Who hasn’t?
So if some new group decides they want to carve a new country out of parts of California, all of Nevada and New Mexico, and parts of Utah as well as Northern Mexico, said new country will be fully indepent and in fact hostile to the US and Mexico, the rest of the US and Mexico should just allow this? And if the ‘insurgents’ are so intent on seceeding they start throwing bombs, attacking tourists at the Grand Canyon and Hoover Dam, and killing Military men and women in terrorist actions, that just makes their cause more just? And simply because the bureaucrats ‘complaining’ are in Washington DC and Mexico City means their claims are invalid?
I fail to see why it is not Turkey’s right to govern their own country, regardless of where they’re governing from.
The reason BushCo is having such a tough time is not because they are acting in the self-interest of the United States, but because their view of that self-interest is different from the voting population’s. The population decides what self-interest looks like, as I’ve already said, or else the leaders don’t last long. But to say that states approach the wider world with anything but a hard core of self-interest governing their actions is just silly.
I for one don’t think it’s necessarily evil to be self-interested; it does not clash with also being humanitarian. I like to help those less fortunate because it makes me feel good. I wouldn’t do it if it made me feel bad, nor if it was a choice between me eating or them eating - me and my family would come first. That’s not evil, that’s just honest.
Of course, and I agree, and also I agree that Iraq is an excellent example of a geologic world view of the NeoCons butting it’s head against cold hard reality and the intelligent can now look back and see that this particular world view is not only dated and foolish but dangerously naive.
Here’s where our agreement parts ways. Take it from an American living in Europe - it’s not all roses to live in a social democratic model. The haves are penalized to help the have nots, and the have nots have little encouragement to find their way up because it’s just as easy to keep their hands out, and those who really really have (i.e. the super-rich) pay no tax at all to support the system through a variety of ways - the most common being ‘not resident in the UK for tax reasons’ which is pretty cool if you can swing it (one guy I know lives in the Bahamas for 6 months of the year to avoid tax in the UK; he’s worth something like 250m GBP). The EU itself, while based on a social democratic model, doesn’t really work all that well as a union and the EU constitution is a pretty scary idea for a lot of reasons, and the strong economies of the big 3 (UK, France, and Germany) are being watered down by much poorer countries (Romania, Hungary, Poland) joining the EU and flooding the job market.
The countries that do exceptionally well in Europe just now, both financially and in quality of life, are the European countries that haven’t joined the EU - Switzerland and Norway spring to mind. Both are socially democratic in nature, but both also have strictly limited immigration policies and strong economies resulting from outside sources of income (Norway has gas and oil; Switzerland has banking and finance) - neither could sustain a socially democratic model on it’s own industry and economy alone because neither has a big enough tax-paying population.
But that’s a whole 'nother discussion I would happily have with you if you’d like to start it.
To support what Gomi is saying, I think you’re confusing the notion of acting in the self interest of the government actors themselves with acting in the “self interest” of the United States. The Cheney/Bush administration is becoming unpopular because of the perception that it does not act in the best interests of the American people.
Three years ago the Administration was doing essentially what it’s doing now but was popular because enough voters felt what they were doing was good for them; fighting terrorism with a reasonable degree of success, cutting taxes sort of, and being mean to gay people. (Not all Bush voters support all three, but felt strongly enough about one or two of them.) They’re unpopular now because the first and foremost issue - terrorism - is now perceived as being fought incompetently. That the war in Iraq was immoral with regards to killing all those Iraqis is, I assure you, of absolutely no consequence to most Americans. The vast majority of Americans either don’t really care how many Iraqis are dead, or care only in an abstract way. What matters to them, and therefore influences their votes, is “What am I going to get out of this?”
I don’t mean to beat up on Americans because pretty much all people are the same; you will find all countries in the world do this sort of shit, it’s just that the big and powerful ones are easier to notice.
Nicely put, and that is exactly what I was trying to say.
Many Americans do not like killing civilians, or invading Iraq, but supported it because they felt that it was in the best interests of America as a whole and bought the line that the Administation’s chosen course of action was going to stabilize and rebuild Iraq, as well as protect our own country. Now, most Americans don’t believe that is happening, and blame the Administration, and are showing their unhappiness at the polls and in their votes. Therefore the issue of the war is no longer ‘in the best interest of the US’ anymore in the only place it matters - amongst the population of the country who vote in elections and choose our representatives.
Let me put a big ol’ caveat in here - I was ***ALWAYS * ** against the war in Iraq and never thought it would accomplish it’s stated goals, but I doubt I will get any points for that.
I have, in fact, heard this argument from Aztlan supporters.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation_of_Aztlán
They range from mild MEChAs to NoA loonies, but I’ve heard the argument.
That’s kind of what I was getting at… but glad someone knew what I was talking about 
This is positively boneheaded reductivism. You can’t just ignore the power of moral and ethical considerations in politics and reduce everthing to self-interest. It’s very clear that morality is a major - if not the most major - part of the national discourse when it comes to foreign policy. Your estimation that it’s naive and quaint doesn’t make it magically disappear. Any more than my estimation that the pro-life argument is a sham renders it impotent.
Why do you think Abu Ghraib was shut down? Why do you think the U.S. is one of the most aggressive players in the Sudan over Darfur? If nothing else it’s because we have a religious population who doesn’t tolerate blatantly immoral behavior on the part of the government.
Yes, of course, the interests pushing for moral policy are often in opposition to interests pushing for self-interested policy. And often self-interest wins out. This tends to lead our professional cynics who have selective vision to claim that self-interest is the only force driving politics. But even casual observation will show you taht self interest does not always trump morality and generally speaking there’s some kind of compromise between these two very powerful motivators.
Oh well. It looks like my workload fighting ignorance is being carried by other posters. Second straight thread where someone else has responded in better and more complete fashion than I probably would have.
Thus, what she said. And thanks much, uglybeech.
I’ll just add that it appears none of you, arguing in the negative, have ever received from, and/or offered kindness to a stranger. Sad, really. But fortunately not my case. The nameless/faceless “state” has helped me on many occasion…as I have them. After all, we’re just people, and thankfully not everyone is driven solely by self-interests.
Sorry for the sidetrack, but…
Because one person with a conscience happened across some photographs of abuse and decided to report it. If that hadn’t happened, Abu Ghraib most likely would still be operating just the same as always.
What does religion have to do with it? Abuses such as Abu Ghraib are generally opposed by liberals, who are on average less religious than the general population.
Right. i.e. the population’s “naive” concern with morality played a decisive role in shaping policy. And this is hardly an isolated incident.
I was just trying to undercut the stereotype of morality being a fluffy liberal concern. It is a fluffy liberal concern. But just as weighty in the foreign policy realm is the religious right who are also quite active and organized in injecting moral concerns (and some post millenial concerns) into foreign policy. These are not always the same issues that the left would raise - but often they are. Abu Ghraib and Darfur are two areas where the Christian Right and the left’s influence dovetailed. You would certainly be wrong to imagine that the damage of Abu Ghraib wasn’t just as much about the outrage of the evangelicals as it was about the scorn of the left or moderates.
(And even in the case of the fluffy liberals, much of the traditional liberal interest in human rights, etc - had its origin in the days when progressivism was generally seated and promulgated by the mainstream or liberal churches.)
I sure don’t recall any “dovetailing”. The story was first broken by left-wing bloggers, then finally made its way to the mainstream media. The right first denied it, then tried to downplay the abuses by likening them to fraternity pranks. The Bush Admin. NEVER conceeded that it was torture; a few low-level grunts were prosecuted and one general was demoted but nobody actually responsible for the policies was ever held accountable. In short, the right was dragged along kicking and screaming the whole way as the sordid affair was brought to light. I guess I missed when the religious right took a proactive interest in it. When did this happen?
Not sure where you get the idea that liberalism was a doctrine originating from and handed down by churches. I would disagree with that assertion.
you’re conflating the Bush administration with the Christian Right.
That’s an overstatement of what I said. But American liberalism is deeply rooted in, and was for a long time driven by progressive Protestant Churches.
Huh? In what way.
What is it you consider to be “American liberalism?”
No. I pointed out that the Bush Admin. and the political right vehemently opposed acknowledging or dealing with the Abu Ghraib situation. The Bush Admin., the political right, and the Christian Right are certainly connected, but not the same.
However, if you claim that the Christian Right spearheaded a campaign to investigate and deal with Abu Ghraib, it’s contingent on you to at least explain who, when, and how. Just saying “the Christian Right isn’t the same as the Bush Admin.” doesn’t prove your case. I’m not saying you’re wrong, but I certainly don’t remember it the way you do.
Interesting hypothesis. Even if that were true at one time, I don’t think you could make a very convincing argument that the Christian Right embraces liberal ideals today. Quite the opposite.
I’m not saying you should ignore the power of moral or ethical considerations, or even religious, cultural, et cetera, considerations.
I’m simply saying that states operate based on self-interest, internal issues concerning morality and et cetera can come into play, but only under the umbrella of self interest. They’re part of the political process within countries but are not part of the underlying forces which drive states, which is quite simply two things, one much more prominent than the other. The most prominent is security, a lesser and possibly included influence is a desire for more power (military, economic, even seizing of new territory and etc.) although that arguably can fall under security concerns as well.
States were formed, governments were formed, for security purposes, to protect interests of the societies which formed these states. Since that is the primary reason states exist, it should be no surprise that security concerns are what is the general driving force of a state’s decision making.
States have to be self-interested, because in the grand scheme of things, you have to be self-interested if you’re to satisfy your security concerns.
To this end, states seek to amass power and resources, the more powerful a country is militarily, economically, and diplomatically, the more secure it is. In any instance where a moral or ethical consideration influences a state’s action, it is only in the context of self-interest that a state will give any credence whatsoever to these concerns. A state may not go to war if its population views it as an unethical or immoral affair, because a divided population means a less effective war effort, which could lead to disastrous military results and ultimately pose a serious threat back home.
This leads to the question of how active a part of this individual citizens of a state are. In a sense, people who protest a war may be acting as one of the natural forces that causes states to work in their self-interest, or maybe not, it’s hard to tell. Saying that states are motivated by self-interest certainly does not say that they act perfectly in line with their self-interests. If this was the case, states wouldn’t be conquered, wouldn’t collapse, et cetera. Like any other entity juts because a state is motivated by security concerns in a self-interested manner does not mean their actions are going to bring about what was desired.
He said “progressive Protestant Churches” which are in no way the same as the Christian Right, today or in past centuries.
I can think of some examples of what he’s talking about. The Society of Friends (Quakers) were early proponents who fought for all kinds of humanitarian issues that are near and dear to modern American liberals (the use of the word liberal in America has always bothered me in that it’s in many ways very out of line with how the word is used traditionally in political science and around the world), but I don’t really know that I’m ready to buy that the Quakers and other similar groups were really liberals or not, humanitarianism isn’t the sole province of those on the left.
What he said - don’t know Martin’s politics, but we’re lock-step in this particular discussion.
Point I am trying to make is EVERYTHING is self-interest. Our self-interest may be humanitarian, may be whatever, but it is the only thing guiding our national policy.
Read up on turn of the century Progressive Movement, Abolition, et al. These were to a large extent church-based movements rooted in Protestant theology. They are not identical to modern liberalism by any means, and the Progressivism of the early 20th Century to some extent divided into more conservative and liberal strains. With what would become the Christian Right incorporating more nativist, socially conservative (think temperance) threads into its ideology; and what would become modern liberalism emphasizing social equality (think abolition, suffrage, and civil rights) and incorporating more secular European economic socialism around mid-century.
No, it would be correct to say that both the Christian Right and modern secular liberalism are heirs of Progressivism. But I was not intending to imply in the least that the Christian Right embraces liberal ideas, or that moral considerations were the exclusive province of either side. In fact my point was precisely the opposite – that whether you are talking about the left or the right, morality in American policy is always a foremost consideration (though it plays out in different ways). And the one major reason for this has to do with America’s religious character, both currently and historically.
No that would be way overstating my case again. I was simply saying that the Abu Ghraib scandal was particularly damaging to the Bush Administration because it was unacceptable to the Christian Right, which is his base – and for purely moral reasons. I was not hazarding a guess which side was more publicly vocal about it. If you doubt that the Christian Right finds this shit heinous too, you need to pay more attention to them
Well, OK to some extent I suppose we can come together and say it’s a matter of quantifying how much influence moral considerations have and how much influence issues of self-interest have. About which reasonable people can disagree. So I don’t entirely reject what you’re saying here. (Although I think you’re vastly underestimating the influence of moral considerations in shaping policy.) I *do *however entirely reject what you said earlier which I read as saying that moral considerations are nothing more than a sham and only serve to make a nation “look good.”
That’s reductive to the point of meaninglessness.