Thanks. Very interesting. I'll look further into it.[/qoute]
I queried Stuart about his news service; I'll let you know if I get a reply. (I suspect it might be some sort of private thing he runs but if there's a way for anyone to join it/access it
I want in on it, nevermind you!)
How about the excluded middle? Is that a philosophical concept too, because it's a different name for the same fallacy. The fallacy lies in the assertion that the only two choices lie at extremes (either you serve yourself and to hell with others or you serve others and to hell with yourself), when there are more reasonable choices somewhere in between.
You're stating that there is a middle. Well, of course there is a middle. But why must there be a middle which can be occupied? Is the middle not instead a dividing line, between progressively cleaner shades of White, and progressively ditier shades of black?
I'm not a Marxist. Are you a Rand follower?
No. I sympathize with some of her ideas though. I think she took them over the top however, and I dislike her for taking a good concept to unnecessary extremes. Certainly there's useful stuff in Rand's works; just don't swallow them whole.
Because this dog-eat-dog world, claw your way to the top stuff sounds straight out of ethical egoism. Anyway, I probably wasn't articulate enough to get my point across. I meant that we serve ourselves, but also others for the benefit of everyone (including ourselves). More John Nash or David Hume's categorical imperative than Carl Marx.
Ahh. My mistake and apologies then. It seems we have different philosophical approaches to the world, which, especially in the area of ethics, may make it hard for us to find common ground. Essentially, we could end up debating philosophy.
Maybe that's why France is the butt of so many spiteful jokes.
Well, they actually won that war in North Africa.
Of course no country has clean hands, but Germany and Britains' infractions don't begin to compare in frequency, magnitude, or attempt at secrecy to the things the U.S. has done.
Britain's infractions were far greater when they had the
ability to be far greater. The Germans ordered their troops to "Shoot every village headman within a hundred miles of Peking" during the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion by an international force in 1901. Nevermind their own colonial brutality.
Now the USA is on top. And yes we do "bad" things. But they're not nearly that bad. We didn't shoot every village headman in Afghanistan, did we? Really, comparing the Boxer Rebellion and 9/11 is good, but the Boxer Rebellion falls short in western casualties. Excited more sympathy, it almost seems.
Israel's not a first world country.
Then what is the criteria for being one, exactly? It has the economy, it has the living and education standards, it has the industry, it has the technology - All of them are at levels fully comparable to Europe. They also have a functional Parliamentary Democracy if you want to throw in the D word as a requirement. Heck, they beat the USA in some fields.
Partial suffrage? So what! Switzerland didn't give women the vote until the 70s(!) on the Federal level, and in some local areas not until the 90s, and we weren't calling the Swiss Confederacy a third world country for that, no matter how stupid or conservative it was. The State of Israel is a modern, first world country in every aspect.
The populace may be more idealistic, but the U.S. as a nation is certainly not more responsible than any European country I can think of.
League of Nations, Woodrow Wilson's idea. U.N., we created it. Versailles - Woodrow Wilson saved the Germans from worse terms. Marshall Plan, USA. Reconstruction of Japan, USA. Massive foreign aide pours out of our coffers to dwarf the contributions of the rest of the world to the UN; their efforts would collapse without us.
There is an exception that proves the rule in either case: The Congress System of Metternich, which was brutal in one since for being a decisive balance-of-power system, but was kind in another since for preserving France's borders after Napoleon, an unusual mercy in Europe (Though dictated, as Metternich properly understood, by the Balance of Power).
On the other hand, the proposed Morganthau Plan, never implemented, for the devastation of surrendered Germany into a pastoral status.
But in both cases things generally work in the reverse; from the time of the first colonists in the Americas in what would be the USA, we see such glories as the Thirty Years War and the depopulation of Germany, followed right on its heels by the devastation of the Palatinate by Louis XIV, and moving into the modern era, the atrocious list of genocides perpetuated against the Muslims of the Balkans and the Caucasus by the local Christians and the Russian government.
The colonial era was also prosperous on blood; the systematic operation of the Belgian Congo exterminated millions in brutal and harsh vertitable-slavery, which makes our little manoeuvres with the Moros in the PIs a gentle chastisement in comparison.
While it may be true that in pure dollar amount the U.S. seems very generous, in comparison to GDP, we're actually the second stingiest of all first world countries (France being the first, of course).
The figure? I shall go ahead and provide some of my own shortly.
The reason these attacks are happening is not remotely connected to our power or our behaviour. Envy is natural of a Great Power, and to be expected. There are other reasons, and they are the fault of the people themselves over there, just like the envy.
Something tells me envy just isn't a strong enough emotion to hurl planes into buildings. We have two theories here:
1. The enemies of the U.S. keep getting more numerous and pissed off because of U.S.'s funding, supplying, and shielding from harm of Israel while it runs roughshod over the Arabs, and the crushing of freedom and democracy worldwide in favor of dictator puppets (who do you think put Saddam in the position of power he currently enjoys?) if it supports economic interests.
2. The enemies of the U.S. keep getting more numerous and pissed off because they're just green with envy about how superior we are, and rather than try to emulate us, they've decided to ram planes into buildings and blow up embassies.
Actually, no.
Here's the specific essay:
http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson080202.asp
And the most critical quote:
What can we do to rectify this illogical dislike of the United States? If the history of the Athenian, Roman, and British empires — all of them far more aggressive, imperialistic, and uncompromising than us — offer guidance, not that much. If we can believe Thucydides, Tacitus, and Churchill, earlier powers accepted human nature for what it was — mercurial, emotional, contradictory, self-centered, and deeply paradoxical — then shrugged, and went on with their business.
Stalin and Mao ran the bloodiest dicatorships in the history of the world! How the hell can you hold them up as examples of success? Holy crap, thanks for proving my point about the kind of people that follow your dog-eat-dog ideals.
I wasn't holding them up as examples of success. Please don't assume that I was. What I was actually doing was saying: Hey. This is the way the world works. Nasty people work their way to the top through internal manoeuvring, kill their rivals, consolidate power, crush internal dissent, and wage wars of conquest. Then they die peacefully in bed. Most of the time this is what happens in the world and there's nothing we can do about that. Sometimes we can change it and it is good when we can, but for every guy we get two or more are going to die peacefully in bed.
That's what I was saying. I was holding that up as an example of the fact that the world is imperfect, and it is
especially imperfect in the political arena and on the geopolitical level.
Fortunately, that system only exists for the U.S., France, and many third world countries. Previous holders include such shining examples of righteousness as Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia, and Mao's China. Thanks for the examples, Marina.
