Foreign Policy

[chasingsophia]

I was thinking about the "I" word when I wrote that, and I guess I'd try to draw a distinction between being willing to fight agressive nations (like Germany in WWII) who invade and harass my neighbors with guns [big breath] AND fighting hostile nations for economic gain. Note my distinction between aggressive and hostile.

I just thought of something: someone might charge me there with apathy for the Jews' sufferings had Hitler merely contented himself with their torture and not invaded others. But doesn't it seem that aggregious human rights atrocities are committed by nations who invariably turn on other nations? Germany: first the Jews, then the Poles. Iraq: smoke the Kurds, then head for Kuwait. Egypt: torture dissidents and Christians, then set a bead on Israel.

Because eventually, bullies get tired of picking on their younger brothers and start taking the neighbor kid's milk money.

[img]graemlins/sleepy.gif[/img] < Is that guy sneezing???

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ July 06, 2004 11:34 PM: Message edited by: Mr. Mastedon Farm ]</font>

[Aristarchus]

warning- sleep deprived, shotgun-style comments and questions ahead...

Regarding Limbaugh's point regarding oil dependence. It's not so much a question of cheap ice cream, but of infrastructure and mode of operation. Virtually every item in our lives has spent time on a semi trailer-- oil for diesel fuel. The majority of us live beyond human-powered distance from our jobs-- oil required to get to work. We use electricity like a 7th grader eats pixie sticks-- oil drives the trins that feed the power plants, and the transmission line maintenance vehicles. Beyond that, many of our states are larger than most european nations. the unfortunate fact is that that the american way of life is indeed energy dependant--our jobs, our freedom of movement, our food, pretty much everything in our lives is oil-driven at some point...

Another interesting thought is, if al-quaida succeeds in knocking the US back to the 6th century as they so badly want to do, what does that do to the balance of power in the world? While I agree that it isn't "nice" to be a dominant nation, what are the alternatives? Human nature dictates that there will always be a top dog, and there will always be middle and bottom dogs. What other nation would you like to see on top of the world? Egypt? the netherlands? france? Brazil? I'm no fan of modern american culture by any means, but in comparison to what the rest of the world has to offer, we've still got a good thing going here. Granted, this good is being pissed away by people (primarily on the coasts) who want everybody to sing kum-ba-yah, not have an opinion on anything, and not stand up for anything, so we can be more european. That said, I'll be the ethnocentrist, and say that my concepts of fairness, justice, opportunity, and morality are head and shoulders above those advocated by the bin-ladens and jong-ils of this world.

But to hell with all that. Let us not loose sight of the fact that all institutions of man are all going to burn some day in the fire, and that our job here on earth is to tell people about the guy who's passing out the flame reterdant pajamas.

[chasingsophia]

Agreed almost completely. But calling oil a need is a little inaccurate, because we have chosen the lifestyle we lead. But the problem remains: whether we want it or need it, we get it from others, and the intrusive foreign policy of the past century was in part driven by the acquisition of oil from these others.

In short, even if we "need" it, it's still wrong to acquire it by manipulation and coercion.

I'd also like to point out, as you did, that some confuse freedom and liberty with "the American way of life." Really, it's the same mistake that many leftists make: The right of equal opportunity under the law confused with the right to live at a certain comfort level (i.e., "livable wages"). Limbaugh makes the same mistake, only not at American taxpayers' expense but at the expense of people from other nations.