Don't be so anti-something that you're pro bad things.

[Hygro]

Bhsup posted Jeane Kirkpatrick in the leaders your country never had thread, and I'm not criticizing the choice since I don't know enough about her, except that early in the wiki it states she was pro authoritarian governments to combat communism. That got me thinking in general.

Though in politics we've seen time and time again arming bad guys to fight the Bad Guy hurts both the locals and hurts us, or how assenting to war because of a potential future conjectured threat does nobody any good. It almost certainly applies to day to day stuff as well.

Being pro evil dictatorships to ward off democratic socialists because they are political compass neighbors to The Menace is, for us at the political bottom, a backward emotional response masquerading as an intellectual one.

Most fear based responses designed to validate a solution that leaves zero tolerance for something ideologically icky are.

/soapbox.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I'm glad the title provided a short version, else I'd have had a hard time following that. With the title available I can say I agree completely.

 

[Hygro]

Yeah I don't think my post helped make my case whatsoever.

 

[Leonel]

Don't be so anti-Hamas that you're pro-kill-all-Palestinian-children?

 

[Hygro]

Don't be so anti-Hamas that you're pro-kill-all-Palestinian-children?

Exactly!

It's related to another maxim: don't lump two different things into one thing (Hamas, kids in Palestine).

 

[Oruc]

I don't know man, it's like that saying goes "to defeat monsters you must become one".

 

[Hygro]

I don't know man, it's like that saying goes "to defeat monsters you must become one".

"He who fights monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Nietzsche

 

[timtofly]

Yeah I don't think my post helped make my case whatsoever.

It does make us think, though.

 

[Oruc]

"He who fights monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Nietzsche

Nah he said the other version

 

[DaveShack]

If one must choose between two evils, it is certainly better to choose the lesser.

 

[Cutlass]

The biggest of the common mistakes the US has made in foreign policy, in the past century or so, is to oppose, damage, even destroy, democratic movements and governments, just because those people opposed us on some things, or were friendly with our rivals. Nothing has been more thorough in undermining the long term best interest of the US.

 

[ywhtptgtfo]

False dichotomy is what people often practice here, especially among the most vehement pro/anti crowd.

"If you aren't anti-X then you must be this evil pro-X. Shame on you and the pathetic delusions that harbour within your crazy brainwashed demented brain".

 

[jackelgull]

Poor state of relations with Latin America- the essential war on democracy the US waged in Latin America because it feared the governments were too leftist. We only have good relations with three countries in the region nowadays.

So yes, whenever the US has acted on fear and done terrible things, the results usually end up shooting the US in the foot, which I consider the karma of geopolitics. And if that doesn't work, then at least we know the leaders will be demonized by the other party. It is one of the great certainties of politics that no leader will leave office without their name being dragged through the mud. And for the truly bad ones, I hear there is a place called hell...

 

[Hygro]

If one must choose between two evils, it is certainly better to choose the lesser.

ywhtptgtfo to the rescue:

False dichotomy is what people often practice here, especially among the most vehement pro/anti crowd.

"If you aren't anti-X then you must be this evil pro-X. Shame on you and the pathetic delusions that harbour within your crazy brainwashed demented brain".

The idea is that if you're really really against something, you have often clouded your judgment and jump to poor, honestly somewhat masturbatory conclusions about how to solve that thing.

 

[bhsup]

The biggest of the common mistakes the US has made in foreign policy, in the past century or so, is to oppose, damage, even destroy, democratic movements and governments, just because those people opposed us on some things, or were friendly with our rivals. Nothing has been more thorough in undermining the long term best interest of the US.

You're making the mistake of calling socialist/communist governments "democratic."

 

[Hygro]

You're making the mistake of calling socialist/communist governments "democratic."

So because the people democratically elect a socialist chief executive they are not democratically elected?

 

[Tahuti]

False dichotomy is what people often practice here, especially among the most vehement pro/anti crowd.

"If you aren't anti-X then you must be this evil pro-X. Shame on you and the pathetic delusions that harbour within your crazy brainwashed demented brain".

The problem is that political struggles are often between X and anti-X and not being solidly in either camp renderes you politically impotent in that particular issue, to the point it might have been better to not waste energy in such at all. You are - in other words - stuck in the middle.

Of course, this isn't a problem on CFC, since we are debating often on an ideological level, though on a political levels, false dichotomies are often the only camps that actually exist.

 

[bhsup]

So because the people democratically elect a socialist chief executive they are not democratically elected?

Democratically elected does not mean democratic.

 

[KMRblue1027]

Democratically elected does not mean democratic.

Because Hitler (Not a socialist BTW) = all socialism is invalid OK then...

 

[Cutlass]

You're making the mistake of calling socialist/communist governments "democratic."

Socialism, communism, capitalism, are descriptions of economic systems. Not government systems.