To Be Fair, Folks Do Lend A Hand In A Hell Hole

“Claims that we’re trying to carry out some sort of stealth takeover of Haiti seem rather farfetched”, Glenn Reynolds writes, adding, “We’ve controlled Haiti before, didn’t like it, and gave it back. Haiti’s best defense against invasion is that if you seize Haiti . . . then you have Haiti.”

But that doesn’t stop a few enterprising souls from trying to bring that basket case “nation” into the stone age. As Kate of Small Dead Animals writes, “I Remember When…:”

… a “ridiculous school field trip” meant a day at the mall to “study pop culture”…

The Grade 12 students from a high school in South Slocan, B.C., and seven adult chaperones were on a mission to set up a goat farm in a town about 45 kilometres outside the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince.

Update: Is that a whiff of moral indignation I detect?

Seriously, Kate, what’s the bug up your butt on this one? They made a choice to actually venture out and attempt to change something in the world for the better and you have gall to ridicule them? I thought better of you.

Except that they won’t “change the world for the better” and the people telling them so are lying. Don’t take my word for it, check the track record. If such projects were of any lasting use, Haiti would be Miami by now.

No, this is more like an episode of Survivor: Extreme Moral Preening

Steyn gets to the meat of the matter – “Even by the standards of Third World dysfunction, what country is such a basket case that it needs outside help to set up a goat farm?”

Here’s a sensible observation;

Let the kids graduate from grade twelve first, and then they can pay their own way to travel to hell holes to set up goat farms.

Precisely. Set aside the fact (as their parents evidently did) that the country is a cesspool of crime and disease, has no real governing authority, infrastructure, justice system, or effective policing. (What, were all the spots to Somalia taken?) These kids were there just weeks before they’re expected to take final exams and graduate – small wonder that so many university profs complain that first year students are barely literate.

Well, they’re home now, and that’s good. When the counseling sessions wrap up, maybe they can get cracking on that safe grad.