"They" are not like "us": the most common bias of international politics
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suhredayan wrote:
US policy may need to give a little more respect to this fact.
Amen. Tell Israel they're on their own, but the weapons shop is always open. Ditto to the Saudis. Dump Nato and call our troops home and send em to guard our own borders rather than everyone else's. Stop protecting South Korea. Tell Japan it's time to learn how to stand up for themselves again. Wish Taiwan good luck and goodbye. Wave aloha to SEATO and ANZUS. Pull out of Iraq in 16 days not 16 months. Abrogate NAFTA and CAFTA. Tell the UN to head elsewhere and reclaim all that prime real estate for taxable purposes. Cancel the 20 billion in aid we have scheduled for Africa. Ignore Darfur. Cancel all Most Favored Nation trade treaties, except with the British Isles. Drop out of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization. Wish India and Pakistan the best of luck, and assure them they are free to do what they want, when they want, how they want, to whom they want, without, at least, American interference or interest. (The fallout's likely to have disapated over the Pacific, don't you think?) Sounds like plan to me! :)
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
Oakman wrote:
Wish India and Pakistan the best of luck, and assure them they are free to do what they want, when they want, how they want, to whom they want, without, at least, American interference or interest.
I am not an expert to comment on everything happening around the world. But in this part of the world, it was this same American interference or interest that made things so bad. It was US who supported Taliban, Pakistan-ISI and Pakistan's non-democratic Military through out the history. It was US who always prevented India from taking on this bad elements and allowed them to grow to a point where they may take down everyone with them. However I don't deny US wants to see a better world, but I always feel there is something missing in the policy.
-Suhredayan
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Deyan Georgiev wrote:
They are inferior humans and need to be carefully bred and cultivated from someone superior
Never said that, nor meant it. But the rule of law seems to have received short shrift outside of the area I described - do you disagree?
Deyan Georgiev wrote:
preferably with lineage directly pointing to the Inquisition.
Better, perhaps, than the pogroms?
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
Oakman wrote:
Never said that, nor meant it. But the rule of law seems to have received short shrift outside of the area I described - do you disagree?
I’m not entirely agreed with the generalization. The Orthodox Church created similar moral foundations, but in the countries outside Catholic Church area of influence. Of course it’s the same religion just different churches but still – the generalizations are dangerous and usually wrong.
Oakman wrote:
Better, perhaps, than the pogroms?
I'm lost here.
The narrow specialist in the broad sense of the word is a complete idiot in the narrow sense of the word. Advertise here – minimum three posts per day are guaranteed.
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This article is very funny: a Russian pundit "predicts" that the U.S. will fall apart in 2009-2010 and the US territory will be controlled by China, European Union, Mexico and Canada[^]. But my point here is not about an idiot saying bullshit about US politics. The really interesting issue is the mechanics of the bias, how it is generated. Basically Russians see politics in every country in the world the same way they see their own politics: split appart by nationalist and ethnical feelings and under assault of extern superpowers. That's why they love Putin. He is a thief and a tirant but he gives them security and stability. A lot of people in the Russian Federation's provinces know that they were sovereign countries before communism. And the Russians imagine the Western Hemisphere (North, Central and South America) as being in the same state. It is easy to call this whole thing as stupid, but the fact is that a lot of the foreign policy of the American government has been repeating the same bias inverted. When Bush-father anounced a "New World Order" he believed that Russia would fall into the ranks of capitalism and open society, not into kleptocracy. When neo-cons created the domino effect theory to justify nation building in Iraq/Afganistan they completely ignored the power of tribal and clan loyalties; these don't exist in the U.S. The classical liberal/neo-liberal political philosophy (starting in John Locke) preaches that freedom, the rule of the law and democracy are the natural state of every human being. Unfortunatelly the truth is that many people simply don't want that simply because they can't understand it. The devil they know sounds better that the good they don't know.
Of all forms of sexual aberration, the most unnatural is abstinence.
Diego Moita wrote:
Unfortunatelly the truth is that many people simply don't want that simply because they can't understand it. The devil they know sounds better that the good they don't know.
Pure bullshit. You simply are not perceptive enough to understand that you are making a fundamentally racist argument. If what you are saying has any merit, and if we do wish to embrace classical liberalism (unrelated to neo-liberalism, btw) than it is entirely appropriate that we either isolate ourselves from the 'others', disallowing emigration and integration, or we actively seek to force them to accept our views, violently if necessary. Which is it?
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
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Oakman wrote:
Wish India and Pakistan the best of luck, and assure them they are free to do what they want, when they want, how they want, to whom they want, without, at least, American interference or interest.
I am not an expert to comment on everything happening around the world. But in this part of the world, it was this same American interference or interest that made things so bad. It was US who supported Taliban, Pakistan-ISI and Pakistan's non-democratic Military through out the history. It was US who always prevented India from taking on this bad elements and allowed them to grow to a point where they may take down everyone with them. However I don't deny US wants to see a better world, but I always feel there is something missing in the policy.
-Suhredayan
suhredayan wrote:
I am not an expert to comment on everything happening around the world. But in this part of the world, it was this same American interference or interest that made things so bad. It was US who supported Taliban, Pakistan-ISI and Pakistan's non-democratic Military through out the history. It was US who always prevented India from taking on this bad elements and allowed them to grow to a point where they may take down everyone with them.
Nothing that the US has done, for better or worse, since it assumed a more international role following WWII, has happened in a political vacume. Every thing that we did was for the purpose of defeating the USSR in a way that would not result in a thermo-nuclear conflagration. I think we succeeded well enough at that.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
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suhredayan wrote:
I am not an expert to comment on everything happening around the world. But in this part of the world, it was this same American interference or interest that made things so bad. It was US who supported Taliban, Pakistan-ISI and Pakistan's non-democratic Military through out the history. It was US who always prevented India from taking on this bad elements and allowed them to grow to a point where they may take down everyone with them.
Nothing that the US has done, for better or worse, since it assumed a more international role following WWII, has happened in a political vacume. Every thing that we did was for the purpose of defeating the USSR in a way that would not result in a thermo-nuclear conflagration. I think we succeeded well enough at that.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
Stan Shannon wrote:
Every thing that we did was for the purpose of defeating the USSR in a way that would not result in a thermo-nuclear conflagration. I think we succeeded well enough at that.
Did US really needed to do all those things? wasn't it was only a matter of time then, for the USSR to go down.
-Suhredayan
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suhredayan wrote:
I am not an expert to comment on everything happening around the world. But in this part of the world, it was this same American interference or interest that made things so bad. It was US who supported Taliban, Pakistan-ISI and Pakistan's non-democratic Military through out the history. It was US who always prevented India from taking on this bad elements and allowed them to grow to a point where they may take down everyone with them.
Nothing that the US has done, for better or worse, since it assumed a more international role following WWII, has happened in a political vacume. Every thing that we did was for the purpose of defeating the USSR in a way that would not result in a thermo-nuclear conflagration. I think we succeeded well enough at that.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
Stan Shannon wrote:
purpose of defeating the USSR in a way that would not result in a thermo-nuclear conflagration. I think we succeeded well enough at that.
Holy Shi'ite. And you complain about the left's greater good. Let's have a little war instead of a thermo one. :rolleyes:
Chris Meech I am Canadian. [heard in a local bar] In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. [Yogi Berra]
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Ray Cassick wrote:
Everyone wants us to leave everyone alone except to provide aid
I would like to disagree, US may have brought few countries with their financial/technology aid, like Saudi, Singapore etc. I have seen the affect personally too, there are special queues for US citizens at their Visa counters etc. Having lived in India (country with on of lowest per-capita income) for more than twenty five, I still cannot recall an instance where we approached US for any aid.
Ray Cassick wrote:
when they want our help in blowing up the other guy.
US have played a nice role in messing my part of the world, by supporting Taliban during 80's and strengthening Pakistan-ISI, and always supporting non-democratic Pakistan military government through out the history. And US till date has only prevented us from blowing up these bad elements. Having said that, I don't deny the fact that, US have always tried their options, with only intention to make a better world.
-Suhredayan
suhredayan wrote:
I still cannot recall an instance where we approached US for any aid.
FYI U.S. Government Aid[^] to India FY 2000: $170,024,000 FY 2001: 162,723,000 FY 2002: 166,209,000 FY 2003: 242,473,000 Note that the above does not include any U.S. Foundation aid. The Gates Foundation, for instance maintains a full-time office in India to facilitate the administration of its many grants. Earlier The Rockefeller Foundation's grants to Indian agriculture enabled the development of a number of new, high-yield, disease resistant crops. There was a special funding organization called "The Aid to India Consortium" consisting of the World Bank and thirteen countries: Austria, Belgium, Britain, Canada, Denmark, West Germany, France, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and the United States. Collectively they gave RS434.7 - almost 70% of all aid received, between FY 1974 and FY 1989. In 2007, the U.S. slashed its foreign aid to India, based on its reclassification away from "developing nation" since it had one of the best performing economies in the world and its own foreign aid program.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
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Stan Shannon wrote:
Every thing that we did was for the purpose of defeating the USSR in a way that would not result in a thermo-nuclear conflagration. I think we succeeded well enough at that.
Did US really needed to do all those things? wasn't it was only a matter of time then, for the USSR to go down.
-Suhredayan
suhredayan wrote:
Did US really needed to do all those things?
Almost certainly not. ANd we are certainly responsible for cleaning up our messes. But the notion that any conflict of such complexity can be conducted perfectly is ludicrous. Warfare is an inherently messy process, but the cold war could have ended very much more messily than it actual did.
suhredayan wrote:
wasn't it was only a matter of time then, for the USSR to go down.
It is only a matter of time before everything goes down. The real question is do you confront evil and actively try to destroy it or do you not? If you do decide to fight it, than you have no choice but to fight it on its own terms. Evil will never fight good on good's terms.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
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Stan Shannon wrote:
purpose of defeating the USSR in a way that would not result in a thermo-nuclear conflagration. I think we succeeded well enough at that.
Holy Shi'ite. And you complain about the left's greater good. Let's have a little war instead of a thermo one. :rolleyes:
Chris Meech I am Canadian. [heard in a local bar] In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. [Yogi Berra]
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suhredayan wrote:
I still cannot recall an instance where we approached US for any aid.
FYI U.S. Government Aid[^] to India FY 2000: $170,024,000 FY 2001: 162,723,000 FY 2002: 166,209,000 FY 2003: 242,473,000 Note that the above does not include any U.S. Foundation aid. The Gates Foundation, for instance maintains a full-time office in India to facilitate the administration of its many grants. Earlier The Rockefeller Foundation's grants to Indian agriculture enabled the development of a number of new, high-yield, disease resistant crops. There was a special funding organization called "The Aid to India Consortium" consisting of the World Bank and thirteen countries: Austria, Belgium, Britain, Canada, Denmark, West Germany, France, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and the United States. Collectively they gave RS434.7 - almost 70% of all aid received, between FY 1974 and FY 1989. In 2007, the U.S. slashed its foreign aid to India, based on its reclassification away from "developing nation" since it had one of the best performing economies in the world and its own foreign aid program.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
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suhredayan wrote:
Did US really needed to do all those things?
Almost certainly not. ANd we are certainly responsible for cleaning up our messes. But the notion that any conflict of such complexity can be conducted perfectly is ludicrous. Warfare is an inherently messy process, but the cold war could have ended very much more messily than it actual did.
suhredayan wrote:
wasn't it was only a matter of time then, for the USSR to go down.
It is only a matter of time before everything goes down. The real question is do you confront evil and actively try to destroy it or do you not? If you do decide to fight it, than you have no choice but to fight it on its own terms. Evil will never fight good on good's terms.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
Stan Shannon wrote:
The real question is do you confront evil and actively try to destroy it or do you not? If you do decide to fight it, than you have no choice but to fight it on its own terms. Evil will never fight good on good's terms.
I don't believe USSR was an evil, or would have to blew US with Nuke war heads. It seems perhaps during the cold war time, US was also under "paranoia, hatred and us against them" as we see among the terrorist sympathizer these days.
-Suhredayan
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Diego Moita wrote:
Unfortunatelly the truth is that many people simply don't want that simply because they can't understand it. The devil they know sounds better that the good they don't know.
Pure bullshit. You simply are not perceptive enough to understand that you are making a fundamentally racist argument. If what you are saying has any merit, and if we do wish to embrace classical liberalism (unrelated to neo-liberalism, btw) than it is entirely appropriate that we either isolate ourselves from the 'others', disallowing emigration and integration, or we actively seek to force them to accept our views, violently if necessary. Which is it?
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
You still have problems with precise meaning of concepts, uh?
Stan Shannon wrote:
You simply are not perceptive enough to understand that you are making a fundamentally racist argument.
No, I'm not. I am just saying that some people don't want democratic governments because they don't understand it and, therefore, fear it. If they understood it they'd probably accept it. There's nothing racist about it.
Stan Shannon wrote:
classical liberalism (unrelated to neo-liberalism, btw)
Really? What parts of classical liberalism does neo-liberalism rejects? Democracy? Property? Laws written by elected officials? Separation of powers? Government subject to the rule of the law? Intellectual liberty?
Stan Shannon wrote:
it is entirely appropriate that we either isolate ourselves from the 'others', disallowing emigration and integration, or we actively seek to force them to accept our views
Well, it is your assumption that all (or most of) the immigrants don't accept the rules of a democratic state, not mine. Indeed, anyone that chooses to live in a democratic state must adhere and accept its rules, "violently if necessary", immigrant or not. And I believe that democracy is what the majority of people that migrate to these countries wants.
Of all forms of sexual aberration, the most unnatural is abstinence.
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Oakman wrote:
Wish India and Pakistan the best of luck, and assure them they are free to do what they want, when they want, how they want, to whom they want, without, at least, American interference or interest.
I am not an expert to comment on everything happening around the world. But in this part of the world, it was this same American interference or interest that made things so bad. It was US who supported Taliban, Pakistan-ISI and Pakistan's non-democratic Military through out the history. It was US who always prevented India from taking on this bad elements and allowed them to grow to a point where they may take down everyone with them. However I don't deny US wants to see a better world, but I always feel there is something missing in the policy.
-Suhredayan
suhredayan wrote:
It was US who always prevented India from taking on this bad elements and allowed them to grow to a point where they may take down everyone with them.
Actually, during the late 70's and most of the 80's India was pretty closely tied to the USSR's foreign policy and, for instance in the case of nuclear weapons, mostly told the US to take a long walk off a short wharf.
suhredayan wrote:
However I don't deny US wants to see a better world
Problem is the US keeps spending an inordinate amount of men and resources trying to help the rest of the world - much of it by request. As I pointed out, if we just stop wasting our time and trouble overseas and let the rest of the world sink or swim without us, we'd be better off, and the rest of the world couldn't resent us any more than they do already.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
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Stan Shannon wrote:
The real question is do you confront evil and actively try to destroy it or do you not? If you do decide to fight it, than you have no choice but to fight it on its own terms. Evil will never fight good on good's terms.
I don't believe USSR was an evil, or would have to blew US with Nuke war heads. It seems perhaps during the cold war time, US was also under "paranoia, hatred and us against them" as we see among the terrorist sympathizer these days.
-Suhredayan
suhredayan wrote:
I don't believe USSR was an evil, or would have to blew US with Nuke war heads
It really doesn't matter what you believe. You have already admitted to, and displayed, ignorance of your own country's and the world's history further back than about ten years. Anybody who knows anything about history will guarantee you that on October 27th, 1962, the world was within a handsbreadth of Armageddon.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
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I never said, US did not provide any aid or India is a financially rich country. I only said India as a country never approached US for any financial aid as far as I know.
-Suhredayan
Yes, but the operative words are:
suhredayan wrote:
as far as I know
There are a great number of things that are happening in this universe that do not depend on either you or I knowing diddleysquat about them.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
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Bravo!
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You still have problems with precise meaning of concepts, uh?
Stan Shannon wrote:
You simply are not perceptive enough to understand that you are making a fundamentally racist argument.
No, I'm not. I am just saying that some people don't want democratic governments because they don't understand it and, therefore, fear it. If they understood it they'd probably accept it. There's nothing racist about it.
Stan Shannon wrote:
classical liberalism (unrelated to neo-liberalism, btw)
Really? What parts of classical liberalism does neo-liberalism rejects? Democracy? Property? Laws written by elected officials? Separation of powers? Government subject to the rule of the law? Intellectual liberty?
Stan Shannon wrote:
it is entirely appropriate that we either isolate ourselves from the 'others', disallowing emigration and integration, or we actively seek to force them to accept our views
Well, it is your assumption that all (or most of) the immigrants don't accept the rules of a democratic state, not mine. Indeed, anyone that chooses to live in a democratic state must adhere and accept its rules, "violently if necessary", immigrant or not. And I believe that democracy is what the majority of people that migrate to these countries wants.
Of all forms of sexual aberration, the most unnatural is abstinence.
Diego Moita wrote:
There's nothing racist about it.
Stan learned to play the race card from Governor Blago who claimed that if the Senate rejected his choice for Obama's Senate seat, it would show they were racist.
Diego Moita wrote:
Well, it is your assumption that all (or most of) the immigrants don't accept the rules of a democratic state, not mine.
My assumption would be that sometimes they do and sometimes they don't. You seem to be assuming that all migration is toward another country. Sometimes -- often -- it is away from an area with man-made or natural disasters driving the move. Wave after wave after wave of immigration came out of the steppes of middle Asia and forced the inhabitants of Europe to move further and further west - even though they had to attack the Roman Empire in the process. In every case, afaik, the impetus for the migration came from attacks from warriors who lived even further to the east.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
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Oakman wrote:
Never said that, nor meant it. But the rule of law seems to have received short shrift outside of the area I described - do you disagree?
I’m not entirely agreed with the generalization. The Orthodox Church created similar moral foundations, but in the countries outside Catholic Church area of influence. Of course it’s the same religion just different churches but still – the generalizations are dangerous and usually wrong.
Oakman wrote:
Better, perhaps, than the pogroms?
I'm lost here.
The narrow specialist in the broad sense of the word is a complete idiot in the narrow sense of the word. Advertise here – minimum three posts per day are guaranteed.
Deyan Georgiev wrote:
The Orthodox Church created similar moral foundations, but in the countries outside Catholic Church area of influence.
But the Orthodox Churches, by being tied to nations, did not provide the concept of laws that transcended national borders.
Deyan Georgiev wrote:
I'm lost here
Google is your friend
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
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suhredayan wrote:
I don't believe USSR was an evil, or would have to blew US with Nuke war heads
It really doesn't matter what you believe. You have already admitted to, and displayed, ignorance of your own country's and the world's history further back than about ten years. Anybody who knows anything about history will guarantee you that on October 27th, 1962, the world was within a handsbreadth of Armageddon.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
Oakman wrote:
You have already admitted to, and displayed, ignorance of your own country's and the world's history further back than about ten years.
Are you referring to financial aid? If then you didn't get the point, unsolicited aid are more an attempt to buyout countries or get more control on their foreign policies, than anything genuine. Even today US tries such unsolicited assistance, an attempt to make India sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty(NPT)[^], slightly OT, but still convey the message that a policy of trying to impose stuffs on others may not work.
Oakman wrote:
Anybody who knows anything about history will guarantee you that on October 27th, 1962, the world was within a handsbreadth of Armageddon.
Even this was the result of the similar policy, "I am bigger than you", not because USSR or USA was evil.
-Suhredayan
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Stan Shannon wrote:
The real question is do you confront evil and actively try to destroy it or do you not? If you do decide to fight it, than you have no choice but to fight it on its own terms. Evil will never fight good on good's terms.
I don't believe USSR was an evil, or would have to blew US with Nuke war heads. It seems perhaps during the cold war time, US was also under "paranoia, hatred and us against them" as we see among the terrorist sympathizer these days.
-Suhredayan
suhredayan wrote:
I don't believe USSR was an evil, or would have to blew US with Nuke war heads.
You must have been educated out of the same out of date Soviet supplied books that one of your countrymen used to use to tell us about how Stalin was a hero, master economic planner, and all around nice guy.
"Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it." -- P.J. O'Rourke