Is it better to just never get involved in the policies and problems of other countries, or other people regardless of whether or not the outcome of a particular event will affect you or your country? What right has the U.N. to interfere with the natural development of Libya, or Egypt, or on a smaller scale, why should I get involved in the petty squabbles of my classmates, whether or not the outcome will affect me? and on a larger scale, when the U.S. decides to take action in particular country, why must it be done the American way? Can’t people realize that American solutions are not one-size-fits-all solutions.
Must bump, for great justice!!!
Non-interference can be a noble principle or an excuse to ignore horrors beyond one’s borders. The UN has the right to interfere in Libya and Egypt because it says so in its charter and those countries ratified it.
True, but we have no way of knowing exactly what the consequences of their actions will be. It may have upset the natural course of development for them, just as the spread of the automobile upset a lot of the Middle East, by the best definition, most of the countries in the Mideast are still using Bronze Age governments (Theocracy), and they have access to Atomic Age weapons. The US really interfered in the development of the Middle East.
Very few countries in the Middle East have theocratic governments. None of them except for Israel have nuclear weapons.
And France should have kept out of that upstart rabble trying to split off from Mother England a few years back. What a shame to get involved in a completely internal matter.
All that is required for Evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing - Edmund Burke.
The optimal policy is the most difficult one, because it involves thought and judgment. Both nations and individuals need to examine each situation separately, determine the potential effects on themselves, others, their society, and the world, evaluate the various options for action or inaction, and come to a thoughtful, reasoned conclusion about the best approach to take, considering all possible consequences.
American solutions may not be one-size-fits-all-solutions, but neither are blanket policies like non-interference.
Stop ruining the fear with facts!
Because everyone’s business is everyone’s business. That is if someone is being hurt or fighting, the situation should be resolved, be it your friend or a total stranger.
Some people say you ought not rob the bank. But that’s where the money is.
IOW, you better carefully define what “better” means. Your moral opinion, or materially? There are huge gains to be made with “liberal interventionism” (aka imperialism) in land, resources, international status, alliances, favorable treaties, and so on, so saying we’d be better off without it is false under many rubrics.
Even saying something like “more people would be happy” or some other utilitarian methodology seems dodgy. How do you weigh the discomfort of the dead and wounded on both sides to the success and happiness of the beneficiaries?
IME, you basically get reduced to “it’d be cool if we didn’t spent lots of money killing lots of people or fiddling in their internal politics just cuz.” Which is a fine moral position and all, one that I would champion, but so is “don’t rob banks.”
This was focused on intellectuals and opinion makers who ignored Nazi policies on “the other” in their own territory, not on liberal interventionism abroad (which the Nazis practiced plenty too). Domestic vs. foreign. You can find people who think you shouldn’t act even in your own country, although they’re not very common.
I don’t know your posting history so I don’t know if this is a straight forward statement reflecting on the horrors of the United States and an example of the negative consequences of interference or if you’re going with an unstated “of course how could you be against America?” implication buttressing the position that it was great for France to help stick an eye in their imperial adversary by helping us out.
There’s no such thing as good and evil, beyond subjective opinion, so it’s not that useful. I could say Burke is evil because his quote makes great propaganda for imperialists, but that wouldn’t mean much either.
There are things that can be considered by most of the world to be evil. One of them is using heavy caliber, vehicle mounted, anti-aircraft weapons on packed masses of unarmed civilians.
Another is slaughtering people who are in hospitals, or who are in other ways, not only unresisting and unarmed, but unable to resist.
You are taking an amoralist stand on the matter? There is no good, there is no evil, at all? It’s a bit of a bankrupt philosophy, I’ve always found. It essentially translates directly into nihilism, which is certainly even less objectively true than absolute morality.