Some food for thought...

Rick & I's debate has been copied to many of Rick's friends and I got this response from Cliff Shaw...who's been reading our back & forth.

Cliff & I went to the same high school in Seligman, Arizona. I do not know him as well as I would like because he graduated a few years ahead of me...his younger brother Fernando was in my class.

Here are his thoughts & I must say he expresses his thoughts much more succinctly than I do!

Thought I’d spare some of the cc’s on this e-mail who are probably to busy watching Dancing with the Stars anyways. Jon – I’ve enjoyed reading your responses and thought I’d join in, as I too like a spirited and healthy debate. Rick, I personally think the whole idea of deterrence to counter the Soviet’s supposed world domination and the resultant cold war were unnecessary, big wastes of time, money, lives, etc. and a result of the failure of diplomacy. Why did we send American troops to Viet Nam and Korea ; to keep the Soviets out. We feared that the Soviets were bent on world domination, yet we never understood the internal conflicts in those countries and why the communist forces gained a footing there in the first place.

Regardless how impressive our military is, was, or will be, you can never simply invade a sovereign nation and turn them into loyal Americans. If we haven’t learned that we will continue to make the same foreign policy mistakes. The US operates from an ethnocentric position; we have since the first settlers stepped foot on our continent. Our forefathers believed that the white man was destined to rule the world as ordained by god. We have not moved far from that original position. We deal with all other cultures from a position of power, believing that democracy, Christianity, and free markets are the best for all. Ultimately I believe the democracy and free markets are the best systems current out there, yet people have always been willing to sacrifice individual freedoms for security. The former Soviet Union is a great example; we applauded the collapse of the Soviet system, declaring that democracy had won the day. Yet as economic reforms and free markets stalled and failed, the old regime has slowly regained power and most of the former soviet states are nothing near democratic.

You have to ask your self, why an otherwise reasonable person would strap an explosive device to their body and wander into a crowded market place full of women and children and blow themselves up. Simply saying that is what Islam teaches them to do is shallow and I don’t buy that for a second. Ever read Benazir Bhutto’s Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy, and the West? She was assassinated about two months after her return to Pakistan a little over a year ago. She believed Islam and Democracy were far from incompatible; in fact, she believed Islam and Democracy go hand in hand. Although the Islamic extremists were able to keep her from rising to power in Pakistan , she represented the majority of peace loving Muslims. If you oppress a people, take away their dignity, economic opportunity, and any hope for a better future they turn to religion for answers. They are then puppets in the hands of extremists who can twist the word of the Bible or Qur’an or any other religious text to suit their own agenda. You can’t fight this with guns, or tanks, or bombs. Kill one, kill hundreds, even thousands; you just martyr them and twice as many spring up to take their place. You fight this with hope; hope for a future; hope for economic prosperity, and security.

One final note with regard to slavery, Indian reservations, etc: we should be held responsible for the actions of our forefathers if we are to ever right the wrong. The writing of John Rawls has influenced my thinking tremendously. Rawls points out that people are born with different faculties and into different social conditions that have enormous implications on a person’s future prospects. These differing conditions, or starting point, that each of us grow up in are advantageous for some, and disadvantageous for others. Moreover, Rawls believes these initial conditions are the main sources of inequality among people. What Rawls proposes are ways to reduce those initial differences. Rawls recognizes that equality of opportunity can never be achieved from our initial starting point, and suggests that is why concern for reducing the inequalities of the resultant outcome is in order. Rawl’s suggest that when presented with several opportunities that offer mutually improving outcomes, we should select the option that that narrows the resultant inequality in outcome as measured between the topmost and bottom most advantaged groups. Thus programs like No Child Left Behind and the always divisive notion of Affirmative Action seek to help bridge the gap between those that are most affluent and those that are the most disadvantaged.

Just food for thought.
Cliff