Debate : 26844


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Subject:	Re: 'changing countries to be free' (was Re: Who the devil)
Newsgroups:	lugnet.off-topic.debate
Date:	Fri, 6 May 2005 05:44:38 GMT
Viewed:	1020 times

In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Richard Parsons wrote:

In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Larry Pieniazek wrote:

In lugnet.off-topic.debate, John Neal wrote:

In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Richard Parsons wrote:

<snip>

Its a tricky thing.

There’s no doubt that the world is more stable with less nuclear weapons.

And there is a good argument that (Western) countries with much to lose are less likely to use these weapons. Its only places or people with not much to lose or the real prospect of losing everything that find these weapons attractive.

Richard is right as far as he goes, where he falls down is in his prescription for how to change countries to be free...

Mmmmm. A truly American assumption that my ‘prescription’ was designed to change these countries to be free, but not what I was driving at. I have read it again, and I can’t see that in what I said.

That’s too bad, because that’s what you SHOULD have said.

There are a lot of ways to encourage and help people that want to be free achieve it, OTHER than charging in, guns blazing (and I’d challenge you to point out where I’ve been a big proponent of that) but it’s really quite easy to rail against that rather than addressing the real issue, right?

That real issue is that there are a lot of evil dictatorships out there that routinely oppress their people, and giving them foreign aid, or making them the chair of UN committees isn’t going to do much about it. Neither are any of your prescriptions

Or did you want to deny that N. Korea is evil, that Syria is evil, that Saudi Arabia isn’t suppressing people, that Iran honors everyone’s rights to live as they like (talk about your theocratic dictatorship!), that Egypt isn’t run by thugs?

But I guess probably it’s a lot easier to just blame the west for everything... we’re so bad, so evil... yawn.

Message has 1 Reply:

		Re: 'changing countries to be free' (was Re: Who the devil)
(...) (chuckle) I can't imagine telling anyone what they should have said, much less yelling at them. A fine example of an underlying problem. (...) I wasn't personalising the argument to you Larry. The guns blazing is a popular and wrongheaded (...) (20 years ago, 7-May-05, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)

Message is in Reply To:

		'changing countries to be free' (was Re: Who the devil)
(...) Mmmmm. A truly American assumption that my 'prescription' was designed to change these countries to be free, but not what I was driving at. I have read it again, and I can't see that in what I said. Besides, I think its been discussed even (...) (20 years ago, 6-May-05, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)

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