We don't feel that at all. It's simply that we produce more than they do. No, wait. I can't presume to speak for the whole of the Western World. But the facts bear me out: we do produce more, by several orders of magnitude.

<sigh>

We donot feel this way, its the only way we know to live. I for one would not like to live where we can be killed at the whim of anyone

Why do ABers keeps asking these questions about Americans thinking they deserve more than whomever? blah blah blah. Where the heck is that coming from? What are "3rd world counties" anyway?

It isn't a matter of deserving more than them. We simply have more. It doesn't make me superior over them, and I don't feel badly about it. I feel grateful. I could just as easily have been born in a place where women are beaten to death for sullying the family name because she was raped. I'm not going to feel guilty because I was born here. +5

We make more, we have more and we ALSO SEND STUFF TO THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES. We send computers, we send medicine, we send food, we send engineers and peace corp people to build them stuff, we send teachers and agriculturists and doctors. . The only reason people suggest that we're not doing anything is because we ARE. Two hundred years ago no one talked about whether we were doing enough for the poor in some faraway country because it never occurred to anyone at all that someone should do anything at all.

What makes you think we feel that way?

Have all of you forgot the parable of the ant and the grasshopper? THE ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold. MORAL OF THE STORY: Be responsible for yourself!

Where are these third world counties? We don't have any third world counties in Britain, although a few inner city areas may give that impression.

It is not that we deserve more but we have more because we earned it. I'll give you an example Zimbabwe once the showplace of Africa. They were the continent's bread basket. Then they elected Robert Mugabe as President. He was more concerned about personal power than his country. He subsequently mismanaged all aspects of government while increasing his personal power at the expense of the country's citizens. It is the typical tract that most African countries take. They seem to want to revert to tribalism but have a population too large to support such a parochoial form of government. They then resort to tribal and sometimes religious violence and completely demolish their economy. Sometime a good, honest leader starts bringing them back the the 21st century they there is another power struggle. It is a shame, Africans, individually seem to be a warm, hard working people but putting them into artifically mandated countries seems to bring out the worst from them. Maybe it would be best to redraw the map of central and southern Africa (except South Africa) into tribal regions and let them work things out for themselves. Come back in a few decades and deal with the winners.

I would say it's because we're selfish, and in a way we are...but we are also a completely different lifestyle and need to adapt to different ways than they do. To go to school, they get a list of supplies, we get a list of supplies. Their supplies would probably consist of a couple of notebooks, some writing utensils and a ruler. We need certain colours for certain classes and certain brands of pencils, and calculators and geometry sets and so on... Because we can, and because our education system is more developed than theirs. It's not that we think we need more. If we have access to it, and we've used it our entire life, then it's something we've adapted to and need to live a western society life... But, on the flip side, we are selfish in the sense that those who have money get more than they need to survive. But then again, that can also be how they were raised and therefore all they know.