Ordo amoris, as explained by Vance, is a concept that you prioritize the needs of people closest to you (immediate family), then the next closest, etc. Obviously this is common sense and generally describes how reasonable people live their lives, so it is completely wrong for Trump to govern the country in the same way according to libs.
A lot of the discussion has centered around a foreign aid program called PEPFAR (President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) started by Bush in 2003, also referred to as PREP (Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis). Basically the program distributes HIV/AIDS meds to 20M+ people for about $6.5 billion and has been estimated to save 26M lives since its inception. This program is now cut off, probably permanently, since it was administered by USAID and that agency has been deleted by DOGE.
It's a pretty interesting issue, especially regarding Christian ethics, since it's a proxy for the entire African charity movement, but I think the answer is clear.
-
Ordo amoris: we don't adequately take care of the poor and needy in our own country, so we can't justify spending money on other countries.
-
USAID is a supervillainous agency that uses aid to force countries into globohomo and who knows what other purposes. USAID is made to hurt people, not help them. We need to wipe the slate clean.
-
Any soft power we get from PEPFAR seems nonexistent given China's Belt and Road incursion into Africa, among other things.
-
Love in the Bible is a concept that encompasses just leadership as well as kindness and help. This is why the Bible firmly defines "God is love" even though He visited all kinds of disasters on the Israelites and other nations. Allowing the consequences of their wrongdoing to fall on their heads, instead of aiding and abetting it, was an act of love. In the end it was better for them.
Would it be better for Africa to distribute free anti-STD drugs in the long run? The continent's population is skyrocketing at an unbelievable rate thanks to Western intervention, and they still can't take care of themselves. Is it better for Africa to host an exponentially growing population that will be unable to obtain food by themselves, let alone anything more meaningful?
Are Africans advancing when anti-STD drugs insulate them from practices like pouring sand in vaginas before sex and raping virgins to cure AIDS?
- one of the crucial tests of love in the Bible is the Golden Rule: "Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets." - Matthew 7:12
So if I was African and I had foresight of what was going to happen to Africa when the continent spikes into the multiple billions of people, would I want that to be done to my people? Probably not.
- also, as some people have noted, the previous verses illustrate God's love as such: "Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone?" - Matthew 9:12
One might ask, "what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will tell him he already gave the bread to the Africans?"
In the long run yes, but in the short run many of them don't have the farm production, infrastructure, or medical resources to support their population. Disease will be rampant. China will maybe pick up some of the slack. I expect the population curve would flatten.
China won't pick up any of it, once the resource dries out in an area the Chinese are gone. It's the fate of any mining town, when it's fresh and working, it's blooming like a flower, when whatever the resource is dries out, it becomes a ghost town.
The Chinese often ship out political prisoners and other criminals to work in these mines in other countries, they live in barracks, aren't allowed to go among civilians etc. I've spoken to a guy who's worked as an engineer in one of these Chinese mines, I won't get into much detail but the stories that he's told me about what they do with their own, I can guarantee you they could not care less about some hungry std infested african, the Chinese are aware that they're 10000s of years behind as humanoids and have no instilled guilt that they owe them something, the perks of not having a certain tribe design your school curriculums.
Wow... ouch.
Seems the africans dont try something like slaughter and rape the chinese there??? Id imagine disgruntled african worker would do something.
Because the Chinese run those minetowns and they're deep in the pockets of any officials, and it's not like the Chinese particularly care about theirs, they just ship new criminals to fill in. They live military style, in barracks, counting every morning and night, and the africans are paid good enough to not think of doing that, better than anything he could ever work.
The population curve is already flattening. Even birth rates in Africa have been falling for decades, it's just not at 2.3 yet.
Most of them actually can support their own populations as they always have. The cities may reduce in size, but the rest of the country is just being Africa. Moreover, they can still trade for food.