Seeking humanistic responses for major news stories

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Okay, after 10 years of war and military occupation in Iraq, civil war occurs. I'm not sure I'm in favor of more intervention, but it is a bad situation. About a hundred pounds of low-grade uranium is stolen from a university, reportedly not enough to make a bomb, but it's not good.

And then, three Israeli teenagers are murdered. The Israeli government responding by getting tough in Gaza. Some response is needed, but that may end up being a downward spiral, or it may not. We might get lucky in some regard and things go well, and I'll take good luck.

And then the third story, news coverage of children from Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, etc., coming to the United States unaccompanied because things are really bad in some parts of their countries. And to the extent it's caused by drug gangs, who's buying the drugs? Maybe not you and I, but some of our fellow rich American citizens, rich from the perspective of Latin America. And immigration is an emotionally charged issue in many countries. Even in liberal countries like Denmark or Holland or France, there can be a lot of ugly sentiments about immigration. I am disappointed in my Texas governor Rick Perry. I much prefer the Dallas County Judge (an executive position for the county) who said, These are children in the image of God just like all children.

So yes, I'd prefer some humanistic responses. I'd really like some responses which are both realistic and humanistic.

well first another invasion of iraq will do no one any good the dice need be left to roll the people of iraq will come to a solution in the end forcing them to anything other than what they choose will just bring more civil wars and dictators
also the stolen uranium is no threat
you can literally buy the same stuff on amazon.com a sheet of paper is enough to block the radiation

in israel they are bombing the worlds largest open air prison aka gaza and acting like they are the victims then acting like they have no idea why people would want to shoot rockets back. if israel was a civilized country they would take the people who do the rocket attacks to court not just drop bombs on all their neighbors leveling entire blocks

I live in the Netherlands/Holland, and the myth of tolerance is exactly that, it's a myth. Recently there was a report where they said that exactly because people here believe they live in a post-racism and post-bigotry society, they do not take it seriously anymore. There is real prejudice against immigrants, minorities and Muslims.
And about the drug gangs? The problem is not rich Americans buying coke, it's that they made it illegal. If the US would grow its own cocaine/weed/heroine legally there would be much less drug-related violence. Weed and heroine can pretty much grow anywhere. Even in this climate, poppies are a pest and pop up everywhere.

chris5000, I am not a fan of war and had my real doubts about going into Iraq in the first place. Now, what I would have favored is a six month period where we do as much rebuilding as possible, and then going home. I remember speaking with a conservative who favored only one month of rebuilding. And although it might be late in the game now, instead of really good elections, both honest and open, where one side wins everything and the other side loses everything, perhaps negotiating to some kind of coalition government, along with really good elections within the framework of an agreed upon coalition government.

What if the idealistic way of the Israelis and Palestinians, some of who live within Israel, becoming friends is through joint projects?? And maybe three medium to big joint projects is the Vegas over/under, giving you a 50% chance of positive momentum to roll forward. And if that three doesn't work, another three. Except you still have the immediate problems. It is a difficult situation all the way around.

trollcatman, do you think there's a phenomenon going on where business elites and politicians would rather bring in immigrants, even with the social opposition, than allow entry-level wages to be bid up? And speaking as an American for my own country, I favor a medium to medium-heavy number of new immigrants to keep ideas fresh and to bring in new life blood. But not this fiction that we "need" immigrants as low-wage workers. For starters, that puts immigrants in a bad position.

On drugs, I favor a a big distinction between "hard" and "soft" drugs. This used to be something people talked about, but not so much anymore. With marijuana, I favor across the board legalization where marijuana can be purchased pretty much anyway you purchase alcohol. A sticky point might be regulations on indoor smoking, but that can be solved and dealt with. Now, on hard drugs, please understand that I am anti-cocaine. I think is harmful, counterproductive, and in the final analysis pretty boring stuff. I favor a clinic approach, where if someone wants to use cocaine, heroin, amphetimines, they have to go to a clinic, register at the clinic, and use the drug at the damn clinic. It's about as unromantic and as unglamorous an approach as you can imagine. The person is treated respectfully much like a good detention facility might treat people, and when the person is sufficiently down from their high and no longer a danger to society, the person is free to leave. Different large hospitals would apply for permission to do this, and run it in slightly different ways, and hopefully with something like world class benchmarking, the better ways would percolate upward. There would still be an illegal market, but a much smaller illegal market. And there may be legitimate uses for heroin in the later stages of terminal cancer, but they may have better drugs now.

Here in the Netherlands not much would get done without immigrants. Most of the immigrants are from Eastern Europe and they already have the right to live and work here because they are EU citizens. We also have the right to live and work in their countries.
I've been to several production plants and businesses where they have instructions in Polish, simply because Dutch people do not want those jobs anymore. It's nearly impossible to get the locals to apply to your job opening. The alternative is moving the plant to Poland (or some other place). Of course illegal immigrants and refugees are a different matter.



I really disagree with this. What do you care what people put into their own bodies? It's not like someone on coke is raving lunatic. From the sewage water in Amsterdam they can see that there's an incredible amount of cocaine use, but it's not a dangerous city. In fact, many coke snorters are high earning people like lawyers and politicians. They found lots of cocaine remnants in the toilets of the Parliament building. Making people use their cocaine in some hospital setting where they are being watched... that's not what these people want.
And about making people smoke weed indoors: why? I see plenty of stoners smoking outside and they've never bothered me. I've done it too, smoking in public or drinking in public is not a problem. If someone makes a nuisance of themselves while stoned or drunk, punish them for causing trouble, not for drug use.
If you make it more difficult for people to get drugs, they will go to much more dangerous drugs like crystal meth and krokodil. Those two drugs are really uncommon here.
I never used cocaine or any other hard drugs, I just don't care whether other people do.