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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (134381)	5/25/2004 3:53:13 PM
From: carranza2	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Great post, Mq., really one of your best. Freedom is viral, give it a chance and it will flower anywhere, infect anything. People want to be free. I don't know if it has been ever subjected to any rigorous analysis in terms of its place in the hierarchy of needs, but I would say it is up there, right close to food and drink. It drives migrations, efforts, innovation, and everything that has allowed us to leave the savannahs of Africa in search of a better place. I would even venture to say it drove our chimpoid efforts to stand on two legs--we need to look to the horizon, see what's "over there." We cannot do these things without freedom. It's the reason Islamofascism will eventually fail. The Islamofascisti take too literally the meaning of their great religion. They literally demand "submission," something we are not programmed to accept. The more enlightened ones, of course, take the wise view that submission relates only to the relation between a man and his god. Superstitious garbage, anyway, but harmful and self-defeating when applied in the way the I-fascists demand. I'm not worried because at the end of the day, perhaps a century from now, when we are all quite irrelevant, the virality of freedom as an evolutionary-genetic imperative will assert itself.

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (134381)	5/26/2004 2:36:42 PM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Hello Maurice. I thought that your post wasn't as much about the limits of imposing our will and using our military might to transform cultures, and to overcome hatreds and passions that are fueled by big ideas.. as much as it was about how we CAN make such changes. You said: Stockholm syndrome, alpha male syndrome, primate dominant hierarchy, women like a strong man, young people adopt the culture of the day, each new child and generation takes a completely new look at the world and what they become defines the world and let's not forget good old-fashioned cash flow as an incentive. Your point that our successes and our economic incentives will create "carrots" that will lead other cultures or societies to emulate us and to strive for the benefits we offer is well demonstrated by the European and Asian drift toward free market economies. I believe that free markets lead to a much more open and democratic lifestyle since money talks and when the means of production are in the hands of the populace instead of the government, that decentralizes power. That drift does, therefor, create a climate for change and will lead to a greater demand for political freedom because owning the means of production and exercising independent initiative are cornerstones of democracy. The "Stockholm Syndrome" reference, however, is a step beyond those concepts. As I understand that syndrome, it refers to the tendency of those that are held under a threat of death or injury to identify with, and adopt the views of, their captors. Whether a milder form of it influences populations that are occupied or under the threat of military force seems less certain. I do, however, agree with your main point. We should be a model of justice, freedom, prosperity and generosity for the world to view and, hopefully, to strive for. I suspect that was a significant factor in the evolution of the old iron curtain countries, of China, and of Vietnam. We were a more prosperous, more free and more innovative people and they saw that their "model" of governance was inferior so they did what rational people everywhere have done; they tried what was touted as a better way and then they learned. Whether that would work in a country with an Islamic based culture is another issue and I'm not sure that I know enough about their beliefs and their culture to make a good assessment of their desires or learning curve. Some desires are universal, however, and I'm confident that to some extent we share with them the same desires to take care of our families and to enjoy the material things in life. In other ways, however, freedom and one-person one-vote democracy seem to conflict with the wants of the men who control those countries and may pale in comparison to the religious fervor that may take precedent over material wants. I feel quite sure that those who wield the true power in those cultures do NOT want to empower women and that the women and the men are much more willing to be governed by religious leaders that many of them see as having been directly descended from the line of Mohammed. Having made those points, I still agree that we should use the "carrot" and "lead by example" approach. The people of those lands have been politically oppressed for a long time. Many of them probably have utopian ideas about what an Islamic theocracy or some other form of government would do for their lives. Let them find out. If they choose, or don't fight against, radical, extremist rule then maybe the best cure for that is a few decades of radical, extremist rule. Sometimes a people have to learn from their failures. One thing that is clear in today's information accessible world is that you cannot keep any nation's people totally ignorant of the wealth, happiness or prosperity of people of other nations. They will learn to be unhappy with a second rate government that limits their rights and the futures of their children soon enough. Or maybe they won't; maybe they'll find a better way and we'll be the ones trying to emulate them someday.