Funny you should mention this. When I bring up the general flaws in Chomsky's arguments his supporters go ape****. His general flaw being that he begs the question in nearly every argument he makes....He views everything the U.S. does in a negative light, then says "see, it's negative!" Not my cup of tea. Preaching to the choir has its place, as the rabid Chomskyites demonstrate, but it's not especially convincing to more discerning readers.
Nick, East Timor is a rotten example. What you've got there is a not terribly well verified account of "U.S. involvement," in covert operations, etc. Even if the accusation(s) turns out to be true, it is a far cry from the systematic destruction of a language, culture and social/ethnic identity, which the PRC has tried to do/is doing to Tibet. A plain on its face fact of the PRC is that if you are not Han Chinese, you will surrender your identity or suffer the (discriminatory, and often violent) consequences. The Hakka, Uigher and Tibetans are three examples that come to mind immediately...
IMO, you are comparing apples and oranges.
The simple fact of the matter is this: Just because a policy is something you or I consider ill-advised does not make it de facto capitalist/imperialist. The moniker imperialism is thrown about with a sort of cavalier aplomb I find ridiculous. It's a favorite term of people who don't think very hard about what they are saying - like "liberal" being a dirty word. An empire has a specific meaning - a vast swath of extra-territorial political units governed by a central power, usually with little representative input from the governed units themselves.
When anybody can point to the permanent U.S. governors-general installed in places around the world, or serious steps in that direction, I'll be the first to denounce the policy/practice as imperial. Until then, policies are merely ill-advised, or perhaps abuses of U.S. power.
However, at the core of many disagreements, especially with European types, is, IMO, a difference in the view of human history between them. Europeans have a much longer history, and the view of human history (including that unwritten) and human nature is, quite frankly, cynical. They are forever searching for the basest of human motives behind every action. It's as if they shoot low so they won't be disappointed.
De Tocqueville (sp?) I believe was the first to note "American Exceptionalism," in the form of inherent optimism about human history. You can see it is Reagan's "Shining City on the Hill," Kennedy's Camelot (the idealized version), etc. As a whole, Americans genuinely believe in the power of man to make the world a better place, and we genuinely believe that the things we stand for will help that happen, even if we muddle along to get there. We trust to time, and to the nature of man even if we **** up on the way.
Paraphrasing Churchill, we Americans do usually make the right decision in the end, right after we've made all the wrong ones. We persevere not because we believe the bad times will end, but because good ones are coming. There is a distinct difference in mindset there. Americans have faith in the future and in our collective ability to create a great one - and most importantly, we tend to believe this WITHOUT an enemy referent. We don't need or desire a diametrically opposed ideology/opponent to create it. Naive - perhaps. But cynicism and blame-spreading never built anything positive.
Yeah, I'm an unapologetic patriot - but not a blind one. I do believe that the United States is a reliable, consistent force for goodness and decency in the world - but not always and not everywhere. But you don't judge a person by the individual events - rather by the totality of their actions. On the whole, history reflects positively on the United States - as opposed to, say, the PRC, or the USSR.
Unfortunately, I think the concept has grown beyond that and some - especially the neo-con movement, would argue that it is our job to aggressively spread and enforce! peculiarly U.S. notions of right and wrong, rather than promote freedom and human rights using all aspects of U.S. power and influence (a decidedly different doctrine than the neo-con agenda).
The pendulum here is swinging again though, and competence is all of a sudden in vogue as a political necessity. The current scandals in the Republican party have hurt the Neo-con faction and there is dissent among the moral and fiscal conservatives. They will be weakened in 2008, barring a major event of some kind to offset that.
"In the world of martial arts, respect is often a given. In the real world, it must be earned."
"A stupid man's report of what a clever man says is never accurate because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand. "--Bertrand Russell
"Liberals - Cosmopolitan critics, men who are the friends of every country save their own. "--Benjamin Disraeli
"A conservative government is an organised hypocrisy."--Benjamin Disraeli
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Originally Posted by cam
