Bubbalo wrote:
Turquoise wrote:
Well, doesn't playing the good guy involve stabilizing Iraq? Being the good guy would be staying in Iraq until it is stable. I think that's a horrible idea myself, but I've never been particularly concerned with playing the good guy.
Being the good guy would be helping people because they need it, regardless of whether you wanted to for other reasons. The fact that the US went into Iraq at the time it did, with the leadup it had, shows that they were going in for their own reasons, and this has only been a bad thing for everyone but tht terrorists. Further, the good guy doesn't torture being with the justification that the bad guy does worse.
The "good guy" also doesn't win, because he doesn't have the balls to resort to the same brutality as his enemy, which is required to win a battle like this. There can be no virtuous end to the Iraq occupation, because our enemies are so ruthless, and taking the compassionate route just simply doesn't work in an environment like Iraq. It requires someone like Saddam to maintain order, which is why we never should have removed him in the first place.
Essentially, we must become the next Saddam in order to win this, which is, of course, nowhere even remotely close to being the good guy, but it does work.
Bubbalo wrote:
Turquoise wrote:
Still, if we play the good guy in Iraq, then we don't have enough resources to play the good guy in Darfur at the same time.
But you
aren't playing the good guy in Iraq. You're trying to look like you are, and failing miserably.
Agreed... so, since we aren't the good guys, why do we even need to enter Darfur?
Bubbalo wrote:
Turquoise wrote:
I'm not making a statement about their people either -- I'm making it about their governments, like you were about mine.
Actually, I
was making a statement for the people of Western nations, one which categorized them all as more concerned with their checkbooks than anything else.
I also note that it's one of the occasions on which I've clearly stated that I don't think Americans are inherently any more good or evil than Franks, Britons, Germans, Aussies, Italians etc., and usmarine conveniently ignored it and responded to a different post.
Do you think people outside of the Western World are any better? Do you think they'd be anymore concerned about us than we are about them, if they were the rich ones and we were the poor ones? Hell fucking no.... Might doesn't make right, but to an extent, it works....
Bubbalo wrote:
Turquoise wrote:
I don't see much "achievement" on the part of religious governments.
As I just said, that depends on what it is you want to achieve. If you want to create a dry country, theocracies work great. If you want to make laws which go into the home as well as the public, theocracies are also great. The problem you have is you view achievement as having inherently positive (and, not only that, positive by your morals) definitions. It can just as easily be a negative achievement (e.g. Hitler failed to achieve his goal of killing or exiling all the Jews in the Third Reich).
True, but aside from becoming completely relativist, one has to decide at some point what should guide the consciousness of society. I'd rather science and capitalism guide my society rather than religion.
Bubbalo wrote:
Turquoise wrote:
Anyway, Sharia Law is useless in general, because everytime it's applied, it's twisted for abusive interests, just like Communism. What may look good on paper doesn't mean shit if the application sucks.
That's like saying that computers are useless because most of the people who use them are just twits who argue on internet forums about things like Sharia law and Communism. It's not the computer, it's the user. It isn't the fault of Sharia law that it has it's cultural centre in a region of the world which has yet to turn into a series of stable Democracies. The same doesn't apply to Communism, where the fault is in the theory (it has to go through a period of centralised government, and who the hell is going to surrender total power?).
Move to a country with Sharia Law in place. See how you like it there, and then compare it to a society without it, like say... your native country of Australia. I think you'll find Australia to be a much more pleasant country to live in rather than the theocracies you seem intent on defending.
Bubbalo wrote:
Turquoise wrote:
[Again... we should kick Russia and China off of the Council if we want the U.N. to be even remotely useful. They may be economically and militarily significant, but their governments are rotten to the core.
Whereas the US is purely concerned with helping others
.
You kick Russia and China of the SC, they'll leave the UN. Without them, half the world will leave, and pretty soon it'll just be an expanded version of NATO.
You say that like it's a bad thing. The only opinions that really matter in this world are of America, Europe, Japan, Australia, and the rest of the First World. We have the goods and power, so we should rightfully be calling the shots. Besides, as bad as the American government can be, we're still not as bad as the Chinese or Russian governments.