Prof. You are out of touch.....just take a day or 2 to dandora ...rent a room for a month ... report one criminal to police....you will post sk replies from the other world..(if that is possible)

Here the governement has to put in place some measure to ensure that we do not have rogue policemen in the police force ...not the Dandora or wangige residents.....

e.g why should we have to recruit policemen with D+..........

when we have university graduate youngmen who are willing to serve the country......why do people have to bribe with Ksh.100,000 as aired in some local TV stations to get their children in the police force.....Garbage in Gabbage out.....







Rules of the game here: Before you post anything think.give facts only..It's a serious blog for serious people....Do not insult your brother....respect one another...Just be good.... It's good to live a honest life....life without guilt.... Jeremiah 17:11 As a partridge that hatches eggs which it has not laid,So is he who makes a fortune,but unjustly; In the midst of his days it will forsake him,And in the end he will be a fool.' From the SK Anti-hate/anti- corruption campaigner..

@ Fundaah,you can't just say out of touch. Point out the fault lines in Prof's argument because his was more than a five words.

I see his point in holding 'the poor responsible' but also recognise the ethical validity of the UN Human Rights Declaration in which basic needs are typically understood to include 'food,clothing,housing,and medical care.' All people have a right to such goods. However,I believe that if there is any right that is exercised without a RESPONSIBILITY to the recipient,it ceases to be a right and transforms into an oppression of someone else. The HR argument continues to add that these needs should be provided to the (poor) people if they do not already possess them. In essence this argument says that government is responsible for organizing the redistribution of the goods necessary to satisfy all society members' basic needs or of the money to purchase these goods- The latter forms a whole debate which reminds me of the National Social Health Insurance Fund debate of 2005. I don't know which side you were on then.

I'm battling to find practical answers to the questions below;

Is society responsible for the well-being of the poor?

If so,at what cost to the rest of the community?

Are the poor to be held in any way responsible for themselves?

How far must poverty go before society is morally bound to act?

But whether we find answers or not,I still don't think we have a government in Kenya-rather we have a collection of smartly dressed thieves......... Having said that,I still insist that your household is your business. Imagine coming back home empty handed to your hungry kids and then telling them 'the government has failed to provide us with food'

If you ain't got your own Vision 2030,the only Vision 2030 you might ever see is tarmac roads passing near your grass thatched house,or planes overflying your house. There may even be hospitals that you cannot afford to pay 10 bob boda boda fare to reach-will you say the govt. needs to send a boda boda to pick you up?

It begins with you,ndio wewe.




We tenda wema kisha wende zako. Usinipe macho ya kutarajia shukrani!!!

@Spendthrift auliza je?

'Is society responsible for the well-being of the poor?'

Yes it is but only up to a point. Ethical society is constructed on the assumption that: a) all people will be granted a minimum standard of life b) that any members society who may not be able to access such standard by virtue of circumstance (draught or other disaster) age (children or the very old,physical or social condition (the very poor,women,handicapped,pastoralists etc) will receive help to attain such standard.

I believe this is the basis of Human rights conventions. Anything below this essentially consigns the unfortunate to the dictates of a soulless system where might is the only right. Such a system destroys the rich as surely as the poor.

'If so,at what cost to the rest of the community?'

This is a more difficult one. It is a fact that society (through instruments of government mostly) can only provide these rights to the extent it can bear. Thus for instance our government could do a lot more for the poor but how much more is limited by the resources at hand.

I would argue that we owe a duty of care to those whom circumstance has made less well equipped to withstand adversity. Further that this duty is a right not a privilege. But we also owe a duty to the future of society and any actions we take today should be seen in that light. Luckily anything we do to help the poor today has a demonstrable value to the future. Helping the poor to exit poverty is good business,if you like.

'Are the poor to be held in any way responsible for themselves?'

Yes they are. The same principles above hold that those who so receive such help are obligated to do their best to help themselves. But again this ability is constrained by external factors,the poor usually can not pull themselves out of poverty without external help - their key obligation then is to seek such help and to do all they can to apply it in a beneficial manner. The key role of government is help the poor find and use the supports that will help become ‘un-poor.’ It is not to nanny them.

'How far must poverty go before society is morally bound to act?'

I would say in Kenya it has gone far enough.

I would also like to reiterate a point earlier made - Kenyans are generally a resilient and proud people. This is a major benefit as it means that,most of the time,all they want is the government to create a good environment and then get out of the way. They will do the rest. Creating such an environment is not hard to do.

Finally as to the professor's argument that the poor should do their part by having only those children they can care for,I agree (there is a demographic counter argument that does not apply here).

However the time to impart this lesson was yesterday,not today when the children are eating pig swill. Today we save life,tomorrow we preach.

My two cents

Every person of majority age must be made or enabled to earn his life. Dependency sydrome has been whipped up and used to consign people into crude cycle of poverty. Population can be converted into human resource to be supplied to all areas of defficiency all over the world. Besides,it forms market for products produced locally and abroad.

Paradox arises

-where you find hungry people,and farmers will not invest in farming because guarantees of the market to cover costs are not there.

-expanse of arable land whether arid and semi arid but countries in a more worse desert conditions supplying fruits all over the world

-There was a time poultry farmers did a great job but just when the industry was picking up,flooding of the eggs from outside killed the industry.

We need commodity pricing guarantees and the buyer of the last resort who will guarantee that farmers remains in the industry.

Despite the fact that we grow up from a region of farmers nobody believes of a business case in farming. pyrethrum,coffee,tea,cassava,millet. etc.

Rain or no rain,hunger and famine will come to an end when business cases are developed harnesed and sustained for the pride of the nation.

Better ensure market by buying all produce to destroy or give freely than having farmers making losses and abandoning the farming altogether as it has hapened.


muthitho

@ Charley if you have disappointed some people that is for them to say but you have not disappointed me at all.

I want you to look at the following scenario.

Israel is desert state with no known minerals,the size of Tsavo West National Park and a population of 7.4million people has never experienced power shortages,food crisis or water problems. As a matter of fact,they are self reliant in almost all agric aspects,and world's lagerst exporter of cut flower and oranges.( They actually told me that some of the arable land in their country was air lifted from Kenya in the early 70 when they built Mumias sugar company)

Kenya on the other hand has vast Lakes,seafront,bigger landscape and several rivers. But no drinking water,no electricity,people are going hungry and we are crying we are culpable? no

Why do we pay people to be in Government? here i make reference to all arms of Government.

1,We pay people to be in government so that they can come up with plans that mitigate all the negative scenarios we are witnessing now. In simple terms we pay them to plan for our future and when they fail to do that,then we have a problem in such a situation . And that problem is the government.

Considering the level of development of our country,Kenyans are among the highly taxed people on the on eath,most of taxes are paid and no service rendered and if such service is rendered its of the lowest quality. we do nothing about it. That is where we are guilty for abeting corruption by not demanding what is rightfully ours.



wote

@ Charley

Your contribution has just sent me into a deep inspection of myself. I have been spun to more serious thought. I wish several more intellectual contributions like this one will continue thriving on SK !

I cant add more,am tongue tied...my fingers are stuck,cant add more..



Zama za Kengen IPO.... zama za mali

VituVingiSana,i agree with you on the Chinese policy but doubt your facts on India. When India hit the One Billion Mark there was alot of celebrations across India with the then Prime-Minister remarking' A billion is there'.

wote

VVS this thing of overpopulation is another colonial fad......sample this :

Italy - population density 199. per square KM....

Kenya -population density 59 per square km.........

Who needs to practice population control.... certeris paribas.....

source : wikipedia...

Rules of the game here: Before you post anything think.give facts only..It's a serious blog for serious people....Do not insult your brother....respect one another...Just be good.... It's good to live a honest life....life without guilt.... Jeremiah 17:11 As a partridge that hatches eggs which it has not laid,So is he who makes a fortune,but unjustly; In the midst of his days it will forsake him,And in the end he will be a fool.' From the SK Anti-hate/anti- corruption campaigner..

Good points Njung'e and Fundaah,and that is why i still insist that we actually pay the wrong people to work for us thus the problems we are in..

wote

@Njunge: My friend... HK imports most of its food & water from the mainland. Before the handover in 1997,the Chinese used to threaten to cut off the water... Yes,we under-utilise the land BUT there is a cost to intensive agriculture. Ask the Americans as well as the Indians. Problems are cropping up. The land is 'dying' under the intensive mono-culture.

Greedy when others are fearful,Very fearful when others are greedy - to paraphrase WB