cleopatra143 (8/24/2008)

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lol ok whatever, I think you would argue with a fence post.

A fence post!? You don't have a very high opinion of yourself do you!

. . .  and its not arguing. Its debating, indeed one might say it is masterful debating . . .

My point: most of what you think could be blamed on a single country is in fact emergent through an interaction of forces. Related to that, in some cases, a ruling regime can be seen to have had a major influence on a particular national policy or national action (for example a declaration of war, or execution of a "Final Solution") but blaming an entire country for such things is slipping down that slipperly slope called racism.

To genereralize for example, that "WWII can be blamed on Germany" is a similar distortion of social reality as would be "blaming the white people for AIDS," or even "blaming the white people for the Tuskegee Airman Experiments."

One might argue that the German people are broadly responsible for putting the Nazi party into power, much as the American people were responsible for putting the American leaders who helped the Shah. But it was a small inner circle of leaders in the Nazi party who designed the holocaust, set it in motion, led it; to be sure, many common everyday Germans were complicit, much the way many of you are often complicit with anti-American rhetoric on this site.

Imagine if we all stopped being complicit with the blame game, most of American political rhetoric would vanish into thin air.

The other distinction b/w say blaming the Nazis for the holocaust and blaming the American political elites for the Shah: in the first case, there is no third party, in the second case there is. The Nazis were directly responsible for the holocaust. The Americans were not directly responsible for the Shahs' leadership policies and actions. They simply helped him to gain and regain power.

It comes across, umm, badly - too jingoistic, y'know? I was really thinking, yeah, I can see this guy's argument, and then you make a statement like that. It is really demening, simplistic, generalising and unworthy of you. I can't understand, other than an unexplained proclivity for nationialist fervour, why you sully your argument so.

YES! Yes you are right. It's blindingly obvious...

Again, yes, I agree with you.

So why do you appear to be so pro-American? America is NOT saintly, any more than any other country. I must have got it wrong somehow. You cannot actually appear so jingoistic and yet support the philosophies you propound! Either we have got it wrong or...

...perhaps you are not putting your case in quite the right way...?

Do you understand what I am saying here?

Tones, I largely agree with your assesment but this line kind of blew it for me:

I hope you don't mean "any" other country.  I think Britain and "much" of Europe as well as a few others scattered around (the west) are probably roughly equal in their saintliness but I think I'd go as far to say that most countries are not as good.  I think that there is a "saintliness scale" as far as countries go but I think the U.S. it as least near the top of that list. 

In the words of Teddy Roosevelt: "There is much talk about 'jingoism'. If by 'jingoism' they mean a policy in pursuance of which Americans will with resolution and common sense insist upon our rights being respected by foreign powers, then we are 'jingoes'."

But let us now go back to what Scipio was arguing - i.e. "countries" cannot be held to account. He says:

My point is that if that argument is correct (and I have some time for it myself) then you CANNOT support any sort of nationalism without indulging an inherent hypocricy.

jerm, you quote Teddy Roosevelte, and it is a fine speech, but analyse it and it is entirely egocentric and not, as Scipio suggests as the American ideology, altruistic in the slightest.

You Americans (I hate that phrase but it is unavoidable) must accept that it is JUST POSSIBLE that your foreign policy for the last 242 years has not been entirely for the benefit of the rest of the planet. I know I am going to get blasted for this. So be it. I'll just say I like America, and I like all the Americans I have met or communicated with. You have a great country.

But your government can be just so ARROGANT dammit!

And this is a SLAVE talking. (mind you, if we were really a slave, we'd maybe be green goo, so ignore that) But that is how we ordinary Brits feel - like "democracy" is dictated by the Man in the Whitehouse. OK so day-to-day running of the country is down to the Prime Minister or President or General Factotem but running the world is beyond us. So, in general, we hope for the best outcome.

Hope is what it all relies upon, and I suppose we hope the US is "saintly". But really, it's all about survival.

Jeez, do you guys really trust your government THAT much?

To do the right thing for the WORLD?

If by "government" you mean every single person involved in it, absolutely not. Probably not even half of them are deeply trustworthy. As persons, I have little doubt that Americans, Brits, Frenchman, and any other person from one of the democratic countries are no better than the average Joe or Salley living in and even running a despotic country. But it doesn't matter. The major differenc between a democratic and a despotic country is not the character of the people, nor the integrity of the leaders, it is the cultural norms of operation, the policies and procedures, the system of checks and balances.

If GW Bush tried to pull a stunt like Putin accomplished in Russia these past years, he simply WOULD NOT HAVE SUCCEEDED. Why? Because he is not all powerful. There are many forces in Washington and around the nation (and indeed the world) which place checks and balances on his power and ability to take preemptive steps to become a despot. Sure maybe he could get a couple Lietenant Generals on his side, but how many Brigades would actually take the orders? How long before some other high-up leaders coordinated with some other Generals and Admirals and effectively put any dreams of a coup quickly to bed? Since there has never been a coup in our 242 year history, I think it is safe to say the system works pretty good.

And it is not just at the level of the Chief Executive. A similar SYSTEM for preventing all of us from acting on our base motives and cheating, lying, stealing, exploiting, or otherwise infringing on the rights of others is characteristic (even if inadequately so) of the U.S. both in terms of its legal, and lay culture.

Heck! We inherited this dang system from you Anglo-Saxons! It is just that in our particular socioecology (a lack of a lineal aristocracy, and a socio-demographic pattern relative to open resource niches that was NOTHING like the Old World had been for thousands of years), this traditional Anglo-Saxon set of legal traditions were allowed to develop even further. The other democratic countries have become more democratic as a result, and if anything this is the main "saintliness" which the U.S. has bestowed on humanity. Note this has very little to do with any sort of "altruism" or charitability on the part of Americans. We are just as selfish, slovenly, hypocritical, weak-willed, base, and capable of the worst as all the rest of you.

Ah crap. Damn laptop keyboard . . . had a long one typed out and one missed keystroke destroyed it . . . . It annoys me that I have to repeat myself on this site so often, and generally because of something LC has started!!