To not much care about the rest of the world but care deeply about the UK

[CatieBlanket]

It's a mess out there, always has been and, let's be honest, always will be. When we intervene we tend to make things worse (Afghanistan, Iraq to name but two). The new governments end us as corrupt as the ones that were overthrown. Aid money is, on the whole, squandered. Billions of £ & $ & € of it

A significant minority of men just love to kill indiscriminately. The others love to oppress women.

The situation in the Middle East is unsolvable and the poverty in African too vast for us to deal with.

I'm actually becoming immune to hearing about hostages being beheaded and suspect many of us are, hence ISIS new method of murder by immolation.

So let's concentrate on righting the wrongs of our island. Sort out the NHS, get people into work, look after the vulnerable, stop domestic violence and child abuse, build decent housing for people who live here?

AIBU (Labour supporter, by the way before, anyone accuses me of being UKIP)

JohnFarley - I have enormous compassion. For paraplegic children who sit in their own body waste because the number of nappies they have is rationed to too few per day. For their parents who are at breaking point because of lack of respite care, daily support and having to fight for the care their children need.

For families living in inadequate housing. For old people who are stranded in hospital, stripped of their dignity, because at home care cannot be sorted out for them and that care comprises of a couple of 15 minute visits a day.

People dying on NHS waiting lists. People going blind whilst waiting for treatment that could save their sight. My compassion is endless and I show it in deed and financial contributions.

But if our government can't sort out the above problems how the hell can they begin to solve the Middle East conflict? Answer: they can't.

And just because I think that UK shouldn't get involved in war or give excessive foreign aid doesn't mean that I don't care about the rest of the world because whys happens in the rest of the world affects here, the people who come to live here and the people who need help once they are here because of war, injury, disability or mental health problems.

The thing is, whenever we (France, UK) go outside to do something, a big part of the countries that we helped, and a part of our population spit on us, and tell us we have nothing to do there. We have no obligations towards those countries, or those populations, yet we still try and get burned.

So YANBU to be weary to help other countries.

I still have faith in being an interventionist to protect our own safety and lifestyle, but I understand why other people do not give a crap.

I often feel incredibly overwhelmed listening to all the problems in the UK, let alone the rest of the world. However this doesn't make me "immune" to it all, far from it.

As individuals we can only do so much, and it can be incredibly frustrating, but it is only by us all joined together in our efforts, for anything, whether in the UK or overseas, that anything will change.

It is absolutely your choice whether you donate your time or money to local, national, or international causes. However it is not for you (or any individual) to dictate the UK's foreign aid and assistance.

The UK is a rich, multicultural society, and the events we hear about in the news may not be of any interest to you directly, but they may be happening in the family town of a friend of yours, a parent at the school gates, someone you work with, or a neighbour.

Also, I would like to hear how we should sort out the problems you identify in this country?

" Sort out the NHS, get people into work, look after the vulnerable, stop domestic violence and child abuse, build decent housing for people who live here?"

Of course throwing unending amounts of money at them will help, of course, but I don't believe this will magically irradiate the issues. So much is to do with people's beliefs, attitudes and behaviours, which is so difficult to change. Many people are blind to the problems in this country, simply because they're doing ok and they don't see why anyone else's situation is their problem.

YABU not to care at all, but there's nothing wrong with wanting to focus our main efforts on our direct community.
I would hope that you do something for your local local, regional and national communities if you feel this strongly though. Actions speak louder, and all that.

i don't agree with much of the op,
but do think we should not be sending money abroad,
whilst making cuts to stuff for the most vulnerable here.

Still wondering what you actually want OP? To not send Aid money abroad? Or people? Or soldiers?

Is it just about government spending on Aid? Or just you don't want to hear about it? Or all the above?

I very much agree with sidewaysglance. I have lived abroad too. Working with people who have tried to come here for a better life and hearing their views too.

I think we give aid money etc to keep the wars and famine etc. from affecting us too much to be quite honest.

I don't think it is a benevolent act, I think it's self preservation. To keep the status quo.

Less refugees, less likely that wars will spread closer to us...

Also, quite a lot of "aid" takes the form of grants to UK based companies to build roads/hospoitals etc. So yes, the countries in question see some benefit but then so do we (or at least our business community).

Oh sidewaysglance if only you ran the BBC.

Then we could have headlines like: Person down the road from Sidewaysglance got good deal on car insurance.

Local (to Sidewaysglance) scout group washing cars to raise money!

Exclusive: Sidewaysglance gives personal views on the proposed ring road.

Budget Day: Sidewaysglance slashes foreign aid and distributes funds outwards starting with her house, her town and then the country.

Cant wait for that. And neither can the 45,295 Koreans living here.

YANBU

I think a lot of people who would claim to be the most ardent anti-racists are in some ways the most racist of all because they assume that other countries need people of white European descent to go in and solve their problems.

I think the vast majority of political intervention by the West does far more harm than good and a laissez-faire approach which allowed these countries to sort out their own problems would probably do a lot more good.

I'm not opposed to help which saves people's lives in the case of famine, disaster, disease and so on. But I am very much opposed to western meddling and also the west keeping poor countries as subservient clients.

Absolutely agree with the above. I had to leave Baghdad when the invasion started (wasn't that enabled by a Labour PM by the way?) and felt far far less safe on the inner city British streets

Moan do you also think people of white European descent should stop taking things from other countries (the way in which we do so creates a lot of their problems quite often), or is it just the giving things you object to?

For example, would you embrace an embargo of British arms sales to countries that have poor people, or who receive aid from us? Should we stop importing food from countries where there is hunger? What about a UK ban on Shell/BP extracting oil from the Niger Delta, and fucking up their environment?

Much of the media and political establishment here focus is on foreign affairs. They don't tend to report protests purposefully so that over time our rights as citizens are being eroded.

if Britain experienced a disaster that required foreign help it would receive help from every country in Europe, America, Canada, the west indies etc etc. to pretend otherwise is an outright lie.

japan and Germany have been banned from external military manoeuvres because of the mayhem they caused in the 20th century. they have had the luxury of focusing on themselves for maybe fifty years rather than helping others. Also, the americans bankrolled both countries after the second world war to stop them from feeling hard done by and possibly starting a third world war. neither of these countries built themselves up solely on their own resources.

the ongoing mess in the middle east and Africa was started by the western powers, france, Britain, America, Italy etc.

For example, did you realise that many African countries are actually extremely wealthy - it's what happens to that wealth that is the issue

sending aid could prop up these evil politicians, they swan around in their private jets, we subsidise education for the poor. That let's them off.

These posts just demonstrate how complex overseas aid is.

There are day care centres for learning disabled being cut back now round here. Tragic for them and their families.

You are over be headings of hostages WOW I think when you lose sight of empathy for a human being having their head chopped off then it is time to worry Yabu really you are

Barbarian, that's just another patronising, condescending view of Africa.

If African countries choose to sell things on their terms then it's not up to us to stop them. Niger has a democratically elected government. Just like we can in the case of things like fracking they can vote for people who oppose it if they're bothered.

You seem to have decided that people in the west should decide what African countries can trade. You want the west to make some sort of moral judgement about what African countries should or shouldn't be able to do and impose that on them by refusing to trade for certain items or allow certain businesses to operate there.

I can't speak for people in the Niger Delta but it's possible that many of them welcome Shell's operations as a source of local wealth and would be pretty pissed off if they were sitting on a load of oil which they couldn't exploit and were kept even more poor because people in the west (who were unelected) decided to impose some sort of moral judgement on what could or couldn't be done in their countries.

I find your OP not only unreasonable but frightening.

Do you have children? What will you do one day should they decide to go and live in another country? Change your mind?

What would happen if a disaster on some massive scale affected the UK? Would you want other countries to just let us rot?

Your complacency is frightening. It's just an accident of birth where we end up being born and raised.

In all honesty I've completely stopped listening too or watching the news over the last year. Between Islamic lunatics and the rest of the barbaric atrocities carried out in the name of religion, half the world being a peadophile, the Tories demonising everyone who isn't rich and the likes of the kardashians, I just can't take it.

I do care ( I actually wouldnt care at all if the kardashians and their ilk got blasted in to outer space but apart from that..) but I can't do anything about it so why expose myself to it?

I Stopped watching the news and stopped wanting to believe in a God - I have also lost respect recently for anyone who does. So much of the world wrongs are caused by religion, I couldn't in good conscience be part of any of it.

I don't expose myself to it and it don't expose my children to it.

Goodness knows what effect all this constant horrible news is having on the minds of children and teens. I can't believe it won't have long term influence.

Quite Moniker