Wouldn’t the centralizing of power tend to do that more than a decentralized structure? At the very least, if someone in the power structure is corrupt, he has a lot more potential to inflict damage than some corporate goon.
I wonder the same about you, since you rail against the Bush administration so, but when far worse Sandinista abuses are pointed out to you, from an organization I presume you trust, it seems to sail by.
Far as I know, Bush hasn’t raped any 11 year old girls.
Well, of course. But this is common to all authoritarian regimes. Caligula was not a Communist.
well, you are wasting your time bud, but that is for the atheist thread.
and I am happy if i get my shirts back from the laundry with light starch. good luck to you.
Yes, yes, Daniel Ortega is a very bad man, and I am a blithe hypocrite, which proves for certain that Communism is inherently evil. Got it.
Now, about that question?
Which question are you referring to?
If you are referring to the different treatment of authoritarian regimes vice totalitarian ones, see my longish answer above. A more eloquent justification for this practice can, of course, be found in the writings of Jeanne Kirkpatrick.
Realism as a foreign policy concept is pretty well understood, and while I think it is misplaced sometimes, I also realize it is often the best (or only) course.
As for your question of the threat posed to us by various and sundry revolutions, I do not think you can look at them individually or in isolation. There was a Cold War going on at the time, and the Soviet Union was doing its level best to extend its influence in as many places as it could in the world.
You miss the point entirely. It does not matter what the United States has done.
The point is that liberals, radicals, progressives, or whatever you want to call yourselves cannot reasonably claim the moral high ground when you are yourselves standing on a far bigger pile of corpses than the people you are presume to condemn. It reeks of hypocrisy.
As for your link, in war and politics you often have deal with characters you would never take home to meet your mom. The mere fact that we have accepted someone as an ally doesn’t mean that we are entirely responsible for everything that ally does; our support for Stalin in the Second World War doesn’t mean that we are therefore responsible for everything Stalin ever did, and our support for the mujahadeen in their war against the Soviet Union doesn’t mean we are responsible for everything the mujahadeen did.
You are free to complain about American perfidy only because dangerous men stand ready to do violence on your behalf. Our nation–and for that matter, Western civilization itself–will be allowed to exist only so long as we are willing and able to shed and spill blood for our right to exist. Any other attitude is sheer delusion.
So we’re just supposed to go on trying to create communist societies no matter how often and how badly they fail and no matter how many people die in the attempt? We’re not supposed to look at their track record at all?
And is the only choice between hard core Marxist-Leninist communism and 19th century robber baron capitalism?
It isn’t simply a question of human nature. Bad ideology will necessarily drive you to do bad things. Mussolini is less objectionable than Hitler precisely because Mussolini’s ideology did not lead him to commit such horrors as the Holocaust. Gandhi’s tactics could work with the British; they would never have worked with Stalin, and the difference is a matter of ideology. Ideas matter.
You seriously don’t believe the Soviet Union was using these movements to increase its influence in the Western hemisphere?
Actually, the real point is that you’re fooling yourself if you actually believe there is a moral high ground.
It is very much a question of human nature. Current events demonstrate that good ideology is no barrier to bad acts.
The only difference between us and angry chimpanzees is that we are able to offer, after the fact, a dizzying array of justifications for why we brought the thighbone down on the skull of our enemy.
I see, so this is the grave threat posed, so grave a threat that we are compelled to compromise our moral values and make deals with men we know to be brutal and sadistic tyrants. Only way to protect ourselves, doncha know. At one time, “Yes, we have no bananas” was a humorous ditty meant to amuse, it could well have been a dirge of sorrow and dismay, as a banana-less nation munches morosely on kiwi fruit. Alas! Cry, the beloved country!
The domino effect again? The remorseless drive of Soviet Communism up the Central American peninsula: Guatemala, Nicaragua, Mexico, and then on to Texas…Well, maybe not Texas, but surely California! With it’s festering nest of Filth Columnists seething in Berkeley…and the Tortilla Curtain descends!
For this grave threat, we had no choice but to make deals with evil men, to ignore the murder of nuns and archbishops. If people are to be oppresssed and murdered, its better they are oppressed and murdered by a* moral * system, one not tainted with the grave depravity of Communism. No doubt, this was an enormous comfort to them. How happy they must have been, nestled snugly in their graves, that they were safe from the ghastly threat of Godless Communism.
Sure. But we didn’t have to let them. If we had used our influence wisely, we would have addressed the conditions that make revolution attractive, rather than arming villains to suppress them.
Wouldn’t you? If you were as oppressed as these people were, wouldn’t you rise up in insurrection? And then, wouldn’t you take arms and assistance from anyone who offered it, regardless of whether or not you knew a dialectic from a hole in the ground?
Let me pose a question to you, elucidator.
During the American Civil War, the Confederates were praying for Great Britain to attack the North while it was weakened, and they toyed with the idea. Had that happened, they would likely have been joined by France, which had its own scores to settle.
One European nation was especially steadfast in its support of the United States at that time, going so far as to station warships in New York and San Francisco for months at a time. The message was sent pretty clearly that entry into the war would bring this country in as well, and the conflict remained an American one.
This country was Czarist Russia.
Now, should Lincoln have refused the help?
Getting help from regimes you don’t agree with != helping regimes you don’t agree with. The help tells you more about the nature of how the giver sees the recipient than vice versa.
Heck, even if we wanted to, America was in no position at the time to overthrow 19th century Russia. Heck, we still probably wouldn’t be in a position to overthrow 19th century Russia.
What do you mean by “addressing the conditions?” Was the United States supposed to eliminate poverty throughout the Americas? Were we supposed to overthrow every tinpot tyrant and install Western style democracies? It’s all very well to say that we should have “addressed the conditions,” but this is a tremendous conceit. It assumes that we have some kind of unlimited power to create healthy, prosperous economies and stable, democratic states. It implies that governments in Latin America have a right to exist only on our sufferance and that the United States is somehow responsible if a repressive state exists anywhere in the Americas–the non-Communist ones, anyway. That calls for an awful lot of meddling.
We have a bad enough time trying to keep our own economy and government on some kind of even keel. Look at what we had to do to get rid of slavery, to get rid of Jim Crow, to put an end to child labor and get the average working stiff a halfway decent break. Were we supposed to do all that in every county in the western hemisphere as well–and wouldn’t that make us the *de facto * government of two continents?
Give me some idea of exactly what “conditions” you wanted us to address and how the hell were we supposed to address them without meddling far more than we actually did meddle, and maybe you would have some kind of point. All you’ve got here is a vague, noble-sounding abstraction.
The danger from the Soviet Union, particularly during the days of the Stalinist regime and its immediate aftermath, was every bit as real as the danger from Nazi Germany. You can’t sneer that fact away. It would be easier to respect your position if you would stop resorting to mockery and ridicule as a substitute for actual arguments.
Actually,I have never seen any evidence that this is true. Stalin was very much into protecting himself and Russia and showed no serious interest in promoting worldwide Communism. His efforts in Eastern Europe provided him a buffer from future attacks, and he never made a serious effort to extend the Soviet empire beyond the Warsaw Pact countries. The nations he kept directly under his thumb were the nations contiguous to the U.S.S.R. His efforts in Austria and Greece were, at best, half-hearted. Tito was able to get out from under his direct rule because of the buffers of Romania and Bulgaria.
As a world power with nuclear capability, the U.S.S.R. was clearly a danger if enough politicians on both sides behaved stupidly, but unlike Nazi Germany, the U.S.S.R. never demonstrated a desire to actually conquer all of Europe or the Middle East.
As the U.S. and U.S.S.R. played their updated version of the Great Game, they threatened each other and world peace, but it was based on mutual suspicion and animosity rather than on Hitler’s desire for conquest.
You got me, Moto. Clearly, Lincoln had no choice but to knuckle under to the massive Slavic war machine. And this leads inexorably to the conclusion that we had no other option but to support brutal dictatorial regimes to protect ourselves from the crushing power of Soviet hegemony. An argument so clearly articulated and firmly established is unanswerable.
I am undone.
Perhaps. Shouldn’t we have at least tried? Too big a risk? Well, after all, Cuba has been Commie as all get-out for better than 50 years now and yet, we survive. If United Fruit Company were nationalized, and the price of bananas doubled, would our economy have collapsed into ruins?
A “vague, noble-sounding abstraction”? I suppose, in comparison to an entirely concrete, utterly real tale of horror and death, visited upon the innocent in our name, with our money.
But, no matter. Moto has already crushed my argument under the grinding wheels of his rhetorical juggernaut. I only hope to blink back the tears long enough to complete this butter sculpture of St. Ronnie in time for the State Fair. Whoa is me.