Michael addressed some of the points that I would make regarding the UN. As far as the thought regarding the US and its role in the world, however, let me ask you this...Do you think that it is fair for the US taxpayer to subsidize all of these other tasks and assume the responsibility from all of these other countries? In my opinion, I would rather pull back and let others share the burden of being a world citizen.
If other nations want to start taking a part, feel free... read my previous post, should be just above this.
Nasty stuff, actually. I feel sad that they were forced to make that sacrifice.
If all the other kids in the global sandbox decide to play nicely, I would agree! The world was under attack by evil men with evil intentions. Laying back, letting Pearl Harbor slip by and letting Europe fall under the hands of hte Nazi's is NOT the right solution. Sitting back and letting evil men with evil intentions destroy national landmarks, kill our civilians in NY and DC is NOT the right solution. Sorry, I'm not willing to let that happen, and I am thankful our national leaders are not either. We can argue about the methods, but if you argue that we should lay back and let tyrants dominate our lives and country, we have some SERIOUS issues.
I believe that the current "threat" is largely self-inflicted. I believe that the best solution is political and not martial. I think that we can largely diffuse the anger against our country by changing what we are doing at home.
I do not believe the current war in Iraq or in Afghanistan is going to ultimately protect our country. I do not believe that either of those military actions were designed to protect this country. I think that the "War on Terror" is actually a war to maintain or hegemony throughout the world and I would vote for any candidate that would extract us from this mess as quickly as possible.
Once they start blowing up our civilians, I start to differ about the political process. Does not sound like they are interested in sitting down and negotiating.
Ben is thinking much how I think, but I would go much further. I think that cutting military spending down to levels that are competitive with other countries is entirely appropriate. We lose so much be having the priorities that we do.
Take a look at my signature.
Again, those countries are not living up to what we are doing. You want them to take a bigger part in the global scale? OK, but they need to up their expenditures. I'm guessing thats not on their agenda.
There are many ways to reach out to the rest of our global citizens. It bothers me that our country is only really prepared to do so militarily. I would change that if I could.
Politics is a nice way to reach out, I'll agree. Military solutions are the last resort, but are NOT to be rules out, especially when faced with imminant danger (Nazism, Fundamental Islamics, etc)
IMHO, disbanding the professional standing army would probably be the type of tax cut that would make the most difference in our lives. I view it as a drain on our national wealth and a grand mis-allocation of our resources.
We could do so much better, IMHO.
We could, if we lived ina perfect world..
Why do you train in martial arts? Alot of people train for self defense. You spend alot of money training. Lets say you go to a bar and a fight starts. You start kicking butt, because you have spent alot of time and money training, becoming the best you can be. Would you call this unjust because everyone else in the bar has not spent the amount of money you have, or spent the time to dedicate themselves to self-defense? Hardly...
So, whats the difference at the global level? Is our nation not doing the same thing? You are not running around the office beating up people with your new found and finely honed skills, but you are likely to defend yourself if the situation arises, or if your family/friends are threatened. Is this not the same thing?
Instead of lowering yourself to the training of the common man, I appaud you for doing so well! If you win a fight, I'd say "good job!", assuming it was just (which can be argued one way or the other of course, but thats a different issue).
I'll look when I get done with this chunk of work (ie next week hopefully).
