Liberal inaction

Great Debates
1

Liberals seem to be the biggest talkers of human rights around. But when it comes to action beyond tax changes or welfare handout, they do nothing. They ignored Cambodia, they ignored Rwanda, they appeased Iraq, they appease North Korea, and they appease China, they appease Syria, they appease Cuba. Whenever action is proposed to take steps to end human rights violations in such countries, they can only protest that it will cost lives. However, they fail to look at the bigger picture. Human rights violations do occur in each of those countries, serious human rights violations, yet liberals seem to be unable to see beyond their rabid “peace at any cost” position and realize that while it will cost lives in the short run, the long term effects will far outweigh the short term losses.

Personally, I am one of these pro-peace liberals. But I’ve been seeing arguments like these lately, and I’m finding it harder and harder to defend my position to others and myself.

Uh… debate.

2

Uh… no.

3

alrighty then.

4

Maybe if you just keep on saving lives in the short term, you won’t need to save lives in the long term? The only way people are going to stop being killed is if everyone, every single day, manages to not kill anybody.

5

I’m gonna say no, too. You took a position, bashed the opposition, and then asked for a fight. Somebody should move this into the Barbecue Pit, that’s where it belongs.

6

apple: They ignored Cambodia, they ignored Rwanda, they appeased Iraq, they appease North Korea, and they appease China, they appease Syria, they appease Cuba. Whenever action is proposed to take steps to end human rights violations in such countries, they can only protest that it will cost lives. However, they fail to look at the bigger picture.

Couldn’t you say the same sort of thing about conservatives, using a different set of human rights violators? Conservatives appease Colombia, they appeased Guatemala, they appease Saudi Arabia, etc., turning a blind eye to rights violations for the sake of keeping in power a government (however brutal) that’s sympathetic to US interests. If conservatives are more ready to go to war than liberals, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re more committed to human rights.

yet liberals seem to be unable to see beyond their rabid “peace at any cost” position

I think you’re confusing liberals with pacifists. The majority of liberals don’t actually espouse the absolutist-pacifist principle of “peace at any cost”. Most liberals, for example, thought the post-9/11 invasion of Afghanistan was necessary, and many supported intervention in the former Yugoslavia.

while [war] will cost lives in the short run, the long term effects will far outweigh the short term losses.

That’s the only real justification for fighting a war (and you also seem to be somewhat confusing starting a war with sending peacekeeping forces to avert a war). Unfortunately, it’s damned difficult to predict when or how a military intervention will actually make people better off in the long term.

You are right that the world in general definitely needs to figure out an international policy for defending human rights in other people’s countries. At present, we are wrestling with the principle that you shouldn’t invade or attack another sovereign nation in order to save its people from their own government. But that principle leaves us in the position of bystanders while innocent people are butchered—“us” including anti-entanglement conservatives as well as anti-imperialist liberals.

This is not a problem with liberalism; this is a problem with the conflict between the comparatively recent concepts of human rights and national sovereignty. It’s going to take all of us, conservatives and liberals alike, to work out a just solution to it.

7

Okay, I’ll bite and add a thought to Kimstu’s.

You can use the same set of examples, in some cases. Conservatives didn’t make any kind of a push to help Rwanda, they were just as happy to ignore it. I don’t see any difference between conservatives and liberals - whoever they are, exactly - on Cuba. Ditto Saudi Arabia, at least as far as Bush’s leadership; he’s not challenged or changed anything at all with regards to their support of terrorism. Conservatives sold weapons to Iraq and Iran, and bombed Cambodia, which set the stage for the Khmer Rouge in the first place. The list goes on and on, nobody is free from fault.

8

You do, of course, realize that you’re making the implicit assumption that action that gets proposed to end human rights violations will automatically be successful, and thus that anyone who is opposed to those actions must automatically be opposed to ending human rights violations. The liberal position is that U.S. involvement has not always led to improvements in the human rights situation. For starters you might investigate the effects of the CIA’s actions in Guatemala in the 1950’s, or its later dealings in El Salvador.

9

In your first paragraph, you use the word “they” to describe the awful things that liberals do and do not do. Then you try to claim in your second paragraph that you are a liberal, so that people will conclude that what you said MUST be true, because look, a liberal just admitted it. Nice try.:wally

10

Liberals do complain about human rights. However, the key isn’t necessarily human rights. The key is that they like to complain.

11

*Personally, I am one of these pro-peace liberals. But I’ve been seeing arguments like these lately, and I’m finding it harder and harder to defend my position to others and myself.

Uh… debate? ~ Appletreats*

Uh…yes, Appletreats, thank you I will.

You see Appletreats, Liberals are people that think with their hearts. This is an admirable but silly affront to natural order that insults the mind and leaves no room for love in the heart.

Wanna be free? Take this test:

  1. Find a good number of doom and gloom, short term predictions that have been made on this illustrious board by self-described liberals.
  2. Record them.
  3. Wait.

Report back here when the results are in and receive your brand new, red white and blue, Bill Buckley T-shirt.

Note: Finding liberals in Great Debates should be little bother, four weeks ago I found comments by 82% of the contribitors here to be against the war in Iraq while polls showed that Americans supported this war of liberation by 78%.

12

Frostillicus: No, that’s not even close to what my intentions were. Nice try. :wally

13

Jeepers, this is about the lamest GD thread since, er, mine of yesterday, which in 24 hours has had 12 views and zero replies (sniffle).

Honestly, does anyone have the slightest clue who or what this person is talking about? I call on the OP to name one specific ‘liberal’ who has done all the vaguely-defined, but presumably bad, things listed above.

While the OP is at it, he/she might consider first laying out what action he/she thinks should have been done in each of the above cases, and perhaps as a bonus, defining ‘appeasement’, since a lot of folks seem to be throwing that word around a lot lately without actually appearing to know what it means.

14

Just FYI, the OP appletreats is a she. She’s also the infamous coiner of the term ItShut up.

15

I’m a she?

16

Not that theres anything wrong with that!

17

Tell me about it appletreats. I used to be liberal in regards to foreign policy back in December (i had been liberal for about 3 years, as long as i’d been interested in politics) because i support human rights & liberal democracy. BUt this war has shifted me into becoming a neocon because they back up their words with action (even though their actions aren’t purely noble, at least they sometimes act instead of just appease & ignore) and are trying to change the middle east around. Now all the people i used to get along with when i discussed politics are mad at me. I am guessing htis is happening all over America, disillusionment with the left in regards to promoting human rights & democracy.

18

My brain’s in my skull, thanks. Though this does cut more to the heart of this topic, which is to give the more conservative posters a liberal pinata to whack away at.

Ah, that makes sense. Long as you do something, it doesn’t matter if it’s right or wrong. And nobody on the apparently conservative side of this argument has addressed any of the numberous flaws in appletreats’ assumptions about what liberals are and what they’ve done.