On the Raising of the Giant Foam Rubber "We're #1" Finger

From: Andrew Solovay <asolovay_at_Bu5d22Wuvfp1jORZcmEq1EXnOrZ13Hy5jex2KoyEYnwCMLWpgJjjNvZ64HLrIY9p75n>
Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2003 14:50:30 -0800


Julian Lord <jlord_at_b6UaJmU29fVOlkX5g4lW7ZBq0I1by_THUFFYSrdhixCkaG2xISnraW-uT_EY7yY0KGgW0R62_A.yahoo.invalid> wrote:
> Chris :
>
>>> America actually IS attempting, via the IMF,
>>> World Bank and other such powerful groups,
>>> including many lobby groups, to _impose_
>>> its most important cultural values on peoples
>>> who don't necessarily want anything to do with
>>> them.
>>
>> I'd say "bribe" rather than "impose".
>
> The penalties for disobedience are pretty harsh,
> aren't they ? even to the extent of open war ?!

Only if the "cultural value" we're talking about is "our culture values not having our citizens killed by terrorist attacks". Other than that, we're pretty mellow about cultural differences.

>>> For example, many right wing idealists justify
>>> the Iraq war by saying that it is all about
>>> democracy,
>>
>> That'd be me.
>
> OK, forget about the "right wing idealists" ;
> I meant to talk about knee-jerk Cheney-sucking
> wank-for-brains neo-con propaganda enthusiasts.

That's be *me*.

> Drop the "-ish" please. Political power is, in ALL
> cases derived from the consent, explicit or tacit,
> of "the people". When the majority reaches
> a state of opinion where the governance is totally
> rejected, the latter will almost inevitably
> be overthrown, as has recently happened in Georgia.

Well, that nicely defends our attack on Iraq, then.

I mean, there are either two possibilities:

  1. The Iraqi people are responsible for their government
  2. The Iraqi people aren't responsible for their government

If #1, then they can't complain about getting attacked--their government was beligerent, we took it out.

If #2, then we did them a favor, removing the government they couldn't control or overthrow.

In actuality, the truth is somewhere between the two--but that's good enough. Insofar as they're responsible for their government, to that extent they can't complain about any hardship brought on them by their government's actions. Insofar as they're powerless over their government (and I think you underestimate the self-perceived powelesness of people living under a truly brutal totalitarian state), to that extent our invasion was in their interest.

> Many Western nations use the expedient of glorified
> opinion polls and multiple-choice questionnaires,
> trivially mutated into comparisons of televised
> personality sketches, to discover whether "the people"
> continue to give their consent to the elected leaders,
> or not.
>
> The drawbacks of such a system are painfully obvious.
> [...] Democracy isn't necessarily the best system
> for one and all.

Beats the alternatives.

--AMS P.S. Poop poop poop!            

Powered by hypermail