reply to post by nyk537
I wouldn't call you a warmonger. But then again, I suffer from a chronic strain of rationality foreign to so many nowadays.
Just because you say "we probably shouldn't let them punish a rape victim like that" doesn't mean that we have to fly in, carpet nuke them, and
build Starbucks every 2 blocks. It's one of the reasons we need to get off foreign oil so badly, because once the money is gone their society will
be forced into introspection (or, rather, the leaders of the country will scapegoat their former purchasers).
It's a bad idea to rush into another country because we disagree with their laws. It is also a bad idea to put your fingers in your ears and go "la
la la la la" while innocent people are abused. This is really where I split with noninterventionists and neoconservatives. We shouldn't force our
society on them (global society is going to harmonize over the next couple hundred years due to our advanced communications; pick up any differential
equations text to see what I mean), but at the same time, it is fundamentally wrong, as just as bad as their policies are, so say"eh, I care more
about
my economic growth and
my iPod and
my safety." That is selfishness (on both ends) that is shameful.
The west has the technology and the opportunity to help guide people into a more platonically just temperament. But the operative word is
guide.