>>The US chooses to ally itself with trouble makers.<<
If by "trouble makers" you mean Israel, yeah, we are proud to be allied with Israel. Those Israelis are tough, and they are good people. Until I took the trouble to learn the history of Israel, I was swayed, from time to time, by the propaganda that the conflict in the Middle East is all Israel's fault.
Since then, I've learned that the Jews settled peacefully in Israel, living on land which they bought from moderate Arabs, and it was radical Arabs who could not tolerate living with Jews. The 1948 war was started by Arabs.
I don't know the history well enough to lecture you on it, and I don't feel it's my place to do that, so I won't, but maybe you can get a book and read it on the way back to Brazil. Where, I hope, they have Internet, and you will be back reporting to us shortly afterwards.
>>Shouldn't be the case of the US call friends countries that are not threatening? That are not potential places for
turmoil?<<
Yes and yes. But I can't think of more potentially threatening places than Japan and Germany, and we've been friends with them for years. We are making friends with Russia and China, too, countries which are historically our enemies and definitely potential places for turmoil. Heck, a lot of countries think we are threatening and a potential place for turmoil.
>>Shouldn't be the case, of a truly peace-loving society, to naturally ally itself with other pacific people?<<
Our natural preference is to ally ourselves with liberal democracies - liberal in the 19th century sense of the word - freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of expression, freedom to engage in whatever kind of sex you want as long as it's with other consenting adults and you don't frighten the horses. The point of liberal democracies is that the people pick the government. My civics teacher used to say (and this may come from Churchill) "democracy is the worst form of government in the world, except for all the others." It beats totalitarianism, authoritarianism, communism, socialism, monarchy, oligarchy, and every other "ism" and "archy," we think.
I have heard that no liberal democracy has ever attacked another liberal democracy. I can't think of any exceptions to that, but I can't say with certainty that it's true, either.
>>If one call itself peaceful but its allied to trouble makers, I think this country is fooling itself.<<
Oh, I think we're just living in the real world. Democracy makes strange bedfellows, and capitalism even stranger ones.
>>Or -more difficult for Americans to accept- allying itself with pacific countries would make big US defence forces and its billions of dollars redundant. Hence lets keep company with the trouble makers to justify the defence budget.<<
It is a strange phenomenon, the Pax Americana. Our empire - I think it's accurate to call it an empire - is not based on colonies, but on international trade. As you pointed out very well, US corporations are entertwined with corporations all over the world. Everywhere there is a US trading partner, there is a reason to keep peace.
The defense budget is very high, but we can afford it, because we benefit from free trade. Without free trade, we couldn't afford it. Sort of circular, but there it is. And there are all the spinoffs from the defense budget and the space race - integrated circuits, satellites, GPS, all kinds of lovely inventions and gadgets.
>>In the end it is all about money.<<
And in the beginning it was all about money, too. This country - like your country - was settled by people looking for a better life. Most of the people who live here are not directly descended from hunter-gatherers who stumbled across a land bridge as glaciers receded. There were a few thousand years of civilization in between the hunter-gatherer stage and the trip to the New World. The elites stayed in Europe because they had it made. The dregs stayed in Europe because they couldn't pay the fare. The best and brightest who didn't already have it made scraped up the money for the boat ride and took a chance that the streets of the New World really were paved with gold.
The astonishing material wealth of this place was, and continues to be, remarkable. Our merchants have prospered for centuries. Our industries are extraordinarily productive. Our farmers are so good that we could feed the world - if their own countries would let us. Our wealth is shared with the poorest of our poor. I don't mean to say that the social conditions in the USA are perfect, but we do have a lot of money, and we always have.
When your material needs are taken care of then you can give your attention to higher things. Who knows what Brazil could accomplish if her citizens were as well off as ours are? Thousands of El Mats - the mind boggles with what they could accomplish. And in China - hundreds of thousands of Jay Chens!
It's not a zero-sum game, you know. It's synergistic. The more you have, the more you have to give.
>>Perhaps the US needs to dilute the WASP gene pool among more millions immigrants to become a pacific country.<<
I guess you're saying that WASPs are not peaceful? But no WASPs have started a war in this century, and other than Germany, I haven't noticed any WASPs starting a war in the last one. That's a stretch - the "AS" in WASP means Anglo-Saxon (White Anglo Saxon Protestant), and I suppose there must still be some descendents of the Angles and Saxons in Germany.
Which immigrants will make the USA more pacific, do you suppose? |
