On 18 Oct 2004 at 15:31, Tyler Durden wrote:
Aside from that, your posts are completely saturated with the "They're more evil than we are therefore it's OK for us to be fuckin them over" logic.
They are more evil that we are, as demonstrated by their propensity to kill all sorts of people, including each other, and including us. This forces us to do something violent. Imposing democracy on Iraq at gunpoint was probably a bad idea, but it was selected as the option that would raise the least objection. Any more effectual measure is going to piss you lot off even more. A more effectual measure and considerably less costly measure would have been to confiscate Iraq's and Saudi Arabia's oil reserves, and ethnically cleanse all male muslims above the age of puberty from the oil bearing areas. This democracy stuff did not work in Haiti and things look considerably more difficult, and more expensive, in Iraq.
Well, let's dig into this. It appears on the surface to harbour a lot of the common myths shared in the hallowed corridors of DC. Most Cypherpunks would agree that free markets are a good thing. Basically, if you leave people alone, they'll figure out how to meet the needs that are out in there and, in the process, get a few of the goodies available to us as vapors on this world. I assume you would agree to this. That said, the question is whether American interference abroad has helped or possibly greatly hindered the formation of free markets. And I think the verdict is beocmming increasingly clear that American interference hurts free markets. Of course, there are the arguable exceptions: Post-war Germany and Japan, but these countries not only had a strong history of free markets at the time they both ahd large corporations and a rapidly modernizing infrastrcture. In developing markets the US track record is terrible. The more we interfere and set up puppet governments and petty dictators, the result has always been the near elimination of any kind of real modern economy. More than that, some of the countries we've been kicked out or prevented from influencing have been modernizing rapidly, the most obvious example is China and Vietnam. Bolivia is interesting to watch. One could in fact argue that the faster a country removes our shadowy "help", the sooner they can get on their own two feet and start developing. In this light, US influence starts to look like it's on some levels designed to quash the local development of modern industrialization and perhaps this is no suprise: We don't really want the competition. In the long run this is unsustainable, and can only lead to even bigger September 11ths. under there and examine the substance of what he's saying. -TD _________________________________________________________________ Is your PC infected? Get a FREE online computer virus scan from McAfee. Security. http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963