| | I appreciate Mike's comments. WW2 wouldn't have happened without WW1. We didn't need to take sides in WW1, or carve up the post-war world in an imperial way. When we attacked Tripoli it was to stop piracy. We attacked Germany ostensibly because they were sinking our shipping - but we were aiding their enemy. What could the owners of those ships expect? What would the Brits have done if we shipped food and arms to Germany?
After seeing just a 1-hour documentary, it no wonder we're hated throughout the middle east. Its like we're selling guns and liquor to the savages - we know what they're going to do with them, and shouldn't marvel and blame their kids for hating us for the wars their parents fight. Let the fools make their own, or let the French & Russians poison them.
Joel,
Agreed, the Soviet Union was a malignant, subversive evil. That doesn't justify trying to beat them at their own imperialist, statist game.
Are you defending tribalism, e.g., the Aztec Empire, the Incas, and the other practitioners of human sacrifice?
Certainly not. By "tribalism" I was including not only native Americans, but the "tribes" of Brits, French, Spanish, Dutch, et. that warred among themselves.
American frogs, so to speak, are better off than European, Asian, or African frogs, you should bear in mind. That's because the gap between the ideals held by the President of America and the American people is narrower than in any other government in the world.
You're scaring me. Sorry, I go nuts every time I hear, "at least you're not as bad off as that other poor bastard". That's saying you're not free to choose a good, you're constrained to choose the lesser evil. You're a slave that can choose to work, or be beaten to death.
I'll not sanction American evil by saying some other hideous monster is worse! And as far as the American people go, most of them scare me too. They don't vote on principle, but on popularity or pragmatism, and we all suffer for it.
No: the existence of political freedom creates jihadis. They wanna kill us for what we are, not for what we do.
I've heard statistics that since we've gone to Iraq, Jihadi recruitment is well up.
Is Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran et. Free? There religious leaders, sanctioned by the state, re-direct the peoples indignation at injustice to the west. Because of things like our marketing, or our women are "immodest" by their standards, we are more evil by comparison, and justify their hatred, and attribute their pain to Allah's displeasure at their "sin" of tolerating our influence.
Like communists or racists, the "mean well" (towards one another, anyways) with their misguided idealism. If we got out of the way, they could hate noone but one-another.
Consider, our anti-theists have failed purging our culture of Christian influence. And being a recovering Christian, I know the indignation for anti-theists I thought were trying to purge a good, rather than an evil influence. I had to see inconsistancy and stupidity for myself, nobody could teach me anything, I had to learn.
So, if we're going to civilize the bastards, lets do it right, round up the illegals, give them guns, promise them 40 acres when they kill the savages. Lets not decieve ourselves with the lies Americans believed about slaves and indians - we're helping them by forcing our culture, beliefs, lifestyle and technology on them.
The Bible gives a maligned account of God ordering the genocide of the natives the Israelis were displacing. A close look reveals a lot of wisdom in those instructions.
The (Philistines?) were practicing human sacrifice - not merely religious, but a sanction, celebration, of the strong sacrificing the weak to their whim. Israelis had the most just, tolerant and objective law in that context. By destroying all the animals and property, Israel was demonstrating they were destroying evil-doers for moral reasons, not plunder, not using a corrupt excuse.
If we want to fight a moral war of retribution, lets destroy the property and salt their Earth with radio-isotopes so nothing ever lives there again, and the world will know and fear us for justice, and have no cause to attribute our wars to plunder.
Scott
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