Is it time for "the west" to accept responsibility

[ScottSA]

And even more importantly, the problem and the market.

Of course for guys like you, M.Dancer, little brown people are cheap labour.

You should take a trip out there, M.Dancer. Try to stay out of Ermita, will you? IRRI is in Los Banos.

Stop spamming or I'll report you. We've all stopped laughing now and have moved on to grownup subjects.

[Higgly]

Stop spamming or I'll report you. We've all stopped laughing now and have moved on to grownup subjects.

One day it's trolling, the next day it's spamming . Don't go away mad Scott...

[Sulaco]

Here's the Wikipedia definition. Of course, there's always the Fiddler on the Roof version you can get from guys like JBG.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neocon

Did you know that Jews invented the wheel, too? Anybody heard from Ann Coulter lately?

Oh - I don't click on links to external sites.

I was hoping for a definition from you. Perhaps with citation to a footnoted academic source.

[Higgly]

Oh - I don't click on links to external sites.

Hoisted by my own petard. All right. Here's the executive summary from the Wikipedia article.

Neoconservatism is the political philosophy that emerged in rejection of liberalism and the New Left counter-culture of the 1960s. It was formulated in the 1950s, achieved its first victory in Barry Goldwater's nomination as the Republican presidential candidate in 1964,[1][2], and coalesced in the 1970s.

It influenced the Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and the George W. Bush presidential administrations, representing the re-alignment in American politics, and the defection, of "an important and highly articulate group of liberals to the other side."[3] Because neoconservatives know liberalism, they could criticize it more effectively than previous conservative generations. One accomplishment was "to make criticism from the Right acceptable in the intellectual, artistic, and journalistic circles where conservatives had long been regarded with suspicion."[3]

As a term, neoconservative first was used derisively by democratic socialist Michael Harrington to identify a group of people (who called themselves liberal) as newly conservative ex-liberals. The term stuck, because it is accurate and because neoconservatives accepted that they are conservative.[4]

The idea that Liberalism "no longer knew what it was talking about" is Neoconservatism's central theme.[5] By the 1980s, being considered a conservative was no longer a cultural insult.[4]

The etymology of this conservatism is based on the work and thought of Irving Kristol, co-founder of Encounter magazine, and of its editor (1953–58),[6] Norman Podhoretz,[7] and others who described themselves as "neoconservatives" during the Cold War.

Prominent neoconservatives are associated with periodicals such as Commentary and The Weekly Standard, and with foreign policy initiatives of think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA).

Neoconservative journalists, policy analysts, and politicians, are often dubbed "neocons" by supporters and critics alike; however, in general, the movement's critics use the term more often than their supporters.[8][9]

If you want academic references, look at the Wikipedia article or just use Google.

[ScottSA]

Hoisted by my own petard.

I think you're being overkind to yourself. You seem to spend most of your time being drug behind a pickup truck by your own petard.

[Higgly]

I think you're being overkind to yourself. You seem to spend most of your time being drug behind a pickup truck by your own petard.

If you say so. But thanks for not name calling . That would be dragged, though, would it not?

Edited September 27, 2007 by Higgly

[ScottSA]

If you say so. But thanks for not name calling . That would be dragged, though, would it not?

Actually no, little cheerleader. It would be drug, in keeping with the players of the sport. Don't you have something else to do, like play with a hand grenade or something?

[JB Globe]

The "playing field" was never meant to be fair....agriculture subsidies are just one of the competitive tools/advantages used by dominant economies intent on staying that way.

If that's the case, than the amount of rhetoric spewed about "free markets" in relation to the actual freedom of those markets is horribly lop-sidded.

And really, if it is truly a case of economic Darwinism, where the have-nots are never going to have a chance to rise out of the gutter, that opens the door to a lot of other nasty tactics (see: terrorism) that the most desperate can use to affect change in their lives. After all, economics is a life and death issue in these places - keeping poor countries poor kills people - if that's actually what's happening (as you say it is) you can't argue in these circumstances that it's wrong to engage in violent tactics to achieve your goals.

[ScottSA]

If that's the case, than the amount of rhetoric spewed about "free markets" in relation to the actual freedom of those markets is horribly lop-sidded.

And really, if it is truly a case of economic Darwinism, where the have-nots are never going to have a chance to rise out of the gutter, that opens the door to a lot of other nasty tactics (see: terrorism) that the most desperate can use to affect change in their lives. After all, economics is a life and death issue in these places - keeping poor countries poor kills people - if that's actually what's happening (as you say it is) you can't argue in these circumstances that it's wrong to engage in violent tactics to achieve your goals.

I suggest the solution is to take back all our inventions, all our aid, all our books and the knowledge that came from them, and certainly all our industry, and leave them to frolic in the sylvan bliss of a world free from the *intoning reverberation* the "White Man".

[bush_cheney2004]

If that's the case, than the amount of rhetoric spewed about "free markets" in relation to the actual freedom of those markets is horribly lop-sidded.

Don't confuse rhetoric with reality. Competition is as free as it gets.

And really, if it is truly a case of economic Darwinism, where the have-nots are never going to have a chance to rise out of the gutter, that opens the door to a lot of other nasty tactics (see: terrorism) that the most desperate can use to affect change in their lives. After all, economics is a life and death issue in these places - keeping poor countries poor kills people - if that's actually what's happening (as you say it is) you can't argue in these circumstances that it's wrong to engage in violent tactics to achieve your goals.

I think you have fallen into your own trap....billions flow to the lands of these future "terrorists"....once "invaded", even the American garbage dumps are gold mines. Violent "tactics" are neither new or remarkable.

[JB Globe]

I suggest the solution is to take back all our inventions, all our aid, all our books and the knowledge that came from them, and certainly all our industry, and leave them to frolic in the sylvan bliss of a world free from the *intoning reverberation* the "White Man".

Who is saying that's what they want though? I don't recall any leader of a developing nation trying to send back their rail network, for example.

And what where does this notion come from that the West is responsible for all the good things in post-colonial developing nations but none of the bad things - those are always the fault of the indigenous population. It doesn't make sense - if you're going to claim India owes the British for building railroads, you also have to claim that Britain owes India for sucking hundreds of billions of dollars out of the country and leaving it in a miserable state.

I just think it's a convenient position for people who seem to be unable to admit that yes - Western nations are partly responsible for the situation the developing world finds itself in.

And for the record, no one here is saying folks in developing nations aren't partially responsible as well - the thing is I'm not a citizen of a developing nation, it's not my house to get in order. The house that I live in is Canada and we're mucking things up in our own way using food subsidies (which I mentioned before). I can affect change here directly, I can't do that for Burkina Faso, which is why I'm more concerned with what we're doing than what they're doing.

Why are people unable to look at world issues like this without using a polarized worldview where there's a good guy and a bad guy (in your case, West - good guy, Developing world - bad guy) - surely you don't honestly believe the world is that simple a place to understand and order?

[JB Globe]

Don't confuse rhetoric with reality. Competition is as free as it gets.

Unfair competition isn't though. Even when Liberal Economics first emerged in Britain, the same rules applied to everyone - you didn't for example, have one group of capitalists who were able to say, invest in whatever they wanted, and another group who had restrictions on what they could invest in - thus making it impossible for them to compete with the other group.

There's nothing "free" about that - that's just Imperialism masquerading as free-market capitalism.

And frankly - ACTUAL free and fair trade would be more beneficial to the developing world than development aid would be. And in fact, that's what the developing world wants more - is free and fair trade rather than aid - they want to work for their future.

I think you have fallen into your own trap....billions flow to the lands of these future "terrorists"....once "invaded"

That's not the whole story, though. Although billions may for example, collectively be spent on Africa as a whole - those billions are eclipsed by the amount of money the West spends on agricultural subsidies, which as I explained before are probably the single biggest cause of poverty in Africa.

So really, you can't claim you're spending billions to alleviate poverty in Africa if at the same time your one of the the main contributors to that poverty with your economic policy. Aid is really nothing more than a way for Western governments to smokescreen their responsibility for poverty and let the leaders be able to sleep at night.

In addition, although the existence of many corrupt and oppressive regimes is obviously partially the fault of folks living in those nations, for not doing enough to get rid of them - it's also partially our fault. We criticize China for example, for following a foreign policy of "business only" and supporting folks like Mugabe in Zimbabawe, and Burma's junta - but for all the criticism Western nations aren't really much better - we have no problem supporting a corrupt regime, or even interfering in the self-determination of a nation if it means more dough for us.

Of course, this routinely ends up bitting us in the ass when folks in those nations eventually do get around to getting things in order and booting out the bad regime (see: Iran, Venezuela, Bolivia) or engage in insurgencies that disrupt our economic interests.

[Michael Hardner]

those are always the fault of the indigenous population.

JB,

I would say the idea of attributing 'fault' to large groups is a mistake in any case. Individuals are responsible for their actions, but I'm not responsible for the actions of other Canadians, males, Catholics or humans.

[JB Globe]

JB,

I would say the idea of attributing 'fault' to large groups is a mistake in any case. Individuals are responsible for their actions, but I'm not responsible for the actions of other Canadians, males, Catholics or humans.

Clarification - I wasn't saying that, I was summarizing what I believed to be what ScottSA was saying.

I agree with you and find it incredibly lazy when people make gross generalizations about complex issues and lay the blame or praise on one side.

[Sulaco]

JB,

I would say the idea of attributing 'fault' to large groups is a mistake in any case. Individuals are responsible for their actions, but I'm not responsible for the actions of other Canadians, males, Catholics or humans.

That is not entirely correct. One doesn't get to engage in societal behaviors and take advantage of their fruitand then disclaim all responsibility for the actions of others in the vartious groupings one participates in. The question in my view is how far does that responsibility go, and what conseqences are permissible. Does collective responsibility permit collective punishment and if so to what extent.

Ultimately, one of the few defences of terrorism that has any feet, is that which is based on concepts of collective responsibility. Thus while I decry obvious terrorism - pure targetting of civilians for the sake of political results - there are many more nuances positions between such activity and the decision of two armies to meet on a battlefield far from civilian populations.

Edited September 28, 2007 by Sulaco

[ScottSA]

Clarification - I wasn't saying that, I was summarizing what I believed to be what ScottSA was saying.

I agree with you and find it incredibly lazy when people make gross generalizations about complex issues and lay the blame or praise on one side.

You seem ill equipped to "summarize what ScottSA is saying." I find that not uncommon among lefties. They seem to lack the critical faculties to understand basic text, much less nuances.

[jbg]

Who is saying that's what they want though? I don't recall any leader of a developing nation trying to send back their rail network, for example.

No, but they refuse to spend money given to them as aid to maintain it. Sending money to Swiss bank accounts is far more attractive.

And what where does this notion come from that the West is responsible for all the good things in post-colonial developing nations but none of the bad things - those are always the fault of the indigenous population. It doesn't make sense - if you're going to claim India owes the British for building railroads, you also have to claim that Britain owes India for sucking hundreds of billions of dollars out of the country and leaving it in a miserable state.

Arguably, if the "indigenous" people had been left totally alone, had no contact with Western diseases, medicine, technology etc. they would have been better off than getting a part of the package. For example, even if Muslims' culture is more violent than Western culture, there's limited damagd they can do with traditional weaponry. Or if they don't get the benefit of modern medicine, the birth rates will not produce an unsustainably high population. If you introduce modernity, it likely needs to be done lock, stock and barrel. Modern medicine needs to be accompanied by later coupling/marriage, use of birth control and fewer children. Introudction of explosives and other modern weaponry needs to be accompanied by cultures emphasizing self-restraint in their use.

I doubt the British "took out" much non-renewable resources from India. I don't know how you figure that the Brits "suck(ed) hundreds of billions of dollars out of the country, leaving it in a miserable state". I suspect then, as now, the intellectual buzz in London was Fabian socialism, and initially socialism ruined India since there were too few "rich" from whom to redistribute wealth.

I just think it's a convenient position for people who seem to be unable to admit that yes - Western nations are partly responsible for the situation the developing world finds itself in.

And whence goes the money pumped into huge international aid and UN budgets?

Why are people unable to look at world issues like this without using a polarized worldview where there's a good guy and a bad guy (in your case, West - good guy, Developing world - bad guy) - surely you don't honestly believe the world is that simple a place to understand and order?

We didn't pilot planes into their buildings, did we?

I'm getting tired of the "West" being looked to as the bogeyman constantly. What about the Arabs who benefitted from the same surge in oil prices that impoverished the Fourth World further? Where was Saudi Arabia when their fellow Muslims in Indonesia were suffering after the tsunami? Where were the Indonesian leaders' booty when their fellow countrymen were suffering after the tsunami? In Swiss bank accounts? The poor in Canada (other than in the reserves) live far better than the poor in these other countries. That's because we (I know "we" doesn't strictly apply since I'm a Yank) have a relatively transparent political system. 20% might disappear into the maw of the Liberal Party, not 100%.

[moderateamericain]

This whole thing could be solved by just stop contributing to the tin pot dictators of the world. I feel absolutely no responsibility for Africans, or Middle Easterners, or any other member of any other country. If our humanitarian aid or our military presence are not appreciated and not welcomed, fine by me. I can think of other things to spend my hard earned money on besides increasing taxes. Just don't come screaming at us about Darfur or when Iran invades Iraq. You want to be BIG boy countries now. Fine, you can deal with that Revolutionary guard whos about to lop off your daughters head. Meanwhile, I'd recommend you stockpile food supplies and ammunition. When the Islamic countries are done with there genocide in Israel guess where they are going to come next? I hope you Canadians are ready to fight for mother England.

Edited October 1, 2007 by moderateamericain

[Wilber]

Is anyone actually going to engage any of the points I brought up here? Is anyone going to debate this using actual facts?

Or is this sniping par for the course around these parts?

I agree that farm subsidies are a real problem for third world farmers. Hell, they are a problem for Canadian farmers. We can't afford to play the subsidy game like the US and EU. As far as western influence on the world goes, I think the end result has been much more positive than negative but there is no way to know how the world would have evolved without it. It is what it is and if people like Higgly want to wallow in guilt over it, they can fill their boots but I won't be joining.

[Higgly]

Momo = Morris Dancer.

Morris, Scott and I are refugees from the old National Post board, and members of Scott's other board.

Scott's Forum

ScottSA is known as Scott over there, and Morris' name is unprintable. If I were to print it here, I would be banned.

Higgly:

Heading a government requires an ego as big as all outdoors. You're looking for these folks to transform into somebody else, and it just won't happen.

I would recommend resolving yourself to the idea that you share the world with people with a completely opposite world view to yours, rather than working to convince them to be like you.

The National Post. I should have known. A newspaper that has proven itself incapable of supporting itself from its own revenues. A loser enterprise.

I'm not looking to tranform them into anything. I am looking to show that their world view is wrong. I really don't care what they end up as at the end of it. They can all turn into flying monkies for all I care. Oh wait...

[Higgly]

Allow me to add to the mix - Agricultural Subsidies by Western Nations

Which means that a pound of wheat grown with fertilizer, pesticide, shipped across an ocean and sold in West Africa will always cost less than wheat grown up the road from the market. Meaning, farmers can only compete by cutting their prices, meaning they make next to nothing. Without any profit, they can't expand their operation or save money for education for their kids, meaning they can't move up the social ladder. This explains why pretty much the same amount of people are in agriculture now as there was right after independence.

Our trade policies, which we've pushed on developing nations by our most beloved proxy - the World Bank/IMF make it illegal for these nations to subsidize their farmers the way we subsidize our own. We hear G8 and EU leaders promoting free trade, but free trade isn't actually fair trade because the playing field isn't level.

Exploitative policies like this have much, much more to do with Sub-Saharan Africa's economic situation than a lack of development aid does.

And in this case the West is almost entire responsible.

God forbid Western farmers should have to compete with developing farmers on a level playing field.

Thank you!

[Higgly]

Actually no, little cheerleader. It would be drug, in keeping with the players of the sport. Don't you have something else to do, like play with a hand grenade or something?

Reported again for name-calling.

[Higgly]

I suggest the solution is to take back all our inventions, all our aid, all our books and the knowledge that came from them, and certainly all our industry, and leave them to frolic in the sylvan bliss of a world free from the *intoning reverberation* the "White Man".

I'd like to address this post, and in fact the general attitude that ScottSA, M.Dancer, and others have put forth here.

Generally, what we are seeing here is the classic imperialist style of thinking. "We bring good things to life and therefor, you should just put up with our shit." The British were good at this. It worked, to a certain extent in India. An imperlialist would argue that India got a good railroad system and civil service in exchange for all that it gave up. Of course the civil service and railroads were only put in so that the British could get cheap Indian goods to British factories, but nevermind. Gandhi understood this and he was able to explain it to the general populace of India. The man really was remarkable. A genius, really, for what he was able to do. There is a spinning wheel on the flag of India, but in a sense it is really a picture of the man.

The British imperialists will argue that they brought civilisation to India, although truth be told what they brought was British civilisation to India - complete with servants. Indians had their own version of civilisation before the British arrived. It was a feudal system - not a lot different than the British system as it existed perhaps around the 1500s - to be sure with no king, but with a lot of maharajahs and fiefdoms - lords and shires, if you will. Given time, and left to its own resources, it would have evolved differently. Instead it was turned into a British colony.

Don't like the example of India? How about China? Here's another British conquest. The Chinese did not fare as well as the Indians because British free enterprise turned China into a customer of the British opium trade. Not something you hear about a lot these days. Sort of disappeared down the memory hole. When the Chinese tried to put a stop to the opium trade, the British waged war on them, burned the Imperial Library at Beijing (complete with manuscripts going back many, many centuries) and forced China into the Hong Kong lease. A humiliation the Chinese never forgot.

I find the arguments put forward by M.Dancer, ScottSa, and their allies to be remarkably like those Ayn Rand espoused in her many interminably boring novels. Rand's novels were about powerful talented people who were hobbled by things like unions, government, and notions of fair play. Her most popular novel was Atlas Shrugged - a novel about an architect who built magnificent buildings but just couldn't stand it that there was so much socialism in the world and so went away to sulk. The central character had red hair and got laid by a sympathetic female character. There's not a lot more that you can say about him because Rand spent no time in character development - her characters were just notice boards upon which she would pin her multi-page rants about superior beings. Sort of reminds you of Aryanism in a way.

In any case, superior technolgy does not give anybody the right to go in and seize property, kill people, and make another country your client state. You can justify it if you will, but they won't like it and sooner or later, the shit is gonna hit the fan

[Higgly]

JB,

I would say the idea of attributing 'fault' to large groups is a mistake in any case. Individuals are responsible for their actions, but I'm not responsible for the actions of other Canadians, males, Catholics or humans.

Oh but you are! That is what democracy is all about. That is what free speech is all about. You are directly responsible and that is why you come here!

[moderateamericain]

I'd like to address this post, and in fact the general attitude that ScottSA, M.Dancer, and others have put forth here.

Generally, what we are seeing here is the classic imperialist style of thinking. "We bring good things to life and therefor, you should just put up with our shit." The British were good at this. It worked, to a certain extent in India. An imperlialist would argue that India got a good railroad system and civil service in exchange for all that it gave up. Of course the civil service and railroads were only put in so that the British could get cheap Indian goods to British factories, but nevermind. Gandhi understood this and he was able to explain it to the general populace of India. The man really was remarkable. A genius, really, for what he was able to do. There is a spinning wheel on the flag of India, but in a sense it is really a picture of the man.

The British imperialists will argue that they brought civilisation to India, although truth be told what they brought was British civilisation to India - complete with servants. Indians had their own version of civilisation before the British arrived. It was a feudal system - not a lot different than the British system as it existed perhaps around the 1500s - to be sure with no king, but with a lot of maharajahs and fiefdoms - lords and shires, if you will. Given time, and left to its own resources, it would have evolved differently. Instead it was turned into a British colony.

Don't like the example of India? How about China? Here's another British conquest. The Chinese did not fare as well as the Indians because British free enterprise turned China into a customer of the British opium trade. Not something you hear about a lot these days. Sort of disappeared down the memory hole. When the Chinese tried to put a stop to the opium trade, the British waged war on them, burned the Imperial Library at Beijing (complete with manuscripts going back many, many centuries) and forced China into the Hong Kong lease. A humiliation the Chinese never forgot.

I find the arguments put forward by M.Dancer, ScottSa, and their allies to be remarkably like those Ayn Rand espoused in her many interminably boring novels. Rand's novels were about powerful talented people who were hobbled by things like unions, government, and notions of fair play. Her most popular novel was Atlas Shrugged - a novel about an architect who built magnificent buildings but just couldn't stand it that there was so much socialism in the world and so went away to sulk. The central character had red hair and got laid by a sympathetic female character. There's not a lot more that you can say about him because Rand spent no time in character development - her characters were just notice boards upon which she would pin her multi-page rants about superior beings. Sort of reminds you of Aryanism in a way.

In any case, superior technolgy does not give anybody the right to go in and seize property, kill people, and make another country your client state. You can justify it if you will, but they won't like it and sooner or later, the shit is gonna hit the fan

Actually thats fountain head. Atlas Shrugged is a different story there chief. Atlas shrugged centers around Ayn Rand's perfect man, John Galt. Who takes all the "DOers" of the world and basically fucks the rest of us. (thats a very simplistic explanation but fairly accurate really) the chief motto of John Galt is "Im the man who stopped the engine of the world." etc etc etc.

And for the record I dont support an Imperalistic view of the United States, If I had it my way we would concern ourselves with protection within this country only and only import and export with other countries, no defense pacts, no humanitarian aid, no protection from US troops. Just straight up business.

Edited October 1, 2007 by moderateamericain