The United States has a moral obligation to mitigate international conflict.
- Thread starter SoCalian
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phoenix_night
Deity
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I find the very idea that somebody should actually consider the topic quite sickening.
Norlamand
Procrastinator Rex
No, quite the contrary.
Perfection
The Great Head.
Sometimes it does, for example in World War II I would say it was moral for the U.S. to go to war before Pearl harbor, however much of the more recent conflicts perhaps would have been better off without U.S. intervention
Sims2789
Fool me once...
it is the UN's job, not the job of an Imperialistic superpower.
Indeed it's the UN's job. But as long as the UN doesn't work (like with Iraq) the US may take that responsibility if you ask me. 
Any other country too, but since the US usually smells a profit for themselves too...
Any other country too, but since the US usually smells a profit for themselves too...
Sparrowhawk
The Builder
If the US wants to migitate international conflict, the first thing they could do is cease to instigate said international conflict.
EdwardTking
Deity
All truly civilized nations have a small moral obligation to help prevent and resolve international conflicts.
There is no moral difference for the USA.
There is no moral difference for the USA.
The United States should be defender of the peace and a proponent of freedom.
As the leader of the free world, the President needs to confront injustice and crime against humanity wherever it may be. He/She should do so with the fullest possible support of the international community, but not stop without it.
However, this is the duty of any free people to confront injustice and crime against humanity, not just that of the United States.
Read these words of President Kennedy, June 26th, 1963:
Speaking of West Berlin during the Cold War...
"Freedom is indivisible, and when one man is enslaved, all are not free."
"All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and, therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words 'Ich bin ein Berliner.' "
Source: Kennedy Speech
What President Kennedy was saying is that the struggles of one people are the struggles of the entire world. As free people, we were all citizens are Berlin, because their struggle was truly our own. Should we fail to secure peace and justice in our time, the future we leave to our children will be less rewarding and purely feign. We must protect those who cannot protect themselves. It is the right thing to do.
As the leader of the free world, the President needs to confront injustice and crime against humanity wherever it may be. He/She should do so with the fullest possible support of the international community, but not stop without it.
However, this is the duty of any free people to confront injustice and crime against humanity, not just that of the United States.
Read these words of President Kennedy, June 26th, 1963:
Speaking of West Berlin during the Cold War...
"Freedom is indivisible, and when one man is enslaved, all are not free."
"All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and, therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words 'Ich bin ein Berliner.' "
Source: Kennedy Speech
What President Kennedy was saying is that the struggles of one people are the struggles of the entire world. As free people, we were all citizens are Berlin, because their struggle was truly our own. Should we fail to secure peace and justice in our time, the future we leave to our children will be less rewarding and purely feign. We must protect those who cannot protect themselves. It is the right thing to do.
Norlamand
Procrastinator Rex
The US has no "moral" obligation to put its nose into the internal conflicts of other countries. It does have an obligation to its citizens to intervene if there is a vital US national interest.
@sims2789
UN? That is rich! 
Name one conflict that the UN successfully dealt with without the big, bad "imperialistic superpower"!
@sims2789
UN? That is rich! Name one conflict that the UN successfully dealt with without the big, bad "imperialistic superpower"!
andrewgprv
Second Class Citizen
What if they don't want "protecting"
newfangle
hates you.
Originally posted by Norlamand
The US has no "moral" obligation to put its nose into the internal conflicts of other countries. It does have an obligation to its citizens to intervene if there is a vital US national interest.
@sims2789
Name one conflict that the UN successfully dealth with without the big, bad "imperialistic superpower"!
Agreed. Good post.
Richard III
Duke of Gloucester
In my day, the first words out of my mouth would have been "badly worded resolution." Circular debate: how do you mitigate conflict without conflict?
SeleucusNicator
Diadoch
Since I reject the concept of morality, I obviously cannot agree with the statement. I like what somebody else said about it, however:
That would also sum up my view. However, I would also add that the United States should reserve the RIGHT to intervene in the affairs of other nations IF it so desires.
That would also sum up my view. However, I would also add that the United States should reserve the RIGHT to intervene in the affairs of other nations IF it so desires.
stratego
Trying to be good.
There's two sides to every story, and the victor is the morally correct one. But everytime you make some friends, you also make some enemy, and it's much easier to make bitter enemies than tight friendships. So whenever the US takes part in international conflict, it needs to make sure it doesn't lose more friends than it makes, because as powerful as the US is, it can not take on the world.
SoCalian
Deity
- Joined
- Apr 22, 2003
- Messages
- 2,901
Here is my negative speach:
Negative Case
The principle that states should never intervene in the domestic affairs of other states follows readily from the legalist paradigm and, les readily and more ambiguously, from those conceptions of life and liberty that underlie the paradigm and make it plausible. But these same conceptions seem also to require that we sometimes disregard the principle; and what might be called the rules of disregard, rather than the principle itself, have been the focus of moral interest and argument. - Michael Walzer Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument With Historical Illustrations p. 86
Resolved: the United States has a moral obligation to mitigate international conflict.
Term Definitions:
Moral: 1. Of or concerned with the judgment of the goodness or badness of human action and character.
2.Conforming to standards of what is right or just in behavior
3.Arising from conscience or the sense of right and wrong: a moral obligation.
Obligation: 1. The act of binding oneself by a social, legal, or moral tie.
A. A social, legal, or moral requirement, such as a duty, contracts, or promise that compels one to follow or avoid a particular course of action.
B. A course of action imposed by society, law, or conscience by which one is bound or restricted.
Mitigate: To moderate (a quality or condition) in force or intensity; alleviate.
International: Of, relating to, or involving two or more nations
Conflict: A state of open, often prolonged fighting; a battle or war.
Values:
Value: Freedom
The Beliefs of the debaters and observers in this room support this. We can agree upon four values in particular, most probably and probably even more. We can all agree that life should be preserved generally and that the quality of for us, our families, and our neighbors should be protected. Additionally, we all probably agree that liberty is important as well as equality before the law. Finally, we probably also agree that stealing is wrong. Thus we are representative of humanity as a whole. We all hold certain moral beliefs in common.
Criteria: National Self-Determination
National Self-Determination is the right and ability of a nation to determine its own path, and to shape its own future without the help or values of another nation being super imposed upon it.
Contentions:
1. Self-Determination and Self-Help: The Argument of John Stuart Mills
We are to treat states as self-determining communities, weather or not their internal political arrangements are free, weather or not the citizens choose their government and openly debate the policies carried out in their name. For self-determination and political freedom are not equivalent terms. The first is the more inclusive idea; it describes not only a particular institutional arrangement but also the process by which a community arrives at that arrangement - or does not. A sate is self-determining even if its citizens struggle and fail to establish free institutions, but it has been deprived of self-determination if such institutions are established by an intrusive neighbor. The members of a political community must seek their own freedom, just as the individual must cultivate his own virtue. They cannot be set free, as he cannot be made virtuous, by any external force. Indeed, political freedom depends on the existence of individual virtue, and this the armies of another state are most UNlikely to produce - unless perhaps they inspire an active resistance and set in motion a self-determining politics. Self-determination is the school in which virtue is learned (or not) and liberty is won (or not). Mill recognizes that a people who have had the misfortune to be ruled by a tyrannical government are peculiarly disadvantaged: they have never had the chance to develop the virtues needful for maintaining freedom. But, It is during an arduous struggle to become free by their own efforts that these virtues have the best chance of springing up.
2. The Kellogg-Briand Pact Morally Condemns War
It was signed on August 27, 1928, by most of the major powers of the day including: China, France, Germany, Great Britain, Japan, and the UNITED STATES.
Article I
The High Contracting Parties solemnly declare in the names of their respective peoples that they condemn recourse to war for the solution to international controversies, and renounce it in their relations with one another.
Article II
The High Contracting Parties agree that the settlement or solution of all disputes or conflicts of what ever nature or of what ever origin they may be, which may arise among them, shall never be sought except by pacific means.
What this means, in the context of this debate, is that should the United States use military force to mitigate international conflicts (which I would like to remind you, is a war or battle between TWO or more nations) for any reason, anywhere, at any time whatsoever, such actions a morally unjustifiable.
Conclusion:
The United States is built upon the twin pillars of Freedom and Morality. Yet we were not given these pillars as a gift from another nation, rather we as a nation through our own arduous labour, we were able to build them on our own. And during that process we had gained something that we could only have gained through experience, we discovered that the concepts or freedom and morality must be learned on ones own through self-determination. Now I ask you, judge, would it be moral for us to deprive other nations of the same opportunities, by striping them of their self-determination, as explained by Mills, when by our own moral standards such actions are immoral? I say nay! So, I urge you, judge, vote in negation of this resolution.
Negative Case
The principle that states should never intervene in the domestic affairs of other states follows readily from the legalist paradigm and, les readily and more ambiguously, from those conceptions of life and liberty that underlie the paradigm and make it plausible. But these same conceptions seem also to require that we sometimes disregard the principle; and what might be called the rules of disregard, rather than the principle itself, have been the focus of moral interest and argument. - Michael Walzer Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument With Historical Illustrations p. 86
Resolved: the United States has a moral obligation to mitigate international conflict.
Term Definitions:
Moral: 1. Of or concerned with the judgment of the goodness or badness of human action and character.
2.Conforming to standards of what is right or just in behavior
3.Arising from conscience or the sense of right and wrong: a moral obligation.
Obligation: 1. The act of binding oneself by a social, legal, or moral tie.
A. A social, legal, or moral requirement, such as a duty, contracts, or promise that compels one to follow or avoid a particular course of action.
B. A course of action imposed by society, law, or conscience by which one is bound or restricted.
Mitigate: To moderate (a quality or condition) in force or intensity; alleviate.
International: Of, relating to, or involving two or more nations
Conflict: A state of open, often prolonged fighting; a battle or war.
Values:
Value: Freedom
The Beliefs of the debaters and observers in this room support this. We can agree upon four values in particular, most probably and probably even more. We can all agree that life should be preserved generally and that the quality of for us, our families, and our neighbors should be protected. Additionally, we all probably agree that liberty is important as well as equality before the law. Finally, we probably also agree that stealing is wrong. Thus we are representative of humanity as a whole. We all hold certain moral beliefs in common.
Criteria: National Self-Determination
National Self-Determination is the right and ability of a nation to determine its own path, and to shape its own future without the help or values of another nation being super imposed upon it.
Contentions:
1. Self-Determination and Self-Help: The Argument of John Stuart Mills
We are to treat states as self-determining communities, weather or not their internal political arrangements are free, weather or not the citizens choose their government and openly debate the policies carried out in their name. For self-determination and political freedom are not equivalent terms. The first is the more inclusive idea; it describes not only a particular institutional arrangement but also the process by which a community arrives at that arrangement - or does not. A sate is self-determining even if its citizens struggle and fail to establish free institutions, but it has been deprived of self-determination if such institutions are established by an intrusive neighbor. The members of a political community must seek their own freedom, just as the individual must cultivate his own virtue. They cannot be set free, as he cannot be made virtuous, by any external force. Indeed, political freedom depends on the existence of individual virtue, and this the armies of another state are most UNlikely to produce - unless perhaps they inspire an active resistance and set in motion a self-determining politics. Self-determination is the school in which virtue is learned (or not) and liberty is won (or not). Mill recognizes that a people who have had the misfortune to be ruled by a tyrannical government are peculiarly disadvantaged: they have never had the chance to develop the virtues needful for maintaining freedom. But, It is during an arduous struggle to become free by their own efforts that these virtues have the best chance of springing up.
2. The Kellogg-Briand Pact Morally Condemns War
It was signed on August 27, 1928, by most of the major powers of the day including: China, France, Germany, Great Britain, Japan, and the UNITED STATES.
Article I
The High Contracting Parties solemnly declare in the names of their respective peoples that they condemn recourse to war for the solution to international controversies, and renounce it in their relations with one another.
Article II
The High Contracting Parties agree that the settlement or solution of all disputes or conflicts of what ever nature or of what ever origin they may be, which may arise among them, shall never be sought except by pacific means.
What this means, in the context of this debate, is that should the United States use military force to mitigate international conflicts (which I would like to remind you, is a war or battle between TWO or more nations) for any reason, anywhere, at any time whatsoever, such actions a morally unjustifiable.
Conclusion:
The United States is built upon the twin pillars of Freedom and Morality. Yet we were not given these pillars as a gift from another nation, rather we as a nation through our own arduous labour, we were able to build them on our own. And during that process we had gained something that we could only have gained through experience, we discovered that the concepts or freedom and morality must be learned on ones own through self-determination. Now I ask you, judge, would it be moral for us to deprive other nations of the same opportunities, by striping them of their self-determination, as explained by Mills, when by our own moral standards such actions are immoral? I say nay! So, I urge you, judge, vote in negation of this resolution.
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