a continuation

[rone]

... of this.

For values of "not as bad" that include "vastly better in every measurable way."

Yeah, having your house uprooted by bulldozers and your children killed is vastly better.  And that wall Sharon is building is a surefire crowd pleaser.  I'll tell you what: i'll soften my stance on Israel once they stop disobeying UN resolutions.  I mean, that's one of the things that got Iraq in hot water, yeah?

Having interests in a region hardly equates to an alliance. We send Egypt billions in foreign aid each year also, but nobody would suggest they're an ally.

That hasn't been the impression i've gotten.  As far as i know, Hosni Mubarak has been tight with US presidents for years now.

That's nonsense. Germany wasn't a democratic state at the beginning of 1945, but democracy took off pretty well once its facist leadership was forcibly removed from power. Ditto for Japan, and Spain.

OK, here's your "apples to oranges" badge.  Good job.  Japan is probably the best comparison here, and it took two fuckin' nukes to break them.  You wanna go for that now?

What, in your view, makes the Arabs inferior in this regard? On what basis do you claim they're "not ready" for democracy, as opposed to simply being enslaved in a social structure which prevents it?

That's pretty much it in a nutshell.  And if you think that our aggression is going to free them from that social structure, you're very deluded.  But, hey, we can just kick back and see how our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan bear fruit in the next 10 or 20 years.

Here, I'll rephrase: If you're right and they're not read for the 21st century, that would seem to make it all the more important from preventing them from obtaining weapons of horribly destructive power.

Then maybe we shouldn't SELL IT TO THEM IN THE FIRST PLACE, DICKHEAD.

Jingoistic cultural snobs?  You're the one saying those brown folk aren't ready for modern governments, and I'm the cultural snob?

You're the one who called them "thuggish" and "medieval" (not to mention "brown folk").  You're trying to enforce, through violence, a culture that you consider superior on other people; you're a cultural snob.

Comments

Word, man

[bebopmonkey.livejournal.com]

The only thing i take issue with is your assessment of democracy... Its an experiment right? The Greeks abandoned it cause it didnt work. I, for one (though i relish the right to vote) question whether it works now.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Democracy ain't too bad, but it has serious scalability issues.

*Ding*

[bebopmonkey.livejournal.com]

Nail on the head, my man. Power to the states, i say. Feds, kick back a little, let people live their lives how they want.

Re: Word, man

[palecur.livejournal.com]

I've always preferred republics to democracies. California is sufficient evidence that government by plebiscite is unsustainable. That said, I think the US is choking on its own legacy code (agricultural and other industrial subsidies are retarded on even cursory examination, but they will NEVER go away, for instance) and right now I'm just hoping things hang together long enough for cheap access to space to open up a new frontier where maybe we can try again. Which sucks, because I love my country, but there you have it.