There are actually people out there who believe that US foreign policy since WW2 has been consistently brilliant, devoid of error or miscalculation. There are people out there who believe that containment was an unqualified success, a triumph without errors or victims. There are people who believe that everything the US does is right, simply because we are the good guys and we do not do wrong, either by intent or by error. There are people who believe that Reagan's administration was an absolute and unqualified success. There will always be such blindness on both ends of the spectrum. That is no cause for gloom, and only those who take things far too seriously could be reduced to gloom by the ravings of the nut cases on either fringe. The only sensible avenue is to discard the fringe inanities and seek understanding in the middle ground, where we always find that both sides have a part of the picture, and that both sides are incapable of recognizing other parts.
Maybe, but I think there are far more of the opposite opinion (i.e. the opinion Neo was complaining about). I do agree that both ideas are examples of the fringe, not mainstream thought.
I do think US foreign policy since WWII has overall been a success, but it would be crazy to say that no errors where made or that everything the US has ever done as a country has always been both good practical policy and morally correct. Similarly I think Reagan's terms of office where successful, even unusually successful but it was not without flaws, weaknesses or mistakes.
I've never actually heard anyone say that either the US or Reagan has never made any mistakes or done anything wrong. I have heard people attacking both as being predominately wrong and/or idiotic (roughly the opposite of my viewpoint, and I believe the viewpoint Neo was complaining about).
Tim |
