Politics: for what it's worth
"Though he is not as well known, Kerry would win handily if the people of the world were to elect the US president."Thanks to Steve for the link from the BBC.
Tuesday, September 14, 2004
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7 comments:
kerry would also win handily if terrorists could elect the president. the point of that inflammatory statement is that people from other countries will do what's in their best interest, and that doesn't necessarily translate to what's in this country's best interests. sure the euros want someone who will bow down to the un and kiss their unbathed ass but is that really in the best interests of the united states? putting aside whether voting for kerry would have that effect, the point is simply that world opinion on who should be US president is laughably irrelevant.
mikey!
hey, vile conservative, did you not notice how I posted this thing: "for what it's worth". I did this to immunize the post against reactionary nutjobs or inflammatory medical students. i see it failed! :0p
i disagree w/ your idea that what is best for other countries is irrelevant to the united states. that's about as big of a blanket statement as i'm going to make, but human beings are human beings, and peace is peace, and there are a few more things we have in common with the rest of the world. does that mean that this is 'relevant'? of course not. not necessarily. but if we could choose between a world of countries that dislike us and a world of countries that liked us, we'd certainly choose the latter. does that mean we should vote for kerry? nah. but does it mean the rest of the world likes kerry? sure. and that's all i was allowing for. it means a little to me. not tons. but its not absolutely absurdist to consider for a second that we as citizens of the u.s. are also members of the human race. i'm not asking for disloyaltly to the u.s., just some recognition that there is something bigger than country.
see here's the problem. for every altruistically "wider community" thinking person out there, there is a greedy SOB (that's son of a bitch, not shortness of breath) out there to exploit him. but don't get me wrong; i certainly respect someone who lives his/her life altruistically despite being vulnerable to these vultures. sometimes i admire them. but not everyone is so willing to be taken advantage of by greedy SOBs. and there's where public policy and individual decisions differ. whereas one person may willingly "think globally" in their actions at their own expense, a country's leader can't force that upon people who think differently.
personally, i think the only justifiable foreign policy is rational self-interest. that doesn't mean blind self-interest, like nuking north korea just because we feel like it and eventually setting up a bad situation in the long-run. and that also doesn't mean rational global-interest either. point is, a leader's top priority should be doing whatever is in the long-term best interests of the country, not necessarily the world, although obviously the two often (but not always) overlap.
i forgot what my point was... i think it was... vote for bush if you're not a terrorist.
mikey!
i can handle rational self-interest, but I think you point out my point, that there is large overlap between the world and the most powerful country in that world. for example, negotiating peace between Israel and Palestine would be in the interests of the US, since those who believe the US acts unilaterally and the terrorist population also have some significant overlap. That's a pretty juvenile and poorly written point in a way, but I think I would be hard pressed to think of too many situations in which the US and the world would not benefit from similar policy. They exist, sure: Nafta comes immediately to mind, depending on which angle you approach it from (and there are many). But, say, the Iraq war? I don't think that war was in our interest. I don't think it was in the world's interest. So at least we're consistent there.
After reading my last response, besides realizing I'm too tired to type anything sensical, I realized this. The priorities of the left (what we consider to be in the US's best interest) pretty often coincide w/ what might be deemed the "world's" interest--or at least the interest of the EU. Not BECAUSE those are the world's interest, but partially because we just happen to agree with them, and partially because we see cooperation among nations to be valuable towards reaching goals of self-interest. I don't think this is altruistic at all, and probably shouldn't be viewed that way.
Think of it this way: is a point guard who gets 15 assists and 5 points a game a selfish player? I say so, because the guy wants to win, and that is something of self-interest. He knows that if he takes 20 shots, his team will lose. So how can we say that him being a ball hog would represent him being selfish, if he's working against his own self-interest?
So basically, the Pistons are communists and Tracy McGrady is Karl Rove. You follow?
which one is kobe bryant?
go lakers!
mikey!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111twothree
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