International Laws are outmoded relics of the 20th century.
You couldn't be more wrong.
The reason we don't have wars between major powers anymore is because we are all part of the same interconnected global economy. The reason we're able to have an interconnected global economy at all (which, of course, is a necessary prerequisite for the economic expansion you're talking about) is because we have international laws. No corporation, no business venture of any kind is going to expand overseas unless it knows with reasonable certainty that contracts it signs in other countries will be enforced, personnel it sends overseas will be entitled to due process, etc etc. Globalization of the economy is primarily hampered by the existence of areas where the rule of law is too shaky to permit all but the most tentative and wildly speculative investment.
The growth of international trade* is directly proportional to and dependent on the universal applicability and power of international law.
There are no nice guys in geopolitics.
That's increasingly untrue. Most other major powers have understood that their own prosperity depends on the development of the international system. They try to jockey for position within that system, and are as fully capable of playing hardball as anyone else, but pretty much everyone but the US has seen by now that there is no agenda item of supposed national interest which trumps the value of the continuing stability and expansion of the international system.
The US, on the other hand, screams holy hell about international law when the law works for them, then screams holy hell about sovereignty when it doesn't. Pretty much everyone else knows that you can't have it both ways, is sick of the US trying to do so, and is doing its best to isolate us so we can't do any more damage than we already will when our economy collapses in the next two or three decades.
America has to look out for her own citizens, even if it means walking roughshod all over theother countries of the world.
The idea that America is actually looking out for its citizens with its current actions is naive to the point of being ludicrous. There is no short-term goal worth alienating the rest of the world over. The short-sightedness of your approach is not in the long-term best interests of the US or its people, and it is certainly not worth more than the alliances and international institutions this administration so gleefully trashes.
To be more to the point: American exceptionalism is an albatross around this country's neck. Anything that promotes a belief that the US should be above the law or should aggressively pursue its own perceived short-term interests at any cost is another nail in the coffin of this country.
To people who say that I'm a facist pig/uneducated inbred hick/FOX news propaganda whore/whatever: This is in a sense a disclaimer. I came to this thread, a thread on a very contentious issue, and the only debate was about how outrageous the administration was, and how long it would take before they turned the US into a fascist police state. I'm saying what I am in this thread not because I actually believe all of it, but rather, in order to prompt discussion, and let people know that there are other valid viewpoints on the issue.
With all due respect, there really aren't. In order to share a common community, a group of people needs to share at least a few core values and long-term goals. They need to share a common vision of what their shared society should be. Everything outside those core values should be up for general discussion and debate, but certain things need to be off the table for people to have enough in common to actually make a society function coherently.
An example of such a core belief might be at least a token commitment to racial equality. I think that most of us would agree that if a Congressman were to launch into a rant about the African-American urban poor on the House floor, using racial slurs and citing discredited pseudoscientific beliefs (like phrenology or Nazi race biology) to back up their arguments, people of all political parties would and should simply expect him to step down, and wouldn't dignify comments about how the sloping forehead of the Negro male indicates a predispostion towards violent crime with a specific refutation. It would simply be understood that no sane, rational, decent person is expected to take such arguments seriously, that they are unnacceptable in serious public discourse, and that people sincerely espousing them are unfit for public office.
I would submit that this administration's policies are in that league. It has been so far outside the range of what should be acceptable in a modern democracy, on so many counts, for such a long time, and with such obvious contempt for everything that theoretically makes our society prosperous, decent, and free, that overall support for its policies, especially with regard to foreign policy and civil liberties, puts your argument so far outside the realm of any moral system or understanding of reality that is compatible with a functioning modern democracy that no serious person is obligated to consider your position valid.
Furthermore, I would go so far as to say that anyone who supports the Bush administration's overall philosophy (again, esp. on foreign policy and civil liberties) is pretty much by definition either ignorant, immoral, or some combination thereof.
There are definitely many, many issues on which intelligent people of good conscience can have sincere and passionate disagreements. This is not one of them, any more than the theory of the geocentric solar system is an issue which intelligent and educated people can sincerely disagree about. If it's not blindingly obvious to you that the Bush administration is not only a seething hive of war criminals, fanatics, and crypto-fascists, but that it's also sending the US speeding headlong towards its own destruction, then you are either stupid or evil, and if someone treats you accordingly, you have no one to blame but yourself.
* Which both you and I seem to agree is overall a positive thing, a position we share about an issue of crucial importance that others on this board do not. Please consider that when you try to paint yourself as the freethinking rebel against the stifling orthodoxy of the 'Lith, mmmkay? |
