Wars are being fought for less and less silly reasons

[Metsfanmax]

My list includes Spain, Greece and Israel, but whatever. I cba if you're going to keep changing the goal posts mid-conversation.

First, I'm quite content not to have a conversation with you about this. It's rather amusing you for to start a whole thread in response to my comment and then get annoyed when you realized that I wasn't saying what you thought I said.

Also, you are the second person I have seen on this forum, only other than BBS, who has insisted that a conversation needs "goal posts," as if we are having a debate and your goal is to win or lose an argument. I am not here to win or lose arguments, I'm just here to have a discussion. If you don't want that, feel free to go somewhere else.

'People no longer have wars over religion or politics.'
'There have been wars for those reasons all over the world in recent decades.'
'I mean liberal people don't have wars over religion or politics.'

And of course this is a joke, because the beginning of this thread starts with a list of American wars. You insisted that this is what I was obviously referring to when I made that comment. Then you somehow get upset when, after bringing in a whole bunch of other countries, I tell you that most of them are irrelevant to the point I was making?

'Liberal countries don't have wars over politics.'
'They went to war in Korea and Vietnam because of politics.'
'They went to war over politics that made them feel threatened.'

Do you think the governments we were fighting in Korea and Vietnam were liberal governments? Just wondering. (I bring up this point because a second, unrelated point which I want to discuss more is the hypothesis that democratic countries largely do not fight each other. I have heard this expressed a number of times in the past but would like some input from people who have read more about it.)

(Of course, you'd still be missing the point; there's a big gap between attacking countries because they believe the wrong thing, and attacking countries because they threaten us economically or militarily. Our wars in the last few decades have been entirely about cementing geopolitical control or economic power, and very little to do with anything else. That's why my Cuba example is so poignant -- we could have kicked their asses easily and annexed a new state after the Soviet Union fell, if the US is about starting wars with communist countries just because they're communist.)

This could go on indefinitely.

I wish it would not. You're welcome to stop hounding my posts any time now.

[mrswdk]

Also, you are the second person I have seen on this forum, only other than BBS, who has insisted that a conversation needs "goal posts," as if we are having a debate and your goal is to win or lose an argument. I am not here to win or lose arguments, I'm just here to have a discussion. If you don't want that, feel free to go somewhere else.

That's not what 'changing the goal posts' means. It means you make one point, someone responds and then all of a sudden you're making a totally different point.

'People don't fight over religion or politics any more.'
'Yes they do.'
'It should have been obvious to you that I meant liberal countries don't fight over religion or politics.'

or

'I like living in a country where the government doesn't kill you for doing things it doesn't like.'
'You live in America, which has the death penalty.'
'You don't get it do you? China executes way more people than America. That is the point.'

It makes it impossible to have any sort of coherent discussion.

[Metsfanmax]

That's not what 'changing the goal posts' means. It means you make one point, someone responds and then all of a sudden you're making a totally different point.

I understand the concept. You seem to think that a conversation is only possible when a person makes a point and then proceeds to defend it while another person attempts to disprove it. I wholeheartedly disagree with that; I am much more interested in Socratic-style conversations where the goal is not to establish the truth or falsehood of a particular point (if only because I've long since tired of internet debates). So if your goal is to get me to vociferously defend a particular geopolitical hypothesis so that you can attack it, go somewhere else. That's not the kind of conversation I want to have, in large part because I don't know enough about this subject (or any subject other than computational fluid dynamics, really) to have a vociferous stance on it. I don't want to deal with people who can't see the world in the shades of grey that I see it in, and who need to believe things as true or false to have an understanding of them.

'People don't fight over religion or politics any more.'
'Yes they do.'
'It should have been obvious to you that I meant liberal countries don't fight over religion or politics.'

I didn't say people don't fight over religion or politics any more. How many more times do I have to repeat it before you stop repeating this tiresome straw man? I said that we don't attack other people because we disagree with their choice of religion or politics. And of course that was an over simplification; what I meant was that it is very rare for people in liberal countries to exact violence on others because of a disagreement in beliefs, especially compared to past millennia. I would never attempt to defend such an absolutist statement, and you shouldn't interpret such statements from me as being absolutist in nature (normally I wouldn't make such a mistake in a conversation about this subject, but it was in a completely different context and I assumed people would understand what I meant).

The closest I am willing to get to a hard stance on this issue is that liberalism tends to reduce the need and desire for individuals to exact violence on others because they have differing belief systems, and that this tendency to eradicate violence is increased when the others in question themselves believe in liberal ideals. If you want me to have a goal post, then go ahead, attack that argument.

It makes it impossible to have any sort of coherent discussion.

You have the freedom not to respond to me if you don't like conversing with me. I encourage you to exercise it as desired.

[mrswdk]

'Just because I put forward an idea in a thread doesn't mean I actually want to discuss that idea, and in any case I probably don't know enough about it to have a proper discussion anyway.'

Noted.

[Metsfanmax]

'Just because I put forward an idea in a thread doesn't mean I actually want to discuss that idea, and in any case I probably don't know enough about it to have a proper discussion anyway.'

Noted.

Well I do want to discuss the idea, that's why I'm still participating in this thread. But yeah, usually I don't know enough about most subjects to feel confident in discussing it. It is not for lack of reading but just because I think the world is too complicated to understand well. The corollary is that I am usually skeptical of people who think they do know enough about it to feel confident in it -- more often than not, the confidence is unwarranted. This is why I am much more interested in having a discussion than in trying to prove a point. I rarely even try to make points anymore, except on scientific issues.

Anyway I edited my post to give something approaching my philosophy on this issue, in case there's something concrete you want me to defend. You have my word that this philosophy is something I believe with above-average confidence and would attempt to defend if challenged. That philosophy is really what I meant in the other thread, I just chose to condense the idea because I didn't expect anyone to challenge it (we don't have many neo-reactionaries on this forum).

[mrswdk]

Even ignoring the violence of the past century and assuming that liberal countries (by which I'm guessing you mean Western countries + Japan, Korea and a few others) don't use violence against people in response to behavior they don't like*, I don't think violence is a particularly meaningful measure just by itself.

The US, EU etc. may not resort to violence as frequently as they used to, but now they just use economic and political sanctions (or threats of sanctions) instead. Threatening to withhold aid from Uganda if they passed anti-gay laws, sanctions against Fiji, Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka over their governments, anti-apartheid sanctions, the arms embargo on China following Tiananmen '89, sanctioning Russia over Crimea etc. None of those are about self-defense or protecting foreign interests - they're all about trying to force people to behave in the way that these governments have decided they ought to behave.

I'm not saying it's only places like the US and EU who do stuff like this, but I don't agree that places like the US and EU don't.

*which I still contest

[Metsfanmax]

Even ignoring the violence of the past century and assuming that liberal countries (by which I'm guessing you mean Western countries + Japan, Korea and a few others) don't use violence against people in response to behavior they don't like*, I don't think violence is a particularly meaningful measure just by itself.

The US, EU etc. may not resort to violence as frequently as they used to, but now they just use economic and political sanctions (or threats of sanctions) instead. Threatening to withhold aid from Uganda if they passed anti-gay laws, sanctions against Fiji, Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka over their governments, anti-apartheid sanctions, the arms embargo on China following Tiananmen '89, sanctioning Russia over Crimea etc. None of those are about self-defense or protecting foreign interests - they're all about trying to force people to behave in the way that these governments have decided they ought to behave.

I'm not saying it's only places like the US and EU who do stuff like this, but I don't agree that places like the US and EU don't.

*which I still contest

Yes, I agree with that. We have largely replaced physical violence with economic and diplomatic pressure. I am advocating this as an unmistakably good thing. If the choice is between killing people to get your way and making them a little poorer, I'll choose the latter any day. It signals an important shift: it signals that to some extent we respect the autonomy of the people living in the other nations. Obviously we still believe we can try to pressure them into changing their ways, but before the liberal era began, typically your country would think of people outside of its borders as subhuman and therefore declaring war on them literally made no difference to you except through the effect it would have on your own people.

Declaring war on another country, or sanctioning them, because they mistreat their citizens would have been an unheard-of concept a few centuries ago. Why should any country waste time, energy or resources telling other people what to do if it doesn't directly benefit them? The fact that this now happens indicates a broader moral concern for the people of the world -- something that naturally goes hand-in-hand with the liberal project. I am not going to defend every specific sanction, or even sanctions in general. I am defending instead the motives. If you believe in something like human rights, it is morally unjustified of you not to do something to improve gay rights in Uganda, if there's indeed something useful you can do about it. (If you can't, then you should refrain; but that's a pragmatic question, not a philosophical one.)

I know you disdain people who aren't moral relativists (though of course I will disagree with your form of moral relativism strenuously). But you don't have to agree with our actions to understand the reason behind them.

[mrswdk]

Fair enough, but I think a real liberal would be happy to let another country run itself in its own way. In terms of level of respect being shown, I don't think replacing violent pressure with economic pressure is much of an improvement. You're still trying to force other people to conform to your idea of 'normal' or 'right', regardless of whether they share that idea or not.

I don't disdain people who believe in universal moral truths, I just resent their attempts to intrude upon my life and society.

[Metsfanmax]

Fair enough, but I think a real liberal would be happy to let another country run itself in its own way. In terms of level of respect being shown, I don't think replacing violent pressure with economic pressure is much of an improvement. You're still trying to force other people to conform to your idea of 'normal' or 'right', regardless of whether they share that idea or not.

I don't disdain people who believe in universal moral truths, I just resent their attempts to intrude upon my life and society.

I think you're not properly recognizing both the subtlety of this situation, and the related conflict of principles. Yes, absolutely part of the liberal belief is that you should leave people alone if they aren't harming you. However, consider a situation like a country that executes its homosexual residents. In general terms we have a conflict between our desire to "live and let live," and the fact that there are people out there who are not letting others do that. The principle will be violated regardless of what we do. But the subtlety arises because we can break the tie in this case. First, it's a relatively few people (those in power in the government) who are inflicting harm on others -- from a utilitarian perspective, we can do immense amount of good if we are willing to restrict the liberties of a few people. Second, and perhaps more important, even if you disagree with the utilitarian perspective, most rules-based morality frameworks would agree that the governments here are violating the moral code. When that happens, it is justified to take actions that would normally break the moral code to stop that from happening. (Hence the justification of prison even by deontologists.) This is not circular reasoning: you only attempt to restrict the liberties of people who violated these principles in an unprovoked manner on other people.

(There are plenty of examples of sanctions that ended up actually hurting the people who we were trying to protect. It goes without saying that this is tragic, and suggests that we ought to think carefully before employing this tool. Presumably the supporters of sanctions wish that it had no unintended consequences and could safely be used only to economically punish the people responsible in those governments.)

With that being said, there are plenty of people who think they are real liberals and think that liberalism demands isolationism. I am not one of them -- I think that liberalism demands interventionism, at least in principle, if you are going to be consistent with your moral code.

[WingCmdr Ginkapo]

http://softpower30.portland-communications.com/

Enjoy

[Metsfanmax]

I don't understand soft power in any way that could result in China being #30 on that list. Do you have insight as to how they generate this ranking?

[mrswdk]

Re the Uganda example: as far as I can tell the government is fairly representative of its people on that particular issue. In recent years there was a newspaper which printed photos of some gay guys on its front page in order to expose them as gays, and at least a couple of them were lynched very soon after. I've actually been to Uganda, and intolerance towards homosexuality seemed pretty deeply ingrained. I don't see what's wrong with being gay, and would rather live in a society which is open towards homosexuality, but if other people have a problem with it then I'm not going to try telling them that they should think like me.

And it's easy to talk about having moral obligations to tell other people how to behave and to intervene in the way other countries run their affairs when you are sat in the one country in the world which is least likely to ever have to put up with other people treating it in that way. If you lived in Uganda and were being bullied into following someone else's idea of morality, you might feel differently.

[WingCmdr Ginkapo]

I don't understand soft power in any way that could result in China being #30 on that list. Do you have insight as to how they generate this ranking?

It appears they only used 30 countries

[warmonger1981]

Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) study in Iraq wrote to The Lancet, the journal of the British Medical Society, asserting that sanctions were responsible for the deaths of 567,000 Iraqi children. The New York Times picked up the story and declared "Iraq Sanctions Kill Children." CBS followed up with a segment on 60 Minutes that repeated the numbers and depicted sanctions as a murderous assault on children. This was the program in which UN ambassador (and later Secretary of State) Madeleine Albright, when asked about these numbers, coldly stated, "The price is worth it."





Kissinger, Eugenics
And Depopulation
By Leuren Moret
11-20-4

Dr. Henry Kissinger, who wrote: "Depopulation should be the highest priority of U.S. foreign policy towards the Third World."

Research on population control, preventing future births, is now being carried out secretly by biotech companies. Dr. Ignacio Chapela, a University of California microbiologist, discovered that wild corn in remote parts of Mexico is contaminated with lab altered DNA. That discovery made him a threat to the biotech industry.

Chapela was denied tenure at UC Berkeley when he reported this to the scientific community, despite the embarrassing discovery that UC Chancellor Berdahl, who was denying him tenure, was getting large cash payments - $40,000 per year - from the LAM Research Corp. in Plano, Texas.

Berdahl served as president of Texas A&M University before coming to Berkeley. During a presentation about his case, Chapela revealed that a spermicidal corn developed by a U.S. company is now being tested in Mexico. Males who unknowingly eat the corn produce non-viable sperm and are unable to reproduce.

Depopulation, also known as eugenics, is quite another thing and was proposed under the Nazis during World War II. It is the deliberate killing off of large segments of living populations and was proposed for Third World countries under President Carter's administration by the National Security Council's Ad Hoc Group on Population Policy.

National Security Memo 200, dated April 24, 1974, and titled "Implications of world wide population growth for U.S. security & overseas interests," says:

"Dr. Henry Kissinger proposed in his memorandum to the NSC that "depopulation should be the highest priority of U.S. foreign policy towards the Third World." He quoted reasons of national security, and because `(t)he U.S. economy will require large and increasing amounts of minerals from abroad, especially from less-developed countries ... Wherever a lessening of population can increase the prospects for such stability, population policy becomes relevant to resources, supplies and to the economic interests of U.S.

Depopulation policy became the top priority under the NSC agenda, Club of Rome and U.S. policymakers like Gen. Alexander Haig, Cyrus Vance, Ed Muskie and Kissinger. According to an NSC spokesman at the time, the United States shared the view of former World Bank President Robert McNamara that the "population crisis" is a greater threat to U.S. national security interests than nuclear annihilation.In 1975, Henry Kissinger established a policy-planning group in the U.S. State Department's Office of Population Affairs. The depopulation "GLOBAL 2000" document for President Jimmy Carter was prepared.

It is no surprise that this policy was established under President Carter with help from Kissinger and Brzezinski - all with ties to David Rockefeller. The Bush family, the Harriman family - the Wall Street business partners of Bush in financing Hitler - and the Rockefeller family are the elite of the American eugenics movement. Even Prince Philip of Britain, a member of the Bilderberg Group, is in favor of depopulation:

"If I were reincarnated I would wish to be returned to earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels" (Prince Philip Duke of Edinburgh, leader of the World Wildlife Fund, quoted in "Are You Ready for Our New Age Future?" Insiders Report, American Policy Center, December 1995).

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has been proposing, funding and building Bio-Weapons Level 3 and Level 4 labs at many places around the U.S. even on university campuses and in densely populated urban locations. In a Bio-Weapons Level 4 facility, a single bacteria or virus is lethal. Bio-Weapons Level 4 is the highest level legally allowed in the continental U.S.

For what purpose are these labs being developed, and who will make the decisions on where bio-weapons created in these facilities will be used and on whom? More than 20 world-class microbiologists have been murdered since 2002, mostly in the U.S. and the UK. Nearly all were working on development of ethnic-specific bio-weapons (see Smart Dust, Roboflies &).

Citizens around the U.S. are frantically filing lawsuits to stop these labs on campuses and in communities where they live. Despite the opposition of residents living near UC Davis, where a Bio-Weapons Level 4 lab was planned, it had the support of the towns mayor.

She suddenly reversed her position after a monkey escaped from a high security primate facility on the campus where the bio-weapons lab was proposed. Residents claimed that if UC Davis could not keep monkeys from escaping from their cages, they certainly could not guarantee that a single virus or bacteria would not escape from a test tube. The AWOL monkey killed the project (see Smart Dust, Roboflies&).

Population is a political problem. The extreme secrecy surrounding the takeover of nuclear weapons, NASA and the space program and the development of numerous bio-weapons labs is a threat to civil society, especially in the hands of the military and corporations.

The fascist application of all three of these programs can be used to achieve established U.S. government depopulation policy goals, which may eliminate 2 billion of the worlds existing population through war, famine, disease and any other methods necessary.

Two excellent examples of existing U.S. depopulation policy are, first, the long-term impact on the civilian population from Agent Orange in Vietnam, where the Rockefellers built oil refineries and aluminum plants during the Vietnam War. The second is the permanent contamination of the Middle East and Central Asia with depleted uranium, which, unfortunately, will destroy the genetic future of the populations living in those regions and will also have a global effect already reflected in increases in infant mortality reported in the U.S., Europe, and the UK.

References

Birth defects: The Tiny Victims of Desert Storm,Life photo-essay
(1995), http://www.life.com
/Life/essay/gulfwar/gulf01.html.

Statement by Prince Philip Duke of Edinburgh,
http://homepage.mac.com
/kaaawa/iblog/C337802379/E1557478132/.

Smart dust, roboflies, microbugs: UC is spying on youby Leuren Moret,
San Francisco Bay View, Feb. 26, 2003,
http://www.mindfully.org
/Nucs/2003/Berkeley-Library-Classified22feb03.htm.

San Francisco Bay View
National Black Newspaper
4917 Third Street
San Francisco California 94124
Phone: (415) 671-0789
Fax: (415) 671-0316
editor@sfbayview.co

http://www.sfbayview.com
/110304/ucregents110304.shtml

[mrswdk]

http://softpower30.portland-communicati ... thodology/

I would guess China's big strengths lie in Enterprise and Engagement.

[Metsfanmax]

Re the Uganda example: as far as I can tell the government is fairly representative of its people on that particular issue. In recent years there was a newspaper which printed photos of some gay guys on its front page in order to expose them as gays, and at least a couple of them were lynched very soon after. I've actually been to Uganda, and intolerance towards homosexuality seemed pretty deeply ingrained. I don't see what's wrong with being gay, and would rather live in a society which is open towards homosexuality, but if other people have a problem with it then I'm not going to try telling them that they should think like me.

They don't have to think like you, they just have to not kill other people for not thinking like them as long as it doesn't materially affect them. They can believe in whatever gods they want to, engage in whatever pastimes they want to; but their right to freedom of expression and activity ends where another person's body starts.

As to the issue of the government being representative of its people. If you believe in some form of universalized rights, then you generally also believe that these cannot be legislated away through simple majority.

And it's easy to talk about having moral obligations to tell other people how to behave and to intervene in the way other countries run their affairs when you are sat in the one country in the world which is least likely to ever have to put up with other people treating it in that way. If you lived in Uganda and were being bullied into following someone else's idea of morality, you might feel differently.

Yes, it is easy. A good part of the reason why I don't have to worry about other people attacking me for the way I live is that there are few people out there that object to a country having free citizens. That freedom doesn't threaten many people other than ISIS. That is itself evidence that liberalism works.

Anyway, it may be easy to say, but that doesn't make the point wrong. I believe that what we're doing is less wrong than what Uganda is doing (on this issue), and my moral beliefs indicate to me that it would be wrong to stand by and let other people be killed for living a certain way that doesn't harm others. People in Uganda may very well disagree with me, but I have no intention of giving them a pass on killing innocent people because they do.

[WingCmdr Ginkapo]

http://softpower30.portland-communications.com/methodology/

I would guess China's big strengths lie in Enterprise and Engagement.

ranked 24th in enterprise, and 10th in engagement. Ranked 9th in Culture.

[warmonger1981]

Georgia guide Stones universal rights

Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.
Guide reproduction wisely — improving fitness and diversity.
Unite humanity with a living new language.
Rule passion — faith — tradition — and all things with tempered reason.
Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.
Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court.
Avoid petty laws and useless officials.
Balance personal rights with social duties.
Prize truth — beauty — love — seeking harmony with the infinite.
Be not a cancer on the earth — Leave room for nature — Leave room for nature.


Sound about right mets?

[Metsfanmax]

Some of that sounds like a good idea -- a working world court would be nice. But the rest I don't necessarily buy into. I'm not generally a fan of limiting reproductive rights on the basis of alleged overpopulation alone (I might be convinced of it on a eugenics basis, if that could be done in a way that avoids the obvious racism that it can lead to), nor do I particularly value nature as an external good which should be considered independently of its value to sentient beings.

[mrswdk]

They don't have to think like you, they just have to not kill other people for not thinking like them as long as it doesn't materially affect them. They can believe in whatever gods they want to, engage in whatever pastimes they want to; but their right to freedom of expression and activity ends where another person's body starts.

Says you. Plenty of people feel that they have the right (or even the duty) to enforce a certain standard of morality within their societies.

As to the issue of the government being representative of its people. If you believe in some form of universalized rights, then you generally also believe that these cannot be legislated away through simple majority.

A 'right' is a freedom or provision which everyone is entitled to by law, so a government can give and take away any right it chooses.

And it's easy to talk about having moral obligations to tell other people how to behave and to intervene in the way other countries run their affairs when you are sat in the one country in the world which is least likely to ever have to put up with other people treating it in that way. If you lived in Uganda and were being bullied into following someone else's idea of morality, you might feel differently.

Yes, it is easy. A good part of the reason why I don't have to worry about other people attacking me for the way I live is that there are few people out there that object to a country having free citizens. That freedom doesn't threaten many people other than ISIS. That is itself evidence that liberalism works.

There are plenty of people and cultures who have strong objection to various American values and freedoms. People who think tolerance of open homosexuality, alcohol consumption, letting women wear revealing clothing, giving citizens access to guns, permitting hate speech and so on are unacceptable. From what I have seen on this forum, even Europeans (the people culturally closest to Americans) tend to think the American approach to those last two are outrageous.

In their own countries they would object strongly and refuse to live under such a system. The reason they do not interfere in America is because they either have no desire to interfere in the way America organizes itself, or because they have no capacity to. It's not because the whole world thinks the American system is fantastic.

[Dukasaur]

Georgia guide Stones universal rights

Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.
Guide reproduction wisely — improving fitness and diversity.
Unite humanity with a living new language.
Rule passion — faith — tradition — and all things with tempered reason.
Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.
Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court.
Avoid petty laws and useless officials.
Balance personal rights with social duties.
Prize truth — beauty — love — seeking harmony with the infinite.
Be not a cancer on the earth — Leave room for nature — Leave room for nature.


Sound about right mets?

Wow, I'd never heard of the Georgia Guidestones until five minutes ago. Google it in response to reading this. With the exception of number 3 (which seems kind of silly) and number 2 (which I may or may not agree with depending on the exact interpretation), I can totally get behind this list. It's damn near my personal Code.

I guess for some odd reason you were producing this to taunt Mets. That shows how little you actually pay attention in this forum. Just as one for instance, Mets has strenuously disagreed with me when I've said that all problems can be traced back to overpopulation. Numbers 7 to 10 don't sound like things Mets would say either. But they do sound like things that I would say, and I'm glad to take ownership of 8 of 10 of these (all of these except #3 and maybe #2.)

So, thank you for showing me something wonderful, even if you didn't do it intentionally.

[Metsfanmax]

Says you. Plenty of people feel that they have the right (or even the duty) to enforce a certain standard of morality within their societies.

Ultimately this comes down to a description of whether you think morality can properly be relative or not. In my view, people in Uganda do not get to have a get-out-of-jail free pass to establish their own brand of morality and enact it on other people simply because those people were unlucky enough to be born within the borders of the country called Uganda.

My views on morality don't say "it's wrong to kill an innocent American." My view is that "it's wrong to kill an innocent human." (Well, innocent animals too, but that's a different thread.) Why should I be so jingoistic as to assert that the only people deserving of protection in my moral system include people who, through the lottery of birth, were born 2500 miles away from me in California but not people who were born 500 miles away from me in Canada?

A 'right' is a freedom or provision which everyone is entitled to by law, so a government can give and take away any right it chooses.

I would contrast between moral rights and legal rights. A given legal institution may or may not have a legal right corresponding to a moral right, but then that's likely an imperfection of the legal system.

There are plenty of people and cultures who have strong objection to various American values and freedoms. People who think tolerance of open homosexuality, alcohol consumption, letting women wear revealing clothing, giving citizens access to guns, permitting hate speech and so on are unacceptable. From what I have seen on this forum, even Europeans (the people culturally closest to Americans) tend to think the American approach to those last two are outrageous.

In their own countries they would object strongly and refuse to live under such a system. The reason they do not interfere in America is because they either have no desire to interfere in the way America organizes itself, or because they have no capacity to. It's not because the whole world thinks the American system is fantastic.

I'll respond to this a bit later on, it requires some careful discussion.

[warmonger1981]

I try to pay attention but can't afford it. It's hard to keep up but I try. No one knows who paid for and wrote the rules for the guide Stones. It's a conspiracy. The four outer stones are oriented to mark the limits of the 18.6 year lunar declination cycle.The center column features a hole drilled at an angle from one side to the other, through which can be seen the North Star, a star whose position changes only very gradually over time. The same pillar has a slot carved through it which is aligned with the Sun's solstices and equinoxes. A 7/8" aperture in the capstone allows a ray of sun to pass through at noon each day, shining a beam on the center stone indicating the day of the year.



The reason I posted the Kissinger stuff is because even if you keep to yourself and are poor someone still wants to kill you.

[mrswdk]

Says you. Plenty of people feel that they have the right (or even the duty) to enforce a certain standard of morality within their societies.

Ultimately this comes down to a description of whether you think morality can properly be relative or not. In my view, people in Uganda do not get to have a get-out-of-jail free pass to establish their own brand of morality and enact it on other people simply because those people were unlucky enough to be born within the borders of the country called Uganda.

I don't understand what gives you the authority to dictate morality but not them.

My views on morality don't say "it's wrong to kill an innocent American." My view is that "it's wrong to kill an innocent human." (Well, innocent animals too, but that's a different thread.) Why should I be so jingoistic as to assert that the only people deserving of protection in my moral system include people who, through the lottery of birth, were born 2500 miles away from me in California but not people who were born 500 miles away from me in Canada?

I'm not making a moral point though. I don't think people or governments have any place interfering in a society that they are not part of because a) they probably don't understand that society as well as they need to in order to make informed decisions, and b) they have no real stake in the society, and so are not making decisions that they will have to live with the consequences of. Maybe Zimbabwean people don't care as much about Mugabe as the outsider does, and maybe the people who do care would rather deal with Mugabe in a way that doesn't involve suffocating their economy. It's not a decision for an outsider to make.

Even in cases where you might think there is a 'moral duty' to help the people of a country, you have to question whether or not forcing change will ever actually work. Trying to stop communism from spreading in Vietnam and removing 'bad' governments in Iraq and Libya all left those countries significantly worse off than they were before. Putting sanctions on countries like Russia, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe has penalized all citizens of those countries for the actions of a few people in their government, and have failed to bring about any change. Interfering clearly doesn't work.

A 'right' is a freedom or provision which everyone is entitled to by law, so a government can give and take away any right it chooses.

I would contrast between moral rights and legal rights. A given legal institution may or may not have a legal right corresponding to a moral right, but then that's likely an imperfection of the legal system.

lol. Well I don't believe in moral rights, so I guess we've reached a dead end here.

There are plenty of people and cultures who have strong objection to various American values and freedoms. People who think tolerance of open homosexuality, alcohol consumption, letting women wear revealing clothing, giving citizens access to guns, permitting hate speech and so on are unacceptable. From what I have seen on this forum, even Europeans (the people culturally closest to Americans) tend to think the American approach to those last two are outrageous.

In their own countries they would object strongly and refuse to live under such a system. The reason they do not interfere in America is because they either have no desire to interfere in the way America organizes itself, or because they have no capacity to. It's not because the whole world thinks the American system is fantastic.

I'll respond to this a bit later on, it requires some careful discussion.

As you wish.

[Metsfanmax]

I don't understand what gives you the authority to dictate morality but not them.

It is not about who we are, but about whether they are expressing consistent moral norms. I contend that there is no way to universalize the set of moral norms that permits one to execute a gay man. On the contrary, when it comes to murder, the only universalizable moral norm is essentially "don't do it." They are not acting in any way that can be described as belonging to a universalizable ethical system, so it would be meaningless to try to suggest that everyone live by it -- gay people certainly couldn't live by it. On the other hand, I believe in universalizable ethics and therefore must defend them being applied universally.

In other words, if they think that everyone should be permitted to kill innocent gay people, then they need to be prepared for a world where others can say that they're permitted to kill innocent Ugandan people. They'll have no effective recourse, because the standard is not any more arbitrary. Their system cannot work. (This also effectively replies to the thing I didn't get to earlier. Intervention is justified at least in principle if you are defending universalized moral rules. National borders don't matter in that sense; your constant appeal to Europeans or Asians thinking different things from Americans is irrelevant when even Americans have widely differing moral perspectives.)

The most interesting discussion here is, I think, how much intervention is justified (assuming for the moment that you could get away with any level of intervention) to stop a particular moral transgression. As much as I think it's easy to say "none," at the same time I can't help thinking that being a good moral citizen means not standing by when heinous acts are being committed.

I'm not making a moral point though. I don't think people or governments have any place interfering in a society that they are not part of because a) they probably don't understand that society as well as they need to in order to make informed decisions, and b) they have no real stake in the society, and so are not making decisions that they will have to live with the consequences of. Maybe Zimbabwean people don't care as much about Mugabe as the outsider does, and maybe the people who do care would rather deal with Mugabe in a way that doesn't involve suffocating their economy. It's not a decision for an outsider to make.

Even in cases where you might think there is a 'moral duty' to help the people of a country, you have to question whether or not forcing change will ever actually work. Trying to stop communism from spreading in Vietnam and removing 'bad' governments in Iraq and Libya all left those countries significantly worse off than they were before. Putting sanctions on countries like Russia, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe has penalized all citizens of those countries for the actions of a few people in their government, and have failed to bring about any change. Interfering clearly doesn't work.

I accepted that there may be empirical arguments that cause us not to intervene in the affairs of other countries. However the arguments would have to take the form that we do more harm than good by intervening. "Leaving people alone" is not a valid argument in this case.

lol. Well I don't believe in moral rights, so I guess we've reached a dead end here.

Most people who are not fully sociopathic do believe in moral rights, at least instinctually. It is possible that you don't, I suppose, but I don't accept that at face value.