Subject:
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Re: Democracy.... Dubya Style
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Thu, 18 Dec 2003 14:49:31 GMT
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Viewed:
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370 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Larry Pieniazek wrote:
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Don Heyse wrote:
> > In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Scott Arthur wrote:
> > > <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3305557.stm Taiwan
> > > defends China referendum>
> > >
> > > It appears Bush is trying to suppress a Taiwanese referendum to
> > > please his new friends in China.... perhaps the Taiwanese should
> > > only be allowed Chinese style democracy?
> >
> > Now I don't normally like to post here in debate, but the local story
> > about the 10 year old boy mauled to death by a tiger was giving me
> > nightmares last night. As dreams would go, this debate item somehow
> > entered the picture. It occured to me that if it were my son taunting
> > the tiger, I think I'd tell him to stop.
>
> yep. IF the tiger was safely in a sturdy cage, the little boy could
> go somewhere else if he wanted, and taunting was all that was being
> done.
>
> But this tiger is uncaged and unrestrained, can't be escaped from
> easily, and has said for 50 years it's going to maul the little boy
> sooner or later. I believe it will do so if unchecked. I believe not
> speaking up will hasten the day when it happens. Once the maul
> happens it's going to be a lot harder to undo than the last time a
> child got mauled (1)
Ok Larry, you've ruined the metaphor. That's cheating. I think a 50
year old grown up little boy ought to be able to handle a 50 year old
expired tiger. I thought that was the plan. Feed the tiger and keep
it sleepy until the little boy grows up. It's risky, but a better plan
than poking at it with a stick and hoping some adults will show up to
rescue you in time.
> So we ought to be saying "sure... Taiwan has the right of self
> determination and if it doesn't want to be part of China that's OK
> and if it wants to be its own country that's OK too and we are happy
> to sell Taiwan all the defensive weapons it wants to buy, cash in
> advance only please" instead of supporting the pretense that Taiwan
> isn't really a country, and supporting kicking it out of the UN and
> the IOOC and the WTO and so forth.
>
> But that's just me. I ain't no Willy Brandt.
See now that's why you need to invite RM back here to stimulate the
conversations. With my limited public school education, I never heard
of Willy Brandt before.
> 1- i.e. the last time a despotic state invaded a "renegade province"
> because no one said anything to leave any impression that anyone
> would care... (2)
>
> 2 - yes I know that Kuwait ain't exactly as nearly free as Taiwan
> is. So why did we care about Kuwait getting invaded but we don't
> care about Taiwan? Could it be that with the Taiwanese companies all
> setting up Mainland China operations we don't see the
> chip/electronics supplies as endangered by an invasion as we did the
> oil in Kuwait??? Is that the calculation in Foggy Bottom???
I believe we care about both, but unfortunately the world is more
complicatated than my dream induced metaphor about the tiger. You're
making the wrong comparison with Kuwait. The media loves that one
because it's easy to spoon feed to the masses, and it casts the US
govt in a bad light. But you can't handle Taiwan exactly like Kuwait
because China is nuclear armed. The last time we went toe to toe
against China via another SE asian country we screwed it up (for
whatever reasons) and lost. So far the only thing that seems to
work against nuclear foes is economics, but that takes a very long
time and people get impatient.
Can you suggest a better approach that might actually work? I wish
I could.
Don
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Democracy.... Dubya Style
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| (...) yep. IF the tiger was safely in a sturdy cage, the little boy could go somewhere else if he wanted, and taunting was all that was being done. But this tiger is uncaged and unrestrained, can't be escaped from easily, and has said for 50 years (...) (21 years ago, 17-Dec-03, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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