Subject:
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Re: Q. Where is the USA? A. You are standing on it!
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Fri, 22 Nov 2002 17:29:55 GMT
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Viewed:
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1435 times
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Scott A wrote:
>
> > Geography and knowing something about other countries is also probably
> > much more important to most of the rest of the world.
I probably should have worded the above a little more carefully. I did
not mean to imply that people in the US do not need to understand other
peoples (though even there, I would argue that there is still less need
for a cashier in the US to understand the world outside the US than it
is for a cashier in Morroco). I was mostly thinking about geography
(people in London care a lot more that France is between them and
Germany, whereas that relationship makes much less difference to people
in the US
> I think if we all understood each other a little better, life for us all would
> be much better. I have seen a relatively small part of the world, but I have
> learned a lot from *every* country I have visited and *every* culture I have
> experienced. The USA is suffering right now in world opinion because of its
> perceived isolationist stance. I respect you a great deal, but your comment
> above did remind we of that point.
I'm not saying we should not be understanding of other peoples, but
there certainly is a limit to how much you can learn, and how much
caring you can dispense. It pays everyone to learn and care more about
things closer to them.
I do think we would actually be better off with a foreign policy which
was much less about intervention. Unfortunately by becomming the world's
cops, we have put ourselves in a no win position. If we intervene, we
get accused of empire building and inteference with sovereignity. If we
sit back and let the locals duke it out, we get accused of not caring.
If we pay more attention to things which impact us more (which everyone
should - YOU CAN NOT PAY EQUAL ATTENTION TO EVERY PERSON IN THE WORLD -
if I spent one second caring about each person in the world, that would
be 190 years...), we get accused of being in it just for the money
(oil).
> Nations like Iraq & Iran are composed of real people with hopes and aspirations
> just like you or I. Perhaps if we recognised that a little more, we'd have been
> less likely to supported their oppression in that past and be less likely bomb
> them in the future?
I certainly agree that we should not be supporting opression. If we had
not in the past, perhaps the "axis of evil" countries would be better.
And if they weren't, it would be a lot easier to justify intervention
when their internal squabbles overflow.
We have to be very careful how we help others. It is becoming
increasingly obvious to me that help has to be given in such a way that
it does not remove the individual drive to succeed. Democracy is not
going to happen in other parts of the world without the common people
there committing themselves to it, though it can help if someone with
bigger guns comes in and wipes out the existing power structures.
Germany and Japan are what they are today because their leadership fell
so far that the rest of the world was justified in completely
dismantling their power structures. At the same time, the common people
saw what their leadership had done, and chose to commit themselves to a
better world.
Of course people in glass houses should be careful about pointing
fingers. Most of the messes in the world derrive from imperial actions
which pre-date the USA... We've got a really messed up world to try and
fix.
On the other hand, unfortunately the US is in the position it is in
because we basically eliminated the competing peoples. It really makes
one wonder how we can achieve peace if the only way which has proven
successeful is bascially eliminate the competition.
Frank
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