From: IN%"unicorn@schloss.li" "Black Unicorn" 26-APR-1996 01:19:03.47

What has consistently alarmed me is the United States trend of extending her own moral and ethical standards world wide. Granted the United States is the foremost world economic power, but the power to control markets and the political power to invade the sovereignty of other states are two distinct issues. The United States is, in one form or another, attempting to homogonize the legal systems of the world to comply with her own concept of what is "right" or "fair." This is disturbing.

I have no problems with extending US sovereignty where it will improve civil liberties. However, about the only place where it appears to do so is going against child labor. Otherwise, every action of the US government in this regard appears to have been to decrease civil liberties in other countries (and, indirectly, in the United States).

By no means are the states of the world united on the meaning of anti-trust, the appropriate levels of regulation therein, or the manner in which to enforce these segments of the law. That the United States should seek to impose her own will and concepts on foreign states strikes me as the antithesis of this once noble power's call, indeed the central focus of her foreign policy, for the self determination of all nation states.

Well, I wouldn't say that the self-determination of nation states is the important part. Indeed, most of the cases in which "national sovereignty" is used as an excuse are ones in which the other country is in the wrong. German censorship and Tianenmin (sp?) Square are excellent examples. If patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, national sovereignty is the last refuge of a scoundrel nation. I've deleted the rest of your statements because I essentially agree with them. -Allen