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.
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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.
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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.
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Any soft power we get from PEPFAR seems nonexistent given China's Belt and Road incursion into Africa, among other things.
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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?"
Judging people entirely on potential and their living up to it is just reducing humans to numbers and marking their value based on production.
Its literally playing "countries are economic zones and GDP is the only metric of value" with lives.
That's nonsense. You're assuming I'm establishing a quantifiable number-score for their achievement.
I never said that their potential has to be something specific. Humans happen to have metaphysical potential as well. Moral, intellectual, psychological, emotional, romantic, social, etc. potentials.
By defining their potential as a thing they can or cannot reach, you have established a barometer of some kind. Its quantifiable in some way because otherwise they couldn't ruin or fail to meet it.
Its always an argument that if applied non-hypocritically has to always come down to "anyone who doesn't live the exact way I consider best is failing the test." You can start wide and vague with the net all you want, but eventually the marbles will have to fall to that metric.
I don't see how it's failing a test. It's not a pass/fail concept. Hardly anyone will ever reach their full potential. That's how potential works because it is, as you say, measured from a distant reference point. But not getting to there is not a failure. It's not trying, and then intentionally going the opposite direction that is the problem.
Its pass/fail because there must be some point where you can decide between them failing to live up to it or having done good enough. As you admit, no one can reach their full so there must be some line somewhere where you consider it acceptable or not.
Public school tests are usually 1-100 points, which gives a wide range of potential scores, and we've placed that line at somewhere around 60-70 points as the difference between failing and not. For just an example that might be showing my age.
Its the same slope as the eugenics problem. Where vague principles upon what is "best" eventually have to devolve into "blondes only, abort anything else" because you've opened a door to judgements like that.