I think that life will improve,once we stop being “World Cop”. In the first place, it is tremendously expensive.
Second, we often wind up being the “bad guy” (see Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Korea, Vietnam).
Finally, it absorbs lots of lives (like those 31 guys killed in Afghanistan).
I’d LOVE to see the USA act in its citizen’s interests for a change.
And , while a feel bad for Somalia, sending in soldiers to try to pacify these savages doesn’t work.
There are people in North Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Iraq ,Afghanistan and Pakistan that would take exception with thta. There are some assassinated dictators and overthrown elected governments like Iran that would seem to disagree.
While the focus here is the economy, the presumption within the U.S. is usually that the U.S. is in fact unequivocally number one in everything, but, as Harry Shearer notes in a regular feature of his show about this: “The list of things in which America is not number one is startlingly long.” South Korea has better broadband, and Cuba has a lower infant mortality rate.
North Korea’s a good example. The United States didn’t create the Kim regime - we’ve opposed it.
Do you think the world would be a better place if the United States was replaced by the kind of country that thought putting somebody like Kim Il Sung in power was a good idea? Do you honestly believe George W. Bush is the moral equivalent of Hitler or Stalin or Mao or Khomeini?
I’ll never claim the United States is perfect. I’m just saying we’re better than any of the realistic alternatives.
But what’s to say a hypothetical China-as-world-leader would be interested in exporting its poor human rights record in the first place? Plenty of strong powers allow their weaker neighbors to run their domestic matters as they damn well please, why wouldn’t China?
No not really. We may be imperfect but we are less hypocritical then ssay the uSSR.
Which is in a way how the US-NATO-EU-Western bloc works.
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You mean the same Communism that killed tens of millions in the USSR, China, Cambodia, and elswehere. And our idea is that by making money everyone is better off which has worked throughout the world.
Supstition, Fabian socialism, and a religiously enforced caste system combined with an anti-modern, anti-science outlook would rule the day unless India is more Westernized in the next few decades.
In technological things, the case is that the US frequently has lesser networks or internet speed or highways, or what have you, for the simple reason of having done it first, and in many cases decades before anyone else. Installed base is very important, and it’s easy to look at some third world dump and say “But they have a full nationwide 4G network!” without noting that it was set up last year, and is the first phone network that they’ve ever had, vs. the US’s hundred-odd years of telephone use, and 30 or so years of cell phone use.
Don’t mean to pick a fight here, but could you provide a cite on India being anti-science? It’s the first thing I ever hear about it, and it sure piqued my curiosity.
From what I know of them, China has a lot of domestic unrest about its environmental abuses, labor abuses and political/civil rights abuses. So things are changing there. And with concepts like the Kuznet curve the fact that China is experiencing so much economic growth is why they are having a pushback against abuses. As countries become wealthier and more educated, the citizens become more demanding and organized. China is no different. So to claim China has been exploited by all the international trade isn’t true. There are problems but they are growing an educated, reasonably well off middle class that is more able to stand up for itself than the peasant class.
The US has supported tons of dictators. But in the last 20 years or so, after the cold war ended, we seem to give more credit to concepts like human rights. Making human rights and democracy a part of foreign policy didn’t even start until Jimmy Carter, and even then it was imperfect. So I never claimed the US was perfect since day one.
But the world is better off if the premier superpower is one that opposes nations like Syria, Myanmar, North Korea, Sudan, etc. instead of one that trades with them. Then again the US trades with human rights abusers like Vietnam, Iraq and China.
We are not. We just keep saying it until easily convinced people believe it. We have been involved in other countries illegally or at war since 1900. A List of American Wars - Quantum Future Group Here is a short list.
We are that sort of country. We’ve cheerfully supported monsters all across the world. We only oppose him because he’s a Communist monster. If he was a fascist tyrant instead and was providing us with, say, oil or military basing rights we’d support him. We’d have people under “extraordinary rendition” right now in his prisons being tortured, most likely.
We aren’t just not living up to our ideals; outside our own borders we’ve virtually always actually worked against them. And I see no evidence that we are better any of the likely alternatives would be.
No, outside our own borders we are no better than they were.
Oh, please, we’ve cheerfully slaughtered and raped and tortured our way across the world for profit. Go tell someone imprisoned by an American backed dictator being raped and tortured by American trained torturers how much better off she is than if she was being rapes tortured by a Soviet backed dictatorship. Being raped for God and the almighty Free Market is ever so much better!
U.S. Interventions - 1945 to the Present William Blum Here is a list on interventions since 1945. There are plenty of countries who have grounds to hate us. We have propped up terrible dictators and overthrown some governments that treated their country men well in order to install a one that is friendlier to our corporations.
“The best” according to what metric? We certainly aren’t the happiest, nor do we have the best social safety net, vacation policies or exchange rate (at the moment).
I want to make sure I’m not misunderstanding what you guys are saying. You are both saying that there is no substantial difference between the United States under Bush or any other bad American President and the various countries led by Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Khomeini. That we are all basically equal in terms of morality. Is that your view?
Again, as I’ve said repeatedly; I am speaking only of foreign policy. Nor did I say “bad Presidents”, I said America. And as for that; Hitler was more concerned with direct conquest & genocide than we have been recently. That’s about it.