| smartazz: well, at least your honest with that self-penned name. |
Thank you for agreeing that I am smart and living in Arizona. No, I know you meant it as an insult. I've said it before and I'll say it again: It is foolish to start your first contact with a person with an insult as you just did.
| Black&Blue is for fallen members of the law enforcement community. |
Your thesis was "other ribbons for other diseases." Half your supporting evidence was "Black & Blue is Law Enforcement." I simply pointed out that Law Enforcement is hardly a disease. "Fallen members of the law enforcement community" also aren't a disease. Care to try again?
| But thanks for taking the opportunity to get in another dig. |
A) It wasn't a dig.

Let alone "another" dig. I have never had any contact with you before. That is solely your interpretation. You however did take a dig at me. Does that mean I am justified in heaping abuse on you?
| The lack of Reagan to use his power as president delayed elevating this horrible disease to the status of attention (funding and education) it needed to prevent further spread. |
As has been pointed out repeatedly in this thread this simply isn't the case. I'd refute it, but all anyone needs do is scroll up.
| Culture issues aside - if there's no disease, there's nothing to spread. |
But there
is a disease. Your argument might hold some weight if post-Reagan the funding were raised and a cure found. Then you could say, "See what Reagan did! These people died when they could have been cured if only he had supported it!" I'd even agree with you. However there is a disease. Reagan didn't create it. And all the king's horses and all the king's men since haven't been able to stop it either. Cultural issues aren't aside, because it is the beliefs of the culture and the actions resulting from those beliefs that spread the disease. Different culture -- less to no disease.
| Your comment, "the world is not our responsibility" is exactly the sentiment that scares the hell out of me. |
You simply can't force people to be enlightened or to help themselves. Take it out of the macro and look at it from a micro viewpoint. Person-to-person people have to want help. Ultimately people have to help themselves. Take an alcoholic. You can give them all the education in the world, make available all the help and programs in the world, but ultimately they have to want it for themselves, work for it themselves, and ultimately obtain it for themselves. So it is on a national level. We could pour out ourselves totally into Africa, use all our natural resources, bankrupt ourselves for them, and in the end they would end up exactly the same, just like the drunk forced to "go dry." (And they and the world at large would probably find a way to hate us and blame us for it.) There is only so much those on the outside can do.
As for the rest of that paragraph, isn't that in part the rational used to invade Iraq? We have to help those people? We have to save them from a despot and bring them liberty and freedom? As an avowed liberal, I don't think you would agree with those actions, yet the case
can be made off the same "For as you have done unto the least of mine you have done unto me" rational, the same "(not) Forsaking the most dire and troubling needs of the world, simply because they appear too insurmountable" rational.
You have to take care of you and your own first. Then you can give as much help as you can to others as long as you don't overly harm or destroy yourself or those in your care. We can offer no further help to the world if we run ourselves into the ground trying to help the world.
| Frankly, I wasn't aware of any "apology" from the Christian community and would welcome any links or articles you could share. |
It would be more helpful to see the individuals involved than this "Community" focus. If you'll excuse it, it seems to me you have trouble "seeing the trees for the forest." I have heard and/or seen that Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and Hal Lindsey (sp?) all apologized for their "AIDS is punishment" remarks. Frankly I was so incensed when I heard Lindsey say that I have strongly disliked him and discounted most everything he said ever since. (Actually I don't have a very high view of any of those three. The first two are at times the fundamentalist equivalent of PETA, making outlandish statements for the sake of publicity.)
I briefly looked for links but the only ones I could find are from those still using the quotes against them. The problem is, once these guys have issued their apologies they tend to completely distance themselves, not even leaving the apologies where they can be seen. That's probably a bad move. It just leaves them open to the ongoing criticism without any defense. It's too bad they don't come out against their remarks as strongly as they made them to begin with.
There are "mainstream" denominations that support homosexuality and others that, while not endorsing it, accept it and are far from the scorched Earth philosophy of "AIDS is God's punishment." Do you lump them into "the Christian Community?" Those who made such comments are rightly condemned. To condemn an entire group for comments made by members of that group is, to me, bigotry.