleans after Katrina (never made it, just staged in Atlanta for about 5 days). I volunteered to help dig at 9/11 (only did it for part of 2 days then had other duties that filled my time). I volunteered to fly as an Air Marshal and did it for 5 months, starting less than a month after 9/11. I give money to charities to help with disaster victims such as from the Tsunami recently in Japan and the Tsunami a few years back and for the hurricane relief in new Orleans and after 9/11.

I also make regular charitable donations through payroll deductions to certain organizations in the CFC but those are not related to disaster relief. They are related to firearms rights groups and hunting/conservation rights groups and to other things of interest to me.

When it comes to what I would give to enemies of liberty and freedom and of the USA, well that is another story best not told here.

All the best,
Glenn B

DJetAce

I have empathy for people when tragedy strikes no matter where it is in this world. But I know what I can change, what I cannot change, and as the prayer goes, I have the wisdom to know the difference.

So my efforts are far more local.

money30

Certain situations matter...and when it comes down to it, while I like to see people held accountable, I don't think anyone should be hungry, wet, cold, and miserable...human predators should be put down, but that's a different matter.