Where has the moral courage of the West gone?

Question

Am I the only sick of the UK and US being portrayed as morally bankrupt capitalist opportunists? We do have our faults but critics forget so easily the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan before we intervened - How many Halabjuhs (forgive the spelling) have occured in the West and how many homosexuals have been stoned to death?
I am tired of hearing argumentsabout moral equivalence between the West and the rest of the world.
I understand and endorse the arguments for intervention in Darfur and Zimbabwe - however that does not detract from the fact that Iraq and Afghanistan were hateful regimes.
The late 20th century belief that all cultures are equal is ridiculous - ask how many liberals how they would like to live in Saudi Arabia for example.
Too many people in Europe and America seem to have forgotten that we are the exception in the world rather than the rule - democracy only really exists in Western Europe and Northern America

Answer 1

I remember back in the "malaise daze" of the Carter Administration, everywhere you turned people were talking about moral equivalency between Capitalism and Communism. It was scary and certainly surreal experience to realize that people really thought Communism was going to conquer the Earth, and were preparing us incrementally for that fateful day when freedom would fail and we'd all be Socialist or Communist.

Then Reagan came, a man of vision an unwavering moral courage. End of story.

The real culprit is the unbelievably biased Liberal media. Have you ever noticed that they spin everything negative? What's even more obvious is that, among the thousands of photos they take of President Bush, they choose the one where his face is in a grimace, or his eyes are half shut. Their blatant disdain for our twice elected President is appalling an an affront to the Office.

The moral courage of the West is disappearing because the press only publicizes the negative. Heck, if there was a flood, and Bush immediately sent rescue vehicles which saved every single person, the press would show the foto of a drowned dog with a headline like, "Heartless Government Fails Man's Best Friend".

Unless we can get the press to act responsibly, no politician will risk his career to make courageous, statesman-like decisions. He'll have to pander to the semi-literate coupon clippers who read rags like the Chicago Sun Times rather than the Chicago Tribune, or to people who think the New York Times is fair and balanced.

Politicians will only make those tough, unpopular decisions if the press isn't going to crucify them for it. Politicians aren't going to commit career suicide.

Answer 2

f) "Did you know that truth does not exist and that all knowledge and values are artificial constructions to serve the interest of the powerful? If you don't know this, then you are obviously not the beneficiary of a recent American college education. A wide variety of academic subjects have appropriated Karl Marx's 19th Century idea that 'truth' is never more nor less than propaganda that serves the material interest of the ruling class. When the workers took over as Marx thought they would, truth would be whatever served the interests of the working class.

"In Marx's day, the capitalists were the bad guys, and the workers were the good guys. But today, all heterosexual guys are bad. Feminist studies, queer studies, postmodernists' and deconstructionists have assigned villainy to just about everyone. The only sympathetic figure left is the black disabled lesbian, and it won't be long before this icon is deconstructed also. The various denunciatory doctrines that reign in college classrooms are a way of unmasking success, achievement, accomplishment and heroism by placing a qualifier before the subject under attack. For example, 'white' success is foreordained because it is based on keeping down other races. 'Male' success is based on 'glass ceilings' and 'gender standards' that winnow out women. It is an easy gave to play once you get the hang of it. Everyone gets in on the act-historians, philosophers, English departments, law schools, even music critics. The message is that every positive or affirmatory statement is puffery to serve some vested interest or the other.

"The problem is that once these doctrines of hate get into a people's consciousness, it is hard to get them out. There will come a time when the well-meaning liberal, who tried to use hateful doctrines as reformist tools, finds himself in a society overrun with hatreds.

"Marx's fulminations against the bourgeoisie don't make any rational sense, but his fulminations fueled a class genocide that killed 60 million people in Russia and China. The 19th Century German intellectuals who deconstructed the Jews authored a racial holocaust that claimed 6 million lives.

"Our college curriculums have many voices of hate busy at work preparing a future holocaust, but a voice of Christian love is considered too divisive to be tolerated. Dartmouth College prohibited copies of C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity from being distributed as gifts to students. A dean ruled that the book could be considered offensive. Hate has such a hold that love dare not be mentioned." Paul Craig Roberts, Human Events, May 7, 1999, p. 23

g) The only two, white, male, non-homosexuals not deconstructed by the deconstructionists are Charles Darwin and Karl Marx.

KnottedBrain - case in point

Answer 3

The problem starts here in any public school and at all grade levels. The NEA the most powerful of the liberal unions, which represents the public school teachers has a choke hold on all levels of our government. Our children in their opinion are stifled and held back by the inept parents that the teacher must be forced to tolerate. They believe we are not qualified to raise our own children and their teachings consistently under minds we the parents who also just happen to be we the people but must have forgoten or given up. When we take back our schools and school boards and local level of government our nation and our children will move away from moral bankruptcy, poor ethics and so on. Also we are not in Iraq for oil, if we were oil would not be so high at the pump. I believe we are there for another reason but that answer is for another question.

Answer 4

I find your thinking very dangerous. Anytime you use force to "enforce" your morality, you had better be very VERY clear about what you are doing, and to WHOM, and WHY.

As for democracy, some people neither need it or want it. I think democracy would be a good idea for America. We should try it sometime.

Actually I prefer a parliamentary form of government. The Swiss seem to do okay without attacking other countries and installing THEIR army into 140 countries like we do.

America can't control the world. America does not own the world. America can't tell other people how to live. 9-11 was what the CIA calls "blowback" for tellling other people how to live. Yes, ugly and crazy, but do you think such lunatics were bred in a greenhouse somewhere? Noooooo----they are part of history, and part of OUR history.

I wish the world were as simply divided into WE good/THEY bad, but it isn't.

A black and white view of morality is very dangerous and I would discourage you from embracing it either for yourself or your government. The world is complex and ever-changing and flexibility is the best survival skill there is.

Answer 5

1. The Taliban were backed by the US to remove the communist backed Government. NATO then had to go in to sort the mess out.
Remember Sandy Gall's documentary portraying the Taliban as the saviours of the Afghan people?.

And then the "behind the veil" as a prelude to going in?.

2. Saddam Hussein was backed by both US and UK Governments before a change in policy. "WMD" and "45 minutes to annihalation" were given as the reasons for invasion. Later changed to "Saddam is an evil dictator" after no WMD found.

If the Western world stopped forcing democracy down the throats of people who have no idea what the word means we would all sleep a little safer in our beds.
If people want to take democracy to the rest of the world as part of great crusade their local Forces recruiting office will welcome them with open arms!!

Answer 6

Amen.

But I doubt it will have much of an effect on the people of the free world - they are too busy calling Bush 'Hitler' and reading about conspiracies on the internet.

KnottedBrain: Capitalism is not the epitome of greed. Even from a political point of view, capitalist are just opposed to the government controlling every aspect of their lives. In the modern sense, capitalism denotes a lot of freedoms. The term is actually defined as an:

Economic system characterized by the following: private property ownership exists; individuals and companies are allowed to compete for their own economic gain; and free market forces determine the prices of goods and services. Such a system is based on the premise of separating the state and business activities. Capitalists believe that markets are efficient and should thus function without interference, and the role of the state is to regulate and protect.

Greed isn't a factor - liberties are.

If the US government had gone into Iraq to take oil for money or profit - that would be more along the lines of Facism, Socialism, Communism (or any other govenmental system that controls the economy) but definitely not Capitalism where the state or government stays out of business enterprises. You need to rethink your argument connecting capitalism and the US in the middle east.

Answer 7

Sadly we live in a country (UK) in which society is fuelled by materialism, selfishness, apathy and greed.
Dumbed down garbage in the media and on the TV, is devoured by those whos only concern is "is their really 50% of at DFS" and who think "Eastenders" is culture.
Global interest goes no further than Benedorm.
The Nation is conditioned to believe all they see and hear.
All the rest is just oblivion.

Answer 8

Couldn't agree more - but everyone likes to pull chunks off the big guns - incidentally I have to say that it makes me really mad when people keep quoting that George Bush went to war with Iraq for the sake of oil - wasn't that exactly what Saddam was after when he went charging into Kuwait?

For some reason people love to stick up for the under-dogs, even when the under-dogs are liars, dictators, murderers, etc.
The two places involved, pushing conspiracy theories to one side and just taking into account the facts as we are led to believe, were and are harbouring known bullies and terrorist cells - they stuck their necks out and pushed their luck too many times, people were bound to get edgy and nervy - if Saddam and co had really done damage to the world and ended up just basically bullying and invading who would get the blame then - no, surely not USA and UK - afraid so - I can just imagine the headlines - USA and UK sat back and did nothing! The rest of the world loves to hate us so leave them doing that -- incidentally what would people do if we in the UK were suddenly ruled by a murdering dictator who prevented freedom of speech and took away any rights we may have had and murdered us if we dared shout out- wouldn't we want some intervention and help to prevent this?

Answer 9

IMHO the moral courage of the West is much over blown. After all the moral standards that we are so courageous about include making sure that the world follows the doctrine of the current US government.

As Noam Chomsky says the US does not have a double standard, just one- whatever is good for corporate America is good for the world.

Answer 10

Capitalism is the epitome of greed. The US went into war with Iraq because of oil. They don't call it liquid gold for nothing. Do you honestly believe America went to liberate Iraq? America doesn't give a sh*t about the middle east. That's why we intervened in Gulf War 1. Money makes the world go round.