[scorpion]

(08-28-2013 07:57 PM)Farmageddon Wrote:  

We don't necessarily want war, we just recognize it's inevitability. Confrontation with totalitarianism is always inevitable and it will be until it is eradicated.

If you honestly believe this, then we will never see eye to eye on this issue. You seem to think that the West has some kind of moral imperative to "eradicate totalitarianism" from the face of the Earth. Personally, I can't begin to imagine a more quixotic effort than that. And frankly, the entire idea is so insanely hypocritical that I can't understand how any thinking person can endorse it. You want to eradicate totalitarianism by...invading sovereign nations and wrecking the shit out of them? What the hell could be more totalitarian than that? It's like trying to end bullying by killing and maiming every kid in the schoolyard. The fact is that the West itself is totalitarian in nature. We demand that countries play ball with our economic and political dictates, and if they don't, they get the hammer. The idea that a confrontation with tiny Syria (or any of the other handful of tinpot dictators we've knocked off over the past decade for that matter) is somehow "inevitable" is simply laughable. The combined power of the West/NATO dwarfs all of those countries by several orders of magnitude. They pose us zero threat. Foreign civil wars are none of our concern. Every time we intervene in the Middle East, we simply make things worse and create new complications. I find it utterly amazing that people can still be in favor of more Middle East adventurism at this point.

We're not exactly the ones wearing white hats, here. Everything we do is out of blind self-interest. The arguments you hear on television and in the media are propaganda designed to sway public opinion, nothing more. You and SexyBack don't seem to realize that. I have no doubt that you both have the best of intentions, but we all know what the road to hell is paved with. People in power have been taking advantage of the credulous and well-intentioned to get them to acquiesce to war since time immemorial. The reality is that the common man has nothing to gain from his government meddling in foreign wars.

"History and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government." - George Washington