I’m surprised you have only read “summaries” of this very influential piece of economic and social philosophy.
Sorry, by Americanised I meant that these generally support America and her (nefarious) foreign policy. I’m quite flattered at having my reason dubbed noble, but I’m not so sure how they are niave. I’ve researched my arguments well and I don’t churn out that “well, yeah America did slaughter thousands and back dictatorships but it was the cold war which makes it okay” revisionist tripe. I also quote my sources fully and avoid unsubstantiated claims.
Oh, I dont disagree. But turn back a page and there’s a list of dictatorships backed by the US. Inasmuch as my knowledge of French foreign policy is limited I don’t think they’ve done anything like that.
Thankfully, an acknowledgment.
Liberty? Chemical Weapons tests on civilians, LSD tests on civilians,
The PATRIOT Act, Police Brutality.
Democracy?Rigged Elections,
34.6 million in poverty
Matt said
Those other nations would never have helped without the World’s richest, most powerful nation taking the first step; and Bush did act unilaterally, he failed to wait for UN approval under pretense of national security.
Matt said:
Exactly! Such machiavellian tendencies are exactly why i prefer the philosophy forum and philosophy in general.
Anybody who thinks that by bombing thousands of innocent men, women, and children we are liberating a country needs to take a serious look at his principles and history in general.
source:The Humanist September/October 2003
I submit (and i live in the USA) that the attitude now, today, is the same basic attitude that the Washington Post expressed over 100 years ago. Empires have always needed to use words like freedom and liberation as effrontery to justify the most serious threats to humanity that the World has ever known. It has happened, it currently happens, and if we do not change, it will continue to happen.
Metavoid stated:
Thank you for the compliment, Metavoid. Although our arguments are good, i am afraid that when people refer to websites as “meaningless links” and fail to inquire into the reasons why people support something they are already ripe for a “hostile media takeover”(my neologism). They will believe anything they are told (after all they are not “terribly concerned about why others support something.”) Perhaps they are not concerned about why they, themselves, support something, but maybe i have misinterpreted these remarks. maybe they do not represent an argumentum ad populam. as Kurt Weber said,
I could not have said it better myself, my greatest desire is that this reason would have been heeded prior to this, when the ‘doves’ were not in the majority, when soldiers lived, iraqi children still had limbs, and when we were able to say we are free and proud (and still have a good conscience).
Unilateral means on your own. THe other countries were in from the beginning, they ALL acted outside of the UN just check the old news reports. When groups of countries go against the UN it doesn’t mean they automatically act unilaterally, just without majority UN support. The meaning of unilateral is quite clear.
What people also seem to forget is that if the Iraqis had tried to liberate themselves far far more people would have died in much more horrific circumstances. Would you prefer being killed by a bomb or tortured to death?
No system is perfect, but ours is far better than a communist one. A few examples of the gritty workings of our democratic systems is one thing, but you fail to acknowledge that once these problems are highlighted we actually have the freedom to at least partially solve them. A good example of this is the reigning in of people like the CIA in the 70s.
I don’t pretend democratic systems are perfect and I don’t pretend there were probably some darker reasons for the cold war and the Afghan war and the Iraqi war. But on the other hand there were damn good reasons, like making sure a majority of people have the freedom to live without fearing their life, have a right to reign in their governments and change them if they don’t approve of them. The most ironic thing about the cold war is that in the end the democratic nations gave most to the people, not the communist ones.
— i believe democracy is the best system, but we should still let people choose their own form of government provided that it is free from tyranny, etc… I would say that kicking Saddam out is good in and of itself. The fact that innocent people get killed by “smart” bombs that hit within 13 feet of their target, but alas, send debris up to a mile away. The fact that people like Dick Cheney and Halliburton are chasing ambulances in order to get rich off of other people’s misery. and other facts similiar to this have tainted this whole sordid affair.
I agree that there is a similar attitude among SOME of the population. But I don’t think that the picture in the U.S. is as grim as you make it out to be. During the Spanish-American War, people gathered publically to cheer the troops and support American expansion. During the Iraq war they gathered chiefly in protest–in the largest protest movement in history in fact. Further, now that the Bushies’ pre-war deceptions are being exposed to the public, Bush’s approval ratings are at their lowest since 9-11. I don’t think the majority of Americans support the kind of imperialsm that went on a century ago; I think the administration deceptively channelled the public’s fear and outrage over 9-11 into moral support for a war that has now proven to have no connection to terrorism. And the public is starting to get the point: BUSH KNEW THIS ALL ALONG. And we’ll fire him because of it.
Or so I hope.
— I may be wrong (it happens, i don’t keep up on these events to the extent that i could). It seems to me that George Bush and Tony Blair went against the popular will of their respective countries to a great degree, even though, as you say, a lot of people were against the war (or at least at the beginning?). It seems to me that the will of the constituents was sacrificed to the interests of national security (or in the absence of weapons of mass destruction) to the pelf of the elite.
At the time the war was started, the overwhelmingly majority of the US supported the war. George Bush is responsible only to the people of the US, not the rest of the world.
…which is why he shouldn’t have lied to them.
and Harken energy, and his dad is part of the military industrial complex.
As president of the most powerful nation on earth you would think his vision and responsibility would extend farther. We do trade with other nations, don’t we? We can no loger afford this “US against the World” mentality.
The case for war seems to be getting weaker by the minute. Now Iraq owes $10 billion. Furthermore, the money the US spent could have gone to decent causes.
The problem with that website is that it rests on the false assumption that government should ensure that everyone is fed, clothed, and housed.
by virtue of having these programs in place, so does the american government.
Manage! Metavoid, look what you made me do! i’m arguing with a redneck bigger than the whole state of texas even after i swore to myself that i wouldn’t respond to him. i blame you for posting this thread and hdv or hvd or whatever his name since he sent me a curious message about responding to said redneck. hvd/hdv’s invovlement not so clear.
That’s correct, and the US government needs to get rid of these enslaving systems of theft it has in place.
sigh Please refer to this thread
Metavoid,
because i have a soft spot for you, i want to raise the point that the war in iraq need to continue until the country is re-established. doing so hurts iraq: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2003/10/28/bfpam28.xml&sSheet=/arts/2003/10/28/ixtop.html
and will hurt america: http://slate.msn.com/id/2090437/
p.s please notice that i am posting metavoid-style
Q. What do Pamela Anderson and Wesley Clark have in common?
A. Both ended up as features in the stories trix linked.
Close but you were out by just $300 odd billion. And its increasing, good luck that ours stocks markets are trading there dept which increased in value when the war started.
i had to barge into this topic, sorry.
“When money, credit and goods are handed to the static economies for nothing, whether as gift or by allowing default, the result is certain, a world war on a commensurate scale, with increased and hopeless oppression of the people of the static economy.”
The statement gives reasons into why muslim extremists have resently been aiming at foreign aid.
ah, metavoid, ever the alert learner, i want to give you a quick explanation of my post.
you seem to be able to grasp the idea that a random story off the internet has nothing to do with what is actually going on in the world. hence, a story in the telegraph about pam anderson does not offer any, and certainly no substative proof, for the conditions in iraq. hopefully, we can extend this rational to include, say, websites from i_am_a_granola_eating_greenp … merica.com. similarily, what they publish does not offer any, and certainly no substative proof about current situation in iraq. it usually is a crude distrotion of facts to further an agend. it’s important to go beyond this.
second, the wes clark article had an interesting paragraph that explains america’s rational for the war in iraq:
the last bit is a very good point. is the just thing to end the war now? for whom? does it matter?
also, i think that you seem a little to obsessed with this war thingy. i linked to the pam anderson story to perhaps hint that there are other things you could be doing… 