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Just out of curiosity, do you think the British people are generally more content (and perhaps happier) once the Empire thing and needing to the "the best" was shed? On occasion I have European clients and I love to pick their brains with such questions.
No, Trish, I do not think that we are happier. I think we are more cynical.
We were lead to believe that we were a great nation, after all we had an empire!! But if you read diaries of ordinary working people, you can see that their lives were not enhanced by the riches of the empire. Their lives were just as hard and the people were just as exploited by those in power as people in third world countries are now. The first Wolrd War was the last straw. I have some hand written diaries of a soldier in that war and of course there are the War Poets. Men were exploited by the Government and used as mere cannon fodder. They came home resenting that. And I have said in another post, you can't recover that lost innocence.
We don't think we are 'worse' than other nations. We think we are better, to live in, than some, and worse, than others. We seem to have lost our respect and trust for authority and so we are a nation of cynics.
But one thing that we have gained, is the ability to laugh at ourselves.
We find the Government and petty officialdom hilarious.
Only those become weary of angling who bring nothing to it but the idea of catching fish.
He was born with the gift of laughter and a sense that the world is mad....
After all, very few of us were actually involved in these altercations. The germans of the time are not the germans of now, and we cannot look down our noses at them for the mistakes of their for-bearers.
Certainly we would have remained a colony for years to come had it not been for the intervention of france, but that is not to say they did it out of the goodness of their heart either. There was much to be gained in distracting England for France.
All the same, these are not the same europeans that oppressed, or helped to liberate us. We owe them no thanks, or harsh words for these deeds long past.
Lets just say we are even at this point.
What we can talk about are the events that transpire right under our very noses. If france looks at what we are doing in Iraq and calls it non-sense, war mongering, or an invasion, well, that is their right (and probably obligation) to point out. After all, they were largely right that it was a bad idea to invade Iraq.
What was our reaction to a criticism? Freedom Fries. I bet that really hurt the french.... or maybe it made us look like a bunch of childish jackasses. Certainly we shouldn't think about what they were saying to us.
The lead up to a war is precisely the place where we most need clear headed thought, and an examination of all the data at hand. Instead we did what we do best, and that is to panic, panic, panic.
In any event, we would be best served to right our own lilting boat before we go around "fixing" other people's problems. If they want our help, let them ask for it. We should not try to force it upon them.
johnson1010 wrote:
What was our reaction to a criticism? Freedom Fries. I bet that really hurt the french.... or maybe it made us look like a bunch of childish jackasses. Certainly we shouldn't think about what they were saying to us.
My opinion, that Freedom Fries bit made us look like a bunch of childish jackasses. Or at least the twits who came up with it.
On March 11, 2003, Representatives Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio) and Walter B. Jones, Jr. (R-North Carolina) declared that all references to French fries and French toast on the menus of the restaurants and snack bars run by the House of Representatives would be removed. House cafeterias were ordered to rename French fries to "freedom fries". This action was carried out without a congressional vote, under the authority of Ney's position as Chairman of the Committee on House Administration, which oversees restaurant operations for the chamber. The simultaneous renaming of French toast to "freedom toast" attracted less attention.
It would be hypocritical of the United States to invade another country for the killing of civilians because the United States has a history of genocide of the first occupants, the Indians. The United States also has a second history of genocide of African American through making them move from town to town under threats of violence and lynching. The United States also treated the Japanese civilians badly by interning them in camps for being Asian. We the people don't exactly have a delightful track record of being fair and just to our own civilians.
Also war should be held as a grim-faced duty as shown in pictures of Roosevelt and others, not the grotesque smiling face of our former Great Leader gladhandling and telling reporters what fun he is having.
If there is some problem with the government killing civilians, don't you think it should be up to the neighbors to decide to stand by and let other neighbors be dragged and taken away in the middle of the night or protest, or fight even if cost his or her life?
It seems, as Dennis Miller said, that the United States are like the cops going on a domestic violence situation call, and ended up getting attacked and possibly killed for it. Even if they don't want to get involved in the private conflict, one way or another.
The genocide in Balkland between Croats, and Serb is not really a genocide but revenge killings on both sides. There are blood on either side's hands.
Chris OConnor wrote:
France wasn't asking the US to stay home in 1944 when we stormed the beaches of Normandy and liberated your country from German forces. I'm not sure how your above statement would translate into German, but you ought to show some appreciation for the fact that literally tens of thousands of US, British and Canadian forces died to free France and other nations from Hitler.
And while you're at it, Ophelia (I apologize, since I'm addressing you and I don't know you at all,) you should give a great big thanks also to the our ally, the USSR, which faced down the bulk of the German forces. And while you're doing that those of us here in America can be returning your thanks to us by thanking France for helping us when we were fighting for independence from Britain. Yea cheers all around.
I'm sure you'll reply that you do appreciate this single act, but our WWII good deeds don't mitigate our bad deeds for the past 8 years. But maybe you ought to add in a word of thanks here and there when you bash the United States. Some of us happen to be rather fond of the US and our freedoms and our role in the world. No, not everything we do is going to please everyone, but your posts are almost exclusively negative towards the US and it exhausts me.
Seriously though, I agree that our actions in WW2 do not pardon those we undertook during W's time. The problem I have with saying it though is that it's almost as if we're agreeing to condone or ignore the USA's adventurism from the end of WW2 (since this seems to be the starting point of consideration here) up to the beginning of W's term. It's like saying that we never did plot to depose Mosaddeq and install the Shah; or decide to topple another democracy, this time in Guatemala - and over BANANAS; or that we never did aid bin Laden or Saddam Hussein or deal with the Iranian terrorists (in power as a reaction to our previous bout of meddling in their country)in order to aid a different set of terrorists in Nicaragua. And never did we plot to depose Allende in order to bring Pinochet into power. And so on... I mean, if you're so put off by the non-thanks you've heard from France are you equally as motivated to offer apologies to the countries we've invaded, bombed, and otherwise traumatized for no good reason?
The reason. I'm asking this because I think it's long past time for foriegn invasions and intrigue to be divorced from the idea of patriotism. It's not the USA that bothers me so much as it is those who run the USA. It is these people who chap my hide. W, Clinton, JFK, Obama and so on - they aren't the USA. A cruise missle hitting some slob's house in Afghanistan isn't the USA. It's those who decide, 'Yeah let's drop a bomb here' that bother me. These people, and these things, aren't the USA but manifestations of the excess of the USA. The problem I have with the USA itself, whose public does not vote on whom to wage war against, as it relates to this issue, is that it will be OK with nearly anything so long as it is effective - we are a practical people. It's not that we were lied to and fed misleading information that upsets us with Iraq but simply that the invasion turned out to be far more costly both in terms of money spent and (american) lives lost than it was advertised as likely being. The same with the Gulf of Tonkin... and so on. but hey we'll always have the Maine. It's long past time for those actively supporting and bringing about foriegn invasions to be unwrapped from the flag - they're not patriotic, they're nationalistic. It's not the USA but 'their country' and their fantasy they're in love with. In short, I'm questioning their patriotism.
Should the USA invade countries? For no other reason than that it has shown, at the best of times, but a small amount of enlightened self-interest, NO.
Lastly, Chris, I'm glad you founded this board. I'm intending to be more active.
Jesus noted that we should treat others the way that we would want to be treated. Let me ask you.
If your child (present or future) was being mercilessly bullied on the playground. Would you want another child to defend them?
If you were being mercilessly tortured to death for simply being of a different race, would you want someone to rescue you? What about if it were your children? Would you want someone to rescue them?
Well, this is occurring every single day. In my lifetime, about 10M citizens have been murdered, not as a result of war, but by political rulers who saw murdering anyone whom they considered as a potential political threat as the only way to retain power.
Human rights, IMO, trump petty ideas of sovereignty or nationalism every time. Governments are only set up to serve peoples needs, in theory anyway. And most of the 200 or so “nations” sovereign in the world today are pretty much arbitrary, the result of historical accident or geopolitical scheming. Once set up, vested interests in these states soon evolve, and then things are hard to change. It is laughable to make the claim that sovereignty is inviolable, even in the face of major insults to human life and dignity.
Iraq, for example, never was a modern state. It was assembled by a bunch of geriatric European diplomats during the 1919 peace conference following WW1, leaning over a map with cigar and port wine in hand, and scribbling with pencils. Same situation prevailed with Lebanon. When the French received their share of the Ottoman Empire at the same conference, they detached Lebanon and made it a “state” because of it’s relatively large Christian population, which they thought would give it more leverage, themselves having the same belief system. (It didn’t work).
And at any rate, the nation state is an idea that is waning. Economically, it has pretty much already gone by the wayside. The US and China, for example, are today doing a symbiotic dance, each dependant on the other. China needs markets for it’s products, and also western technology, and the US needs Chinese manufactures and money on loan in the shape of T-Bill purchases. Factories are constantly on the move, looking for the country with the lowest wages and best tax advantage. It is very hard for any country to claim a nineteenth century style of isolated independence today.
The problem is, if someone is going to be the policeman, then whom? Every country that has had it’s turn up at bat has acted in it’s own self interest, almost all of the time. The US, Britain, France, undoubtedly Germany and Japan, and others before them have done things that had perceived benefit for themselves, but have been traumatic for others.
The US has been self-focused from the start. Contrary to popular history, Britain’s King George relented to US demands during the revolution, and offered representation in parliament, amongst other things, but the offers were declined. There was money to be made in the new world, which was seen at the time as a kind of virgin territory full of resources, and the entrepreneurs of the 13 colonies wanted to have it, free of any kind of tax or encumbrance. Since then, self-interest, and often money-making, has reigned, from Nicaragua to Cuba to Iraq. All is of course, not black and white. President Wilson had some very principled ideas for the world after WW1. On the other hand, the massive loans floated to the allied nations probably had an influence in the US’s intervention in that conflict. The Marshall Plan after WW2 was the moral thing to do, even if it did have a tinge of self-interest. Ditto for things like the Peace Corps.
So who to give the gun and badge to? I think we are making slow progress to some kind of global order, though I don’t think we will see it in our lifetimes. The UN, World Court, and EU are steps in the right direction. In the meantime, yes, in places like the Sudan or Haiti, flip on the siren, and pull out the badge. All of us.
I generally agree with your post. However, with human rights being the specified catalyst for assembling a Coalition of the willing, we should define these rights.
I do not believe that any perceived right to health, education, and housing should be included. Neither do I believe that a leader who is corrupt, mismanages the national economy, and breaks every campaign promise, should receive the attention of the Coalition. Such assemblies should be reserved for those leaders who mass murder their populations.
In the absence of God, I found Man.
-Guillermo Del Torro
Are you pushing your own short comings on us and safely hating them from a distance?
Is this the virtue of faith? To never change your mind: especially when you should?
Young Earth Creationists take offense at the idea that we have a common heritage with other animals. Why is being the descendant of a mud golem any better?
Jesus noted that we should treat others the way that we would want to be treated.
I'm not a follower of Jesus. I'm not saying that to be argumentative; but as a comment that Jesus doesn't have anything to do with the USA's habit of invading/internally meddling with sovereign nations. God is not on our side. We're in this alone.
Let me ask you.
If your child (present or future) was being mercilessly bullied on the playground. Would you want another child to defend them?
If the only two choices we're considering are 1) continue to be mercilessly bullied or 2) receive help from another child I prefer the latter.
The problem I have (the main one anyway) with your analogy, which is what I'm assuming it is, is that I don't see US involvment in foreign countries as being something that can be appropriately characterized as being undertaken for, or even results in, the benefit of other countries. Without going through a checklist I'll say that the US, as often as not, is the one that is the schoolyard bully.
If you were being mercilessly tortured to death for simply being of a different race, would you want someone to rescue you?What about if it were your children? Would you want someone to rescue them?
I am curious if you've ever found someone to say, 'Nuh uh' to either of these questions.
Well, this is occurring every single day. In my lifetime, about 10M citizens have been murdered, not as a result of war, but by political rulers who saw murdering anyone whom they considered as a potential political threat as the only way to retain power.
And what is your solution to avoiding this in the future? Where have these 10M lived? Who else should we have invaded? Who should we have not invaded?
