While I vote conservative, there is a need for a certain amount of "socialism" or social responsibility. Without this, the poor and less advantaged become disenfranchised from society and extreme wealth is concentrated with just a few people which can lead to corruption and more suffering for the normal workers who rely on the system being honest for their retirement etc ...
I agree. My family has personally benefited from a certain amount of socialism - which I have absolutely no desire to remove. Indeed, universal health care, one of the left's pet projects, is something that I truly care about and want to see happen, as much for national security issues as for anything else.
While D8TA brings up a valid point, one that has been hammered home again and again, regarding the United States frequent moral failures - one must repeat Yeru's question again, since D8TA didn't answer it. What country, given our power and position, would have a better record than us? France? Portugal? Spain? Holland? They all have long records of human rights abuses, racism, and cruelty at least as corrupt and sordid as ours. And while the reality of our self-image as the great and noble defenders of freedom is nowhere close to our perception - we desire to be that nation. I think it is that desire to be the "Knight in Shining Armor" or the "Hero Cowboy" that defines our national character. That's why weaponry is so near and dear to our hearts.
So then, the question becomes, should the United States try to live up to its self-image of being a Hero Cowboy by intervening in other nations, try to seek redemption for our bloody and cruel past by bringing a superior form of government (democracy) to the oppressed peoples of the Middle East? Or should we give up altogether, retreat back across our oceans, close down all our foreign bases, withdraw from the U.N. (they'd rather be in Switzerland, anyway), and just give up the whole idea?
Believe me, there is a strong instinct in almost all of the United States' peoples to just close down our borders and impose ridiculous tariffs on foreign goods and just tend to our own affairs. But the thing that gets the average American ready to cross the ocean again to die in some hellhole run by fanatic lunatics, the thing is a need to build a better world.
I also think that you cannot fault us for things like East Timor and Cambodia - where we didn't act - and still oppose us on anti-war grounds when we DO act. The only way the United States CAN act is through military means. I suppose we could have sent a lot of protestors over to Cambodia, see how long their marches last in the absence of any military force dedicated to giving them the freedom to march.
I think the difference between the Borg and my current patriotism is this: the Borg made a lot of promises and it didn't deliver. Nobody promised me anything in the country, but I've had a lot of good things anyway - and I feel like I owe it to the people who weren't lucky enough to be born here to give them a taste of the freedoms I love so much.
CZAR
