What the world thinks of America

[chen zhen]

Yes. But no-one generalizes other people more than americans. Ironic, huh?

[Okami]

The ideal of American policy being militaristic is from the editorial of the book.

I will find that book, doggonit!

If I do, I will read it and try to give a better analysis.

As for the US bailing out European countries, I never meant to throw that into the ring. It is the case that some problems in the European community cannot be solved by diplomatic means. Sometimes ya just gotta fight.

Plato made a good argument against "might makes right", but in reality, the guy with the gun is usually in charge if he wants to be.
Not that it is right for the guy with the gun to be in charge or that the guy with the gun is the best man for the job. It's just that he weilds the physical power.

I find this upsetting at work myself.
I could kick my boss's butt anytime I want to, but would it do any good? In a system that allows me to kill him, yes. But in our current system the law of the land would make me the looser even though I am stronger.
What makes the international situation different is that the holder of the power can overpower the law of the land.

[Marky]

"But no-one generalizes other people more than americans. Ironic, huh?"

So you're stereotyping most Americans as stereotypers? Now THAT'S ironic!

[chen zhen]

We can go on and on about this...

[Marky]

whoa..... that's deep man =)

[The Willow Sword]

Well i, for one, dont give a good god Da@n What any other country thinks of america.

they are just jealous,,those foreign trash

those smelly french and dirty spanish,,,those dumb f#ck germans and those third world middle eastern rag head camel fuggers.
AMERICA IS THE BEST WERE NUMBER ONE. EVERYONE SHOULD SPEAK ENGLISH,,and if they dont theyre INFERIOR.. INFERIOR i tellya,,,.


ok aside from making fun of the patriotic all american racist rhetoric i see and hear all the time.
i think it is sad that our foreign policy is what it is.

the PEOPLE or at least a good bit of them are NOT what thier governments' mentality is. its like that everywhere really.

our media is real fuc$ed up,,,i dont like em one bit. freedom of press is one thing that should be re-done and regulated.
how many more times do i have to hear or read about some person getting shot or a rape or some bullsh!t war that we shouldnt even be getting invloved in ie:middle east.

MRTWS

[Christopher M]

Originally posted by The Willow Sword
freedom of press is one thing that should be re-done and regulated.

I assume you mean here, "I oppose freedom of press." It's oddly phrased; best to call a spade a spade. What I'm curious about though, is this: I believe your problem with the American media is it's bias towards the American government's perspective. That said, how will state control of the media (regulation) offer a solution? Isn't that just enforcing the very problem you have in the first place?

Originally posted by Okami
The ideal of American policy being militaristic is from the editorial of the book.

I understand, but I'm not sure how this changes my critique. Surely it should still stand?

From your "might makes right" discussion, it seems like you're still assuming (a priori) this premise is correct and looking for elaborations of it; whereas, again, I believe I've offered some fairly substantive reasoning as to why it's not.

[Okami]

I don't disagree that the premise may be correct. It is just that it is not my premise.

We could examine the American vs Euopean policies as an Agressive vs Passive argument, or even in kung fu terms, external vs internal.

I don't think these general terms are adequate to faithfully discuss the issue, but they might provide an interesting starting point.

One way to look at this is to examine a problem. Any problem. How does one policy/ideal solve/deal with/resolve the problem. Both are effective in their own way, but the issue here seems to be with the means not the end.

Or perhaps it is the end that we need to examine. Maybe the "desired end state" of each policy/ideal and what means are they each prepared to utilize to acheive this end?

Wow, I must have eaten my philosopher cheerios this morning.

[Christopher M]

This is what I'm confused about... you just wrote a whole post wondering about how to categorize the differences of two things, or how to explain the differences between them. What I'm saying is, what makes you think there's any differences to begin with?

[Serpent]

Originally posted by Christopher M
This is what I'm confused about... you just wrote a whole post wondering about how to categorize the differences of two things, or how to explain the differences between them. What I'm saying is, what makes you think there's any differences to begin with?

What makes you think there's not?

List your position succinctly (instead of picking apart people's posts) and people can respond to that.

[Christopher M]

I did. It was my very first post on the topic. My first post of last page. No one has responded yet.

[Serpent]

This one?

Originally posted by Christopher M


It seems like you've made a premise in your post: that American post-coldwar foreign policy is primarily militaristic, while that of Europe is diplomatic. You then consider contexts and observations to explain and elaborate upon this premise.

Well... have you considered that this premise itself is flawed?

Why might this be a possibility?

First we should consider the broader historical context. While you've limited your argument to the post-coldwar period, are you sure this is reasonable? Before this period, the history is dramatically against your position: consider European colonialism and the world wars. Considering the systematic, extreme, and long-standing discrepency between history and your position here, do you truly feel warranted in dismissing it after a single decade?

And is there even any reason, within this post-coldwar decade itself, to believe this history should be rejected?

How do you rationalize your position with the post-coldwar conflict in Yugoslavia? There are also other, albeit less obvious examples, of post-coldwar conflict internal to Europe, such as in the Czech Republic and Hungary.

Even if you limit the argument to some conception of "western" Europe, there are still significant problems to overcome. France is the world's largest arms dealer per capita; shouldn't this be considered? And they continue to enact military intervention around the world: classic examples would be ongoing French deployment in Chad and the Ivory Coast.

If you would like more examples, ask. But I believe that under the weight of this evidence, we must consider your original premise to be flawed. There's no reason to believe in the first place that Europe has distinguished itself for it's non-militarism.

[Christopher M]

That's the one.

[Okami]

Sorry if I missed the point of your question.

About differences.

In the case of Europe vs US there seems to be some kind of struggle going on. I am not sure if it is a struggle to be the global power, or the struggle to keep the other from being a global power, or something totally different. But when we are faced with two entities that are opposed ( even idealistically) there has to be a difference between the two to create the opposition.

Or you could follow the Parmenidean idea that all is one and the only thing that can exist is that which is. That which is not cannot exist so we can't talk about it. Therefore nothing is different.

Heraclitus teaches us the total opposite.

Plato studied both of these guys and tried to blend the unmoving/unchanging sameness in his world of Forms while the physical world changed.

Here I go again off on an ancient philosophy tangent.

Back to your question. I'll tackle one part tonight.
You state that looking pre-cold war Europe has not shown itself to be non-militaristic, and the argument posed in my post was impotent if the pre cold war history was examined.

Let me hit it with a different technique.
The history of either the US or Europe is irrelevent. What we are doing now is the point. When talking about the cold war policy, I was making a reference to a type of policy that is similar to one of the policies I was talking about. The policy during the cold war is not important, it was just an analogy or model.

What the groups are doing today are in opposition with diplomatic vs active intervention policys are the reason for the friction between Europe and the US.

I am bad for using historical examples and not indicating that they are not relavent to the discussion.

[Christopher M]

Originally posted by Okami
Back to your question. I'll tackle one part tonight.

Are you going to tackle the other part? Doesn't seem like any challenge to my remarks without it, is all...