George, I think diplomats were the first group to practice situational ethics.<ng>
But then again, the very moral Jimmy Carter gave away the Panama canal (loved the title of that documentary, A Man, A Plan, A Canal, Panama), and now we're faced with a strategic asset being managed by the PRC. Didn't make much sense to me - after all, we built it, we maintained it, and we pretty much created the country of Panama. So I can kind of understand why the U.S. wanted a hand in the Panama pie...but yeah, sooner or later those type of things will come back to haunt us. Regimes come and go while the people remain, but the pols in the U.S. are usually only concerned with whatever time remains to the next election. It's a manifestation of the (potentially) fatal flaw of democracy, and one of the reasons Malreaux said, "The problem with democracy is that one gets the government one deserves." |
