Pages: 1

 

2008-09-10 06:29:49
Braddock
Agitator
+916|6575|Éire
A Few Personal Thoughts...

I've been thinking more and more about the nature of politics and how the world works since joining this forum and I've come to recognise a few things in terms of how 'truth' and 'history' are interpreted. At the moment it is fashionable to hate America - once upon a time it was fashionable to like America - it's also fashionable to condemn the likes of China, Russia and Iran but at the end of the day most of these nations operate using the same code of ethics.

It is my belief that there are no truly 'evil' or 'benevolent' nations as there is nothing is to be gained from either mindless evil or mindless benevolence. Nations have economic objectives that are geared towards benefiting themselves (and maybe their citizens somewhere along the line). These plans might involve total isolationism, collectivisation or even a system of backing and installing sympathetic regimes in other countries but the plans are there ultimately to assist the domestic economy, all other fallout from these plans are merely byproducts.

It is my opinion that the USA invaded Iraq in order to install a free market economy in one of the world's most oil rich regions. They didn't go there to destroy the country or kill civilians... they just happened to be byproducts of this objective.

Similarly the USA assisted Afghanistan in driving out the red army in the eighties and in so doing stopped the killing of many, many Afghanis at the hands of the soviets and brought a halt to the forceful imposition of communism on the indigenous population... but again these were just byproducts, as most people will freely admit in hindsight the real reason behind their involvement was to stop the spreading of Russian influence during the cold war and eradicate the possibility of a Russian plan of expansion that could have lead all the way to Iraq.

In the same way China do not infringe human rights because of some inbuilt predisposition towards evil, they infringe on human rights in order to get the job done and balance the books... the torture, forced labour and oppression are byproducts.

Iran back groups within Iraq because of the strategic importance of Iraq as their regional neighbour... the death of American and allied troops is just a byproduct of this.

There are no good guys or bad guys in politics just 'objectives' and 'byproducts'. If you could offer the powers that be the chance to achieve their objectives without any of the byproducts I'm quite they sure they would take it but sadly that's not the world we live in.

Last edited by Braddock (2008-09-10 06:30:09)

2008-09-10 06:32:55
Pug
UR father's brother's nephew's former roommate
+652|6827|Texas - Bigger than France
Nice post.
2008-09-10 06:36:51
ghettoperson
Member
+1,943|6934

Agreed, good post, you make some good points. I don't think I really have much to add to what you've already said.
2008-09-10 07:45:30
Mekstizzle
WALKER
+3,611|6906|London, England
Yes. But the Byproducts is what makes the actions inherently evil. rite?
2008-09-10 07:53:47
PureFodder
Member
+225|6571
You can have some distinction between nations or leaders based upon what harm they are willing to commit for what gain.
2008-09-10 08:01:06
Beduin
Compensation of Reactive Power in the grid
+510|6035|شمال
mmmmm
الشعب يريد اسقاط النظام
...show me the schematic
2008-09-10 08:21:23
RAIMIUS
You with the face!
+244|7000|US
I agree with PureFodder.  The means actually do mean something.  That being said, no nation is all good.  We live in a world of grey.  It just depends on how dark that grey is.
2008-09-10 08:23:54
jord
Member
+2,382|6963|The North, beyond the wall.
And other Governments getting foreign countries to do things to "benefit mankind" are actually trying to hinder the economical growth over said country.

Think reducing carbon emissions. Also there's pressure on countries of the world to ban cluster munitions, when really it's a strategic military advantage. That's why the US still has them and the UK has to shell out £30 million to get rid of ours... Sigh.
2008-09-10 08:40:19
Braddock
Agitator
+916|6575|Éire

Mek-Stizzle wrote:

Yes. But the Byproducts is what makes the actions inherently evil. rite?
Yes and no, I mean it's all relative at the end of the day when it comes to politics. For example...

1. US invasion of Iraq...

Positive byproducts: freedom form the tyranny of Saddam Hussein, an opportunity for Iraqis to form a democratic government.

Negative byproducts: deaths of thousands and thousands of Iraqis, a sustained period of complete instability in day to life, renewed ethnic tensions.

2. US assistance of Afhanistan against Soviets...

Positive byproducts: thousands and thousands of Afghanis saved from slaughter at the hands of the Soviets.

Negative byproducts: millions of dollars of weapons and training given to future terrorists and extremists.

3. Russian war against Georgia...

Positive byproducts: thousands of South Ossetian's and Abkhazian's lives saved from slaughter at the hands of Georgian forces, an opportunity for South Ossetia and Abkhazia to establish themselves as sovereign nations.

Negative byproducts: hundreds and thousands of Georgians killed, Georgian sovereignty infringed.

It all depends on how you spin it and the history books can be very subjective.

Last edited by Braddock (2008-09-10 08:41:13)

2008-09-10 11:22:44
Vilham
Say wat!?
+580|7051|UK
I disagree, ofc there are "good" or "bad" people in politics, but just because those people are evil doesn't mean and entire country is.

A person knows that their actions have byproducts and if they choose to ignore them no matter what they are doing something they know is wrong or "evil".

The problem is that these byproducts get labelled to the country and not to the people that carried them out.
2008-09-10 11:41:11
sergeriver
Cowboy from Hell
+1,928|7043|Argentina
Nations are not evil, politicians are.  At least most of them.

Last edited by sergeriver (2008-09-10 11:41:37)

2008-09-10 12:05:40
Mint Sauce
Frighteningly average
+780|6571|eng

sergeriver wrote:

Nations are not evil, politicians are.  At least most of them.
Biggest generalisation i've seen in a good while.

Nice post Braddock.
#rekt
2008-09-10 14:39:19
M.O.A.B
'Light 'em up!'
+1,220|6508|Escea

Braddock wrote:

Positive byproducts: thousands of South Ossetian's and Abkhazian's lives saved from slaughter at the hands of Georgian forces, an opportunity for South Ossetia and Abkhazia to establish themselves as sovereign nations.
There's still something really shaky about that being the Georgians who were responsible originally. They may have been, they may not have been, no way of knowing.
2008-09-10 16:00:29
Braddock
Agitator
+916|6575|Éire

pierro wrote:

While it is far easier to think of nations as calculating machines (maybe calculating poorly) with no rules of ethics, it is not always applicable and some nations will act more "moral" then the rest...

In WWII Japan had the infamous Unit 731...they gathered applicable scientific data by experimenting on humans (mostly Chinese), read the Wikipedia article on it if you want the details. Although the data would have proven useful to countries such as the United States, they refused to stoop to the level of live vivesections etc... to get the data...in that respect they were the "moral ones" because they respected human rights.

There are hundreds of more examples ranging from Muslim in the middle ages (good) to Nazi Germany (beyond bad) where one group respected human rights and another did not. The point is it's a bit of a generalization to say that everybody makes (or tries to make) the "right" decision instead of the "correct" one because some nations do act more or less morally than others.
My point is that the 'morality' (or lack thereof) is almost always more easily explained as a byproduct and not as the actual raison d'etre of the actions of these nations. This particular philosophy is also more applicable to recent history - this being the era in which relativism has become an increasingly influential strand of philosophy.
2008-09-10 16:07:38
ATG
Banned
+5,233|6814|Global Command
One mans terrorist is another persons patriot and son.
2008-09-10 16:23:39
Braddock
Agitator
+916|6575|Éire

pierro wrote:

Braddock wrote:

My point is that the 'morality' (or lack thereof) is almost always more easily explained as a byproduct and not as the actual raison d'etre of the actions of these nations. This particular philosophy is also more applicable to recent history - this being the era in which relativism has become an increasingly influential strand of philosophy.
I don't disagree, it's not like Osama is thinking to himself how he can be "as evil as possible today". But the fact of the matter is, some nations have a greater tolerance for committing acts with more negative moral consequences then others (the US won't secretly test biological weapons to gain scientific breakthroughs but China/North Korea/Iran might) and there has to be a way of differentiating them on that level.
I don't think the essence of my OP applies to terrorist organisations. Such terror groups operate outside of societal structures and rules to a great extent, whereas actual nations tend to take on a life of their own, almost as self-regulating entities (regulating factors being constitutions, economic drivers and so on). Terror groups are more easily bent to the will of tyrants and extremists who themselves are more liable to venture down the path of true evil... obviously some nations are prone to this too (true dictatorships and so on) but such nations would themselves almost fall outside of the scope of the OP for their 'evil' is more inline with the 'evil' of the individual and not some sort of 'collective evil'.

Perhaps I should narrow my definition to countries that have Governmental systems that reflect the attitudes and desires of a sizeable cross section of their population i.e. not countries ruled by a single despot who can do whatever the hell he likes.

Last edited by Braddock (2008-09-10 16:24:33)

2008-09-10 17:28:00
Flaming_Maniac
prince of insufficient light
+2,490|6992|67.222.138.85
People do anything solely because they want to do it. There is no true moral motivation for upholding human rights or similar causes, only that social biases make people want to be put in groups that do champion these causes. All actions are "byproducts" only in the sense that we do what we want for little more reason than we want to do it, but then historians and sociologists go back later and label some practices as good, evil, nationalistic, totalitarian, democratic, fair, or biased. Putting those lofty labels on does not change the extremely basic motivation for these actions, it just makes us feel better about there being an ideological hierarchy that groups of people can identify with.

Government only skews these primal urges on a huge scale. A government takes the instincts of the populous (if we're going Western here) and the bureaucracy distorts them to come up with a usable plan of action. Again, actions are labeled through perspective. The words we associate with any political action throughout history is just as abstract as the color red. (brace for Nazi reference) The Nazis are only viewed as evil because they lost...there would have been no "byproducts" if they had won, every one of the actions taken, including the holocaust, would have been viewed as one of the many necessary steps toward the goal at the time. How do you think people would label the dropping of the atomic bomb had the allied forces lost? I realize that's a big what if, but it's pretty plain that if the dominated power had used that kind of force, they would have been crucified for it.

So to more directly address the OP, the use of these labels just helps identify our idea of what a government should be, calling one evil and another good and such. In reality there is no such thing as either of those ideas, but they are a useful convenience when discussing ideas with other people.

 

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