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You're quite right. My understanding is that, economically, Zimbabwe is worse off than Detroit. I thought, but I could have been misled, that the violence in Zimbabwe is (or was) largely racial, and that killing Whites and confiscating their property didn't bring the expected benefits to the country. I wonder if Mugabe is taking on the homosexuals as targets to distract the people.
In my defense, I said African countries. Not particularly Zimbabwe. It's common knowledge that Robert Mugabe wants to begin beheading homosexuals and he is running once again for election (what a farce) in Zimbabwe. Uganda also has a running anti homosexual purge going on. Both of these countries are primarily Christian. Christianity is known to be part of the imported Western culture.
I suppose Putin's most logical move would be to shut down the websites that promise model-quality women to American men. The US is also only keeping up our population growth through immigration and their children. I think you might have hit on something very important, but I can't see clearly enough to understand the causes or the likely results. You might have a thread idea if you cared to explore that.
But the fact is, Russia is experiencing a dramatic loss in the number of births. This loss contributes to the weakening of their military and their economy according to Putin. I'm not floating anything that isn't well known or is in newspapers around the world.
Supporters of homosexuality think the world should be Gay-friendly, or at least, Gay-tolerant.
I used this article as an example of a country that has a firm social and cultural basis for rejecting what we would consider a human right...
If we are promoting better behavior, then we must be saying that their present behavior is not as good as it should be, and should be changed. Several posters have said that is none of our business. I take it you disagree with them.
You seem to be saying that we should disregard claims of "culture" when a group tries to justify doing something we don't like. Something, in short, which is against our culture.
I can't think of a time when those conditions have been met, not even World War II. Unfortunately, with our polarized world, I can't imagine a time when the majority of the world joined the US cause in any military action for any reason. But even if there was a tremendously evil crime against humanity being committed we'd be only partially committed.
If the US were in excellent shape both in financial matters and in leadership, the citizens of the country in question were begging for our help, our own citizens supported the intervention and the majority of the rest of the world were in agreement and joined in the cause then of course we should give them our help-
And, of course, the victims would be shouting "We don't care what it takes, we're dying here. Stop them!" As far as getting everybody to agree to those limits? That might very well be six months of talking before anything happens.
but there should be definite limits and strict time tables in advance of any assistance we would commit to giving that is agreed upon by ALL involved parties.
Are there any practical alternatives?
I don't think we should totally withdraw from the world, but I also don't think that WE should be the one's who do everything for everybody else when they are not willing to do the same for us.
I agree.
Also, I think we're pretty much all getting tired of pointless conflicts that do nothing but kill our soldiers and put us further in debt when it doesn't gain anything for the people we are supposedly helping.
Opposition has been stoked by several developments, including remarks by President Obama during a visit to Africa last month; his nomination in June of five openly gay political appointees as ambassadors; and British Prime Minister David Cameron’s comments last week about his desire to “export” same-sex marriage around the world now that Britain has legalized it.
Excellent question, I wasn't clear at all. I'm talking only about influencing governments. By "we" I mean all of the above, but in different ways. Only our government can conduct diplomacy or war, but individuals and groups can attempt to apply pressure on governments. I'm hoping to explore the ethical considerations each individual, group, or government considers when reaching a decision on when to intervene to the extent they are able. Are they applying some personal desire of the moment, or some standards reasonably arrived at which are more generally fixed.
First: who exactly are 'we'? Individuals, civic groups or governments?
Absolutely right. I believe some do not acknowledge ethical limits, that is very important to me.
Second: whichever 'we' you mean, there are severe ethical as well as practical limits on what, how and how much can be done.
I agree. There are times like that when the UN can't be counted on, and someone must step up in the name of humanity and justice, even at cost to themselves. There are some things which can't be ignored if we want to claim the title of "human."
Many have been the times when I wished some friendly foreign power would intervene to bring the guilty to justice and save my country from itself.
Again, I agree. But I'm reluctant to call a problem "insoluble" until we have worked on it to the limits of our ability.
there is much to be said for the policy of leaving insoluble problems well alone.
It's not my area of expertise, but I'll offer a few uninformed thoughts. The Belgian colonial rule exacerbated the separation and hatred between the Hutu and the Tutsi in an unnecessary way. The Hutu rule, while understandable, still increased the level of hatred. The UN was useless, partially because Rwanda had a seat on the Security Council at the time, and discouraged or prevented investigation and action. The UN also failed to realize their mission should have been peace-keeping and protection, instead they switched to a mission of evacuation.
Here is a test case for you: what could, and/or should, the international community done about the Rwandan genocide? Was there anything they could have done to make things better?
Exactly right. That is the danger we have to avoid, and I don't think we can do it if we don't have some reasonable and ethical guidelines established ahead of time which are known to the citizens of our country and the world.
If we make it regular policy to intervene in other cultures for what we might consider crimes against humanity and civil rights violations in your opinion where would it stop? When we have turned every third world country on Earth into a "Mini Me" version of the US?
I'm not sure how involved in Russia I would want to be because of their treatment of Gays, but assume for a moment that was an issue worth our most serious efforts. We've backed ourselve in a corner if we say we don't want Russia, or China, or other countries meddling in our affairs.
And as far as what's happening with gay youth in Russia? The US wont touch it with a ten foot pole I assure you. There wont be even the first economic sanction in protest. Why? Because the US doesn't want Russia meddling in any of our own affairs.
I wonder what would have happened if the US had intervened when Hitler's armies started moving through Europe? Ah well, hindsight.
As far as World War 2 went we didn't actually really get involved until we were directly attacked even though Nazi Germany was raining human rights violations upon the larger part of Europe at the time. I don't think that's a great example of the US championing human rights.
I largely agree. The US should claim to be the "Police" only when a serious "Law" is broken. I don't like claiming humanitarian motives when they don't exist.
We cannot nor should we be the police force of the entire world especially when our government picks and chooses which countries need our "help" based on the resources and strategic positions that can be gained.
I hope that, in some situations, what's in it for the government is simply knowing that they did the right thing.
as long as there isn't something in it for our government they're not going to do anything.
We should let the Countries run their people the way they want. The U.S. should mind its own business IMO. There's too much here, at home, that should be taken care of before butting into other peoples lives.
It's a little bit like a mother making rules for the children. They're supposed to be home at 6 for dinner, and they're not supposed to hurt each other. Everybody knows that arriving at 6:01 will rate a brief scowl, but if Sally comes home all bloody because Billy beat her, Mom will skip the scowl phase and get right to a vigorous "talk" with Billy, which Billy will very much regret for days.
I'm not sure that I agree completely that Iraq and the other countries were based on a desire for their resources. If it was, we even failed at that. In Africa, if we want their resources, we could send in businessmen instead of troops. They could get into a bidding war with China, not a shooting war. I'm sure Africa would be pleased.
I'm not sure how involved in Russia I would want to be because of their treatment of Gays, but assume for a moment that was an issue worth our most serious efforts. We've backed ourselve in a corner if we say we don't want Russia, or China, or other countries meddling in our affairs.
I hope that, in some situations, what's in it for the government is simply knowing that they did the right thing.
I agree, but is this one of those "insoluble" problems that we could still wrestle with before we give up? The Founders believed that the Constitution would provide checks and balances to prevent the abuse of power which they were sure would tempt future leaders. Can we do that again? Maybe approval by Congress and the Supreme Court (unlike in the case of Libya)? Maybe approval by a group of three to five nations who agreed to the same values and principles we hold? I'd really hate to give up completely.
The difference in the comparison is that most mothers love their children and know not to push punishment to the point of abuse of power. We can't trust our government to stay behind such a fine line with it's own citizens, much less a third world country.
You're right. In the case of a "legitimate," "justified" war, I don't have any problems with the profit they might make. As far as the kickbacks, we seem to be willing to control everything else that companies do. (unless they're big enough to be huge Presidential supporters), and we could increase our staff of auditors and Inspectors General. I suspect they'd spot enough fraud to pay for themselves many times over.
Besides, haven't you considered how much money has been made from these conflicts by major corporations such as Halliburton, etc.? All of the companies that supply our ground forces with everything from arms to toilet paper and beyond?
If we have become that feckless and impuissant (my vocabulary words for the week), then we either have to recover our moral courage, or be laughed at every time we open our mouths to protest anything. We'll be left with small groups of citizens putting up Youtube videos calling for non-GMO foods, gay marriage, freeing the dissidents, and every other fashionable cause. A disorganized and powerless effort.
We are already backed into a corner. We've transitioned from troops on the ground in Afghanistan to limited drone strikes and secretly arming rebel forces in Syria so as not to get Russia too peeved, and only approved sanctions against Iran because Russia wants their oil. China shoots at Japanese vessels in the waters off Japanese islands because China decides they want them and the US does nothing so as not to make the Chinese mad- wouldn't want to muck up our trade deals over something like abiding by our defense alliance agreements.
Can we allow it to "unhappen?" Your discouragement is contagious. I have no idea how to tell the voters that we need to reinstill moral considerations in our foreign policy. We can't even teach simple things. Certainly, morality itself is largely ignored in this society. We may be trapped in "Infantile Morality," which tells us that the things we want are moral.
but sadly long gone are the days when our government did things simply because it was the right thing to do. There is always a hidden agenda and something in it for them. A sad situation, but we have allowed it to happen.
I didn't even know I had recesses. Where I grew up a 350 pound woman wearing a thong to the beach was politely described as "interesting." So was a lime Jell-o and squirrel dessert. But no offense taken.
Picking the recesses of your brain is interesting to say the least!
I absolutely agree with you. But I wonder how that ties in with this:
Evil is going to happen regardless. You cannot have good without evil. It's part of life, the yin and the yang, it has been since the dawn of man and it will be until man no longer exists. It's out of our control. It's a sad reality.
Because evil is so wide-spread, we will always have it in the US, we'll never be free of it no matter how many resources we pump into solving evil. I think we've put over a trillion dollars into the "War on Poverty" alone over the last 50 years. We're no better off on that front now, we may even be worse off.
What I'm saying is that we, us in the U.S., should take care of our matters first before intervening into others affairs. . . . are there not atrocities happening in our own Country? Why waste energy elsewhere when that energy can be used in our own "neighborhood". If we were to do that, use all the energy in our neighborhood, then in the long run we'd have more energy to go into other neighborhoods, we'd be a stronger force due to having more energy.