Originally posted by mikhael
No, actually, I wouldn't. Actually, its not that cut and dry is it? By fighting to defend my country, I also fight to defend its people. I however, have no common cause, for example, with a Bosnian, or a Chechen. If he asks for help, and I think he needs it, and--most importantly--helping would not abrogate any of my principles, I might just be willing to help. Note the qualifier: "might".
When you say "fighting for my country", this implicity means "fighting for the people and/or government of said country", correct? So, let me ask you something. Since I assume that you would not be fighting for a government which you dislike, it must the people. There are about 250 million Americans, and you would fight for them. However, what makes these 250 million people more deserving of your protection than a random 250 million people in Russia. Are they kinder, better people? Have they done you greater good? Have they done anything at all to make their freedom, their safety more worthy of your effort than 250 million Russians? I would guess not. So why then, are you willing to fight for Random Group A, but not for Random Group B? Everyone is born deserving the same protection, the same freedom, the same rights. They can only change their through actions, for the good or for the bad. Have the people of America performed some great deed which entitles them to more freedom, more wealth, more saftety than anyone else?
Originally posted by mikhael
My country is not some random place I was born. I was not born in my country, Rictor. My mother "happened to be" in West Germany. I was born on German soil, in a German hospital. My parents are American, to be sure, and that makes me a citizen of the United States. Does that make the US "my country"? In a paper sense, sure. By some lucky quirk of fate, by the time I was 21, I had lived in, or visited close to twenty different countries. At 21, I had lived more OUTSIDE the US than I had INSIDE the US. I got to see the world before I was an adult. And what's the first thing I did after I became and adult? I left the US and went to live in Asia. To date, two-thirds of my life has been spent in other countries. Soon, I'll leave the US and go live in Australia to become an ex-pat American. The US is not my "country" because I was born or lived there, Rictor.
What makes the US "my country" is that I conciously chose it. Unlike most people, I grew up looking at other countries first hand, and the US purely second hand and at a remove. I grew up on foreign media, and reading histories written by people who weren't Americans. I was taught about the US by people who had not been taught in the American school system. I've been lots of place and met lots of people and done lots of things and in the end, I chose the United States. Not because I like Americans (I don't) or I like its policies (ditto) or its fractious political stupidities (nope). I chose it because, in the end, I found religion of a sort here. I found Thomas Jefferson here in American, Rictor, and that's that. I'm an American not because of where I was born or what it says on my passport or birth certificate, but because, ugly and screwed up as it is, this is the result of Thomas Jefferson's hopes and dreams. Stupid isn't it?
I'm a citizen of the United States first, Rictor. The rest of the world, as much as I like it, comes second.
Thats more than most can say, I'll give you that. But you are still working under what I will for lack of a better name call the "country mentality". From what I can see, in your world the Earth is divided into countries, and people in other countries are completely unlike yourself. They eat different food, speak a different language. They are alien, and those who live in "your country" are not. And humanity is in a grand ol' race, to see who comes out on top. Every country, and fortress bristling with turrets, closed to "the aliens". Your people deserve more money, your people deserve your protection. Your people deserve everything, but not the aliens.
This, to me, is a pretty primitive world view. Sorry if that offends you, but thats what I think. What you should realize, especially in this age we live in, is that a Serb is, in all fundamental ways, exactly the same as an American, as a Canadian, as a Pakistani. I'm not saying that all people should be have identical cultures, but rather identical rights. As I said above, an American is in no way more or less deserving of your kindness and protection than a Somali. What this comes down to, is apples and oranges. You see Americans as apples, and everyone else as oranges. And in your world, apples come first. Sure, if there is time and money and will left over, we'll take care of the oranges, but apples come first.
The thing is, on Earth, there are no oranges, only apples.
I see no *reason* why Person A deserves your, shall we call it love, than Person B. In a world where everyone would be free to determine their homeland, you would have a right to feel greater kinship towards someone who, like you, chose the same country. But the fact is, most people stay their ass where they're born. If they happen to be born, by random chance, in China rather than in America, they starve instead of, well, not starving.
Originally posted by mikhael
Funny, I'd say, as an american, a lack of democracy is actively harming me right now. I'd say that my fellow americans were harmed by a 'lack of democracy' when a bunch of theocratic zealots decided to run planes into buildings.
Please forgive me if I don't feel your pain. What exactly has Dubya cost you? Maybe a few hundred in taxes, a little aggrivation here and there. Has he cost you a family member? Has he cost you your life? Has he deprived you of any great amount of freedom? Under "the dictator Dubya", you're better off than most of the world. Until you lose a family member to foreign bombs, or until your kids starve and you're helpless to stop it, you don't know squat about loss.
Originally posted by mikhael
You declare me 'too lazy to find out'. I declare you 'to idealistic to see the real world'. When you have people who actually prefer theocratic rule, or tribal rule, how can you have your world democracy? Are you going to force them to join in? That's hardly democratic. Are you going to leave them out? That's hardly 'world wide'.
Ah, idealism. The magic word. Its just not possible, you say. This is the best we can hope for.
Shout it from the hills, proclaim it to all the world.
I don't believe a word of it.
Nothing with humans is impossible. Improbable, yes. But how impobable is it that a little rock, third out from the sun, would have just the right circumstances to foster life. How improbable is that after eons as single-cell organisms, a few creatures would crawl out from the sea and become, eventually, mammals. And how improbale is it that a race of intelligent monkeys would survive long enough to build the Pyramids and to produce Shakespeare, Einstein and Tolkein?
Pretty damn improbable.
I await the day when all the realists look around, and see that reality has left them behind. When you wake up one day and remember that some stranger on the Internet told you 50 years ago this would happen, and you told him off.
Why do you cling to this reality of yours, I wonder. Are you so in love with the world, such as it is, that you would rather die than try something better? Would we have come this far, as a species, if people like you had called the shots? Are endless war, human suffering and internal strife, are they so attractive that you want it no other way? Realism, in this context, is the last refuge of the hopeless and frankly, cowardly.
Status quo: off we go.
