A chance encounter at the beach

[mqbush]

If Icelanders put pasty-faced pundits on TV to loudly decide which countries will be allowed to grow their ethnic foods and which countries will be denied nuclear technology,-if Icelanders paid newspapers to print editorials saying that old people have no right to collect Social Security checks when the warriors, military and financial, NEED that money to do God’s work,-if Icelanders did this, or Lithuanians, or Guatemalans, we would snort in derision. But when Americans do this, it seems the natural order of things. It seems that we Americans are simply doing our just duty by deciding who in the world shall live and who shall die, what country will be blockaded and sanctioned and called evil, and which country will be lavished with tanker-loads of taxpayer dollars. It’s dirty work, but somebody’s gotta do it, right?

How are we qualified for the job? Maybe because we are unique in having democracy in a Commie world of dictatorships we earn a special dispensation from criticism? Well, no, because 85% of the world’s countries these days also have democratic structures of some kind. What, then, is the source of our presumptuousness? Uh oh, it wouldn’t be our money and our military, would it? Money is power and might makes right? Oy ve. I was hoping for a more meaningful legitimacy. It means we’re the bully on the beach who kicks sand in someone’s face because he can, then has a steroids-induced heart attack, and finds that the EMS guy can’t save him because he’s still rubbing sand from his eyes.

[magellan]

1. That's all there is to Empire

It's not about legitimate right to lord it over everyone else. It's about being big and ugly enough to tell everyone else you're in charge and back it up with assassination, coups and unfettered military might. The longer it goes on the further the move away from democracy.

And in the end it always comes down to "the bigger they are, the harder they fall".

[SammyWinstonJack]

2. "Spreading democracy" just means looting the taxpayers for war profits.

And looting the people of the countries we decide to occupy. Ain't we a great and wonderful country? :puke:

[sinkingfeeling]

3. The source: the most expensive military in history! It's all for the empire, baby!