On 5/11/05, Dan Minette <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Warren Ockrassa" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <brin-l@mccmedia.com> > Sent: Wednesday, May 11, 2005 4:22 PM > Subject: Re: Br!n: Re: more neocons > > > On May 11, 2005, at 2:06 PM, Dan Minette wrote: > > > > > From: "Warren Ockrassa" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > > >> On May 11, 2005, at 10:15 AM, Ronn!Blankenship wrote: > > >> > > >>> I just wonder what can be done to solve the plight of those millions > > >>> of human beings > > >> > > >> Nothing.
Quite a bit. > > > [...] > > > > > But, it has worked a number of times, as well as not having worked a > > > number > > > of times. > > > > Has it? Apart from Germany and Japan post WWII, when in the history of > > the US have we been successful in installing a democratic model of > > government in any nation? (I'm really asking; I might well have > > forgotten some things!) > > Well, there's the Phillipeans, Tawain, and South Korea, and Panama, to > name > countries outside of Europe. The Philippines, Taiwan , South Korea and Panama are not examples of the US promoting democracy. For many long decades they were examples of the US propping up dictatorships Germany and Japan were the examples of the US promoting democracy. This was in large measure due to the constitutions put in place. > > Western Europe and Japan are classic examples of this. > > > > Japan was beaten. Much of Western Europe was already skewing democratic > > pre WWII. > > Well, let's look at the larger countries. Italy was first a monarchy and > then Facist before WWII, there was only a brief democracy in Germany > before > the Facists came. Since the US didn't control Spain, it took decades for > that country to become a democracy. Austria was part of Germany before > WWII started. I think that democracy on mainland Europe can best be seen > as a recent experiment with results that were mixed, at best. > > >And we had the backing of the rest of the allied forces in > > both cases (post-Nazi Germany, post-imperial Japan) to help us. > > I think Japan was a solo show. Britian helped a little in Europe, but that > was about it. > > > Times were probably a bit simpler as well. There were no pro-Nazi or > > pro-Hirohito terrorist training camps; the context and the nature of > > the enemy have both changed considerably in the last six decades. > > But, there were pro-Nazi terrorists for a couple of years. We had a lot > tighter control there than in Iraq, so I don't think they could hide a > camp, but there were terrorists. Actually a review of the occupation history shows almost no terrorist activity. There were no US military deaths after the war in Germany due to terrorists. > Influence is a far cry from direct frontal assault. > > It is. But, one question I asked myself is whether our willingness to > directly assult a dictator in Panama increased our influence in getting > other dictators to retire elsewhere in Latin America. We propped up, supported and paid a dictator in Panama. When he began not following orders Reagan ordered him removed. There may have been an indirect influence in promoting democracy as older dictators in Latin America saw there were limits to their power. >And it is not our > > responsibility to "fix" the world, particularly as there are still many > > parts of it that don't *want* our kind of fixing in the first place. > > Well, we know that the governments would like things to stay as they will. > How do we know that people don't want to vote if they can't? > > > > Leaving aside that it's literally practically impossible to change the > > world, > > But, we can act in a way that has tremendous influence on the world. > > >what right have we to force a democratic, nominally atheistic > > government on, say, Saudi Arabia, which is a theocracy (essentially) > > steeped in Islamic literalism? Would it be any different from, for > > instance, forcing the Amish to accept the Internet? (On an ethical > > level, I mean.) > > How do we know what the average person in Saudi Arabia wants if they don't > get to voice their views. I think that there is very significant evidence > that the Shiites and the Kurds favor representative government. Yes, we > ran the election, but we didn't force >75% of the people in those areas to > vote. The Sunnis appear to want to go back to the good old days when they > were in charge. How that plays out will be critical to the future of Iraq. > > Giving the people a chance to choose their government, and to throw the > rascals out a few years later if they don't like what they did doesn't > seem > like forcing things on people. I'd guess that many countries in the > Mid-East would not have the church/state separation of the US. That's OK. > The only possible way we could be forcing things on a people is if we > insisted on minority rights. > > I guess one of the questions that is under debate is whether > representative > government was just first developed in the West (in the US to be specific) > or if the desire for representative government is an artifact of Western > Civilization, with many other people preferring dictatorships, monarchies, > oligarchies, etc. I, as you could guess, would argue for the former. > > Dan M. There is an interesting Turtledove short, one of his best, where the Greeks were conquered by Persia and generations later a historian is trying to discover who their rulers were and what was all these records of them counting to make decisions. I thought this was one of the best alternate histories. -- Gary Denton Easter Lemming Blogs http://elemming.blogspot.com http://elemming2.blogspot.com _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
