The Hunt for Red October?

[MikeWaters]

Originally Posted by Archaea

This is a point with which I disagree. People take "moral stands', countries do not. Nor should they.

Countries should always act based on self-interest. You appear to be judging nation-states on personal standards not on historical nation-state standards, a fundamental weakness of American politics. No great nation-state has ever taken the stance you propose. And none ever will.

Of course I disagree with your characterization as well.

so you agree with me. America will never take a moral stand. Exactly as I said.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

so you agree with me. America will never take a moral stand. Exactly as I said.

No country ever takes a moral stand, as the word moral inherently speaks to individual action of a person, not the collective action of a organized unit, which will always act differently.

The provocative manner in which you pose your query/statement implies the following, "you wish that America would stand for something [melodramatic music please]", meaning you wish that America would act against her self-interests to advance the self-interests of other nations so that the citizens of European nations could have a warm fuzzy about America.

Now global politics may dictate that sometimes America must go along to get along, in terms of Realpolitik or pragmatics, but that's in line with its self-interests.

And if America never will take a personal that is moral stand, that is because it's not a person, but collective unit of persons organized and disorganized with no single individual having a universal interest or position. You are projecting your personal feelings onto a object or process which is not suited for your projection.

Your proposition of "taking a stand" is a non sequitur.

[MikeWaters]

Let me help you out here:

America will not stand for democracy and freedom in other lands (and increasingly in its own land) if this impinges on $.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

Let me help you out here:

America will not stand for democracy and freedom in other lands (and increasingly in its own land) if this impinges on $.

Who said it should advocate a form of government in foreign lands not of our own people?

The original doctrine was that those with democracies would become our allies. And by making them our allies we would not be at war and we could all live in peace. But even our allies will compete feverishly enough that we might see a slip away from "friendship" and then some in our society will court "intervention", and so goes on. That is a course of history, nation-states seeking power over one another for the sake of economic superiority. And so shall it ever be. To your original point, perhaps our economic and hence personal security is best-served by not intervening into the affairs of others. We can see many arguments pro and con. Usually we seem to get it wrong when we intervene, but working with a non-democracy has its pitfalls as well.

Your statement is again intentionally provocative loaded with unprovable assumptions but not necessarily representative of the history of nations.

Is America more benign than most super-powers? I submit yes, because we do some charity. Reviewing the course of history, no other nation state ever did much else than exploit its dominion. There is some semblance of trying under our dominion, even if it is half-hearted.

[MikeWaters]

The interesting thing is the game of pretend. We pretend to be moral, we pretend to stand for freedom. That's what I find interesting.

[RockyBalboa]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

The interesting thing is the game of pretend. We pretend to be moral, we pretend to stand for freedom. That's what I find interesting.

In other words, you're wholly American.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

The interesting thing is the game of pretend. We pretend to be moral, we pretend to stand for freedom. That's what I find interesting.

That's two-fold, it's public relations for the conquered, and self-congratulatory for ourselves, to convince ourselves we're good, not exploiters.

What else would you expect from the body politic? I expect nothing more, nothing less.

[tooblue]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

I'm stunned at your logic. Stunned.

The faith that people have George Bush is just unfathomable to me. THe utter incompetence and people not only give him a pass, but actually BELIEVE in him.

Now I have no idea what Clinton did with corporate interests. But I am not so naive as to believe that Bush cleaned up ANYTHING when he came into office. The same backs are being scratched.

I'm stunned that you some how equate my response as an endorsement of Bush ... please, don't try to twist my words to fit into your agenda -doing so makes you look like a fool!

LOL

[All-American]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

Let me help you out here:

America will not stand for democracy and freedom in other lands (and increasingly in its own land) if this impinges on $.

To be a little more precise: America will not stand for democracy and freedom in other lands if it impinges on its own interests, among which is $.