Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Because America says it is everyones big brother..My big brother beat up on me, took my toys and bullied me out of my allowance
Everyone else is crying to America and laying some absurd guilt trip on America for its success and prominent position. America doesn't have a whole lot to feel guilty for. In the history of the world, I think its generosity, it's altruism, it's willingness to forgive financial debts to 3d world countries and intervene with often-unreciprocated charity and protection given its own limited resources and relative youth is remarkable. It's certainly not a perfect record. Name a regime or country whose record has been better, even when you factor in relative discrepancies in power, I don't think you will find any who have compared yet.
Everyone else is crying to America and laying some absurd guilt trip on America for its success and prominent position. America doesn't have a whole lot to feel guilty for. In the history of the world, I think its generosity, it's altruism, it's willingness to forgive financial debts to 3d world countries and intervene with often-unreciprocated charity and protection given its own limited resources and relative youth is remarkable. It's certainly not a perfect record. Name a regime or country whose record has been better, even when you factor in relative discrepancies in power, I don't think you will find any who have compared yet.
Two things:
The American people are seen as generous and as we are so rich, well we should be.
No government is generous for the sake of it and none is altruistic. Any action a government takes is always in its own self-interest. That's a rule of government. For thousands of years governments have competed, risen, blossomed, and died for various reasons. If anything is true it is that nation states are ruthless.
If the government gives charity or aid of some sort it is because we want to curry favor with a population or government to achieve a goal of our government. In most cases it's to secure a region strategic to military or financial interests. In some others it's to impress the people of the US themselves so they view a politician or party more favorably.
Forgiving third world debt is an absolute joke. The IMF and World Bank are structures we created to give loans to the countries indebted to us. We go in, make loans to any local chieftan or despot who then siphons off all the money while the project the money is given toward goes unfinished or completed in a half-asssed manner. We enrich the power structures without doing a bloody thing for the people of the country itself. In that way we support the government of the day, get the resources or alliance we need, while the other 99% of the country goes down the toilet. We don't even need the money we give to them! We print it and just hand it to them. It doesn't come from taxes or anything else, it's debt that gets racked-up to the national debt!
Sure we'll forgive your debt, just tack it on to our ever-rising deficit. And what do we have to show for all those, "altruistic," loans?? A legacy of absolute monarchs, dictators, and generalissimos who get US dollars in exchange for sweetheart mining deals, fishing rights, military bases, or just to curry favor because the country happens to be in a strategic place. Why not forgive the debt? We'll just make the loans again next week. We don't give a damn about the principle, we just want the interest or, more specifically, a government that is pro-US and will allow American businesses and government whatever they want from the region.
I am so sorry to burst your bubble. It's a dirty world out there but for what it's worth know that every country will act the same way given the opportunity. Right now we just happen to have the advantage over most other countries. Governments are cynical things. And well they should be. In the end they exist to promote and protect their own existance. Once again, American people themselves are seen as generous. In the wake of the tsunami we gave huge amounts and the people of the region were happy to receive it. We may be loud and obnoxious and only speak English, but we are charitible.
Whoever is on top gets the arrows. The Brits got it for 200 years, we're just next in the shooting gallery. Another country will get it after we decline. It's the nature of empire.
Funny, you seem to say everyone does it, yet your tone sounds like you're bashing America for it.....
I wouldn't bash the US. I'll bash our government politicians to other Americans though never the form of government itself and never when I'm out of the country. That's just disrespectful.
I don't find what we, or other countries, do is always ethical. Just because everyone does these things doesn't make it right. Sure I'd love a free world where we all live in prosperous harmony but I'm not naive and understand that governments fight for control of their interests both domestically and internationally.
I may have said this before but read Chalmers Johnsons' books "Blowback" and "Sorrows of Empire" for more detail on our adventures in empire. There is another book (I forget the author's name) titled "I was an Economic Hitman for the IMF" that details the international swindles we have had perpetrated in our name. We are a good and generous people but our imperialistic rulers have all the morality of school yard bullies.
The American people are seen as generous and as we are so rich, well we should be.
No government is generous for the sake of it and none is altruistic. Any action a government takes is always in its own self-interest. That's a rule of government. For thousands of years governments have competed, risen, blossomed, and died for various reasons. If anything is true it is that nation states are ruthless.
If the government gives charity or aid of some sort it is because we want to curry favor with a population or government to achieve a goal of our government. In most cases it's to secure a region strategic to military or financial interests. In some others it's to impress the people of the US themselves so they view a politician or party more favorably.
Forgiving third world debt is an absolute joke. The IMF and World Bank are structures we created to give loans to the countries indebted to us. We go in, make loans to any local chieftan or despot who then siphons off all the money while the project the money is given toward goes unfinished or completed in a half-asssed manner. We enrich the power structures without doing a bloody thing for the people of the country itself. In that way we support the government of the day, get the resources or alliance we need, while the other 99% of the country goes down the toilet. We don't even need the money we give to them! We print it and just hand it to them. It doesn't come from taxes or anything else, it's debt that gets racked-up to the national debt!
Sure we'll forgive your debt, just tack it on to our ever-rising deficit. And what do we have to show for all those, "altruistic," loans?? A legacy of absolute monarchs, dictators, and generalissimos who get US dollars in exchange for sweetheart mining deals, fishing rights, military bases, or just to curry favor because the country happens to be in a strategic place. Why not forgive the debt? We'll just make the loans again next week. We don't give a damn about the principle, we just want the interest or, more specifically, a government that is pro-US and will allow American businesses and government whatever they want from the region.
I am so sorry to burst your bubble. It's a dirty world out there but for what it's worth know that every country will act the same way given the opportunity. Right now we just happen to have the advantage over most other countries. Governments are cynical things. And well they should be. In the end they exist to promote and protect their own existance. Once again, American people themselves are seen as generous. In the wake of the tsunami we gave huge amounts and the people of the region were happy to receive it. We may be loud and obnoxious and only speak English, but we are charitible.
Whoever is on top gets the arrows. The Brits got it for 200 years, we're just next in the shooting gallery. Another country will get it after we decline. It's the nature of empire.
Whose bubble do you think you're bursting? w/ respect to whether we should be generous, I don't quarrel with that; what I quarrel with is other nations' sense of entitlement to our generosity, and then getting angry if we aren't.
The world is a far different place than it was 50 years ago. We are too dependent on each other now. Just look around your own home and see what you would have to do without if we withdrew from the rest of the world. Liz
The world is a far different place than it was 50 years ago. We are too dependent on each other now. Just look around your own home and see what you would have to do without if we withdrew from the rest of the world. Liz
Southernlady, why don't you be the first to answer your own question: What would you have to do without if we pulled out of Iraq today?
I'm not an Isolationist. But if we did become Isolationists, we would do without MOST TV's, fridges, stoves, clothing, etc to start with. Make up, medicine, vehicles and the list keeps growing. Liz
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
