Firmly planting the flag of liberty

[skybridge]

"As I said in my speech, not every nation is going to immediately adopt America's vision of democracy and I fully understand that. But we expect nations to adopt the values inherent in a democracy, which is human rights and human dignity, that every person ought to have a voice. And his majesty is making progress toward that goal." -George W. Bush 1/26/05

Does this kind of thinking make the world a better or worse place?

[opebo]

Worse because of the inherent hypocrisy, arrogance, and threat of aggression.

[J. J.]

"As I said in my speech, not every nation is going to immediately adopt America's vision of democracy and I fully understand that. But we expect nations to adopt the values inherent in a democracy, which is human rights and human dignity, that every person ought to have a voice. And his majesty is making progress toward that goal." -George W. Bush 1/26/05

Does this kind of thinking make the world a better or worse place?

1.  Who is he reffering to ("his majesty")?
2.  Yes, respect for rights and a general democratization is good.

[Trilobyte]

There is nothing wrong with wanting to spread democracy. There is a problem when you alienate the world and damage America's credibility in the procress.

[Josh]

There is nothing wrong with wanting to spread democracy. There is a problem when you alienate the world and damage America's credibility in the procress.

Agreed.  America is becoming imperialistic like hasn't been seen in many years - forcing democracy on those who may not want it.  See, democracy is rule by consent of the people.  If we're forcing democracy on people, then it isn't democracy, is it?  It's naught but hypocrisy and ignorance.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Who is he reffering to ("his majesty")?

IIRC, the quote is from today's press conference and the His Majesty in this case is His Hashemite Majesty, King Abullah II Ibn Al Hussein.

[Gabu]

There is nothing wrong with wanting to spread democracy. There is a problem when you alienate the world and damage America's credibility in the procress.

Agreed.  America is becoming imperialistic like hasn't been seen in many years - forcing democracy on those who may not want it.  See, democracy is rule by consent of the people.  If we're forcing democracy on people, then it isn't democracy, is it?  It's naught but hypocrisy and ignorance.

While you do have a point, it's also true that many dictators are forcing something substantially worse than democracy on the people, however.  It's not exactly as if they can just get up and decide to have a democracy.

I'm not arguing in favor of this position, though.  I'm mostly on the fence.

[Josh]

There is nothing wrong with wanting to spread democracy. There is a problem when you alienate the world and damage America's credibility in the procress.

Agreed.  America is becoming imperialistic like hasn't been seen in many years - forcing democracy on those who may not want it.  See, democracy is rule by consent of the people.  If we're forcing democracy on people, then it isn't democracy, is it?  It's naught but hypocrisy and ignorance.

While you do have a point, it's also true that many dictators are forcing something substantially worse than democracy on the people, however.  It's not exactly as if they can just get up and decide to have a democracy.

I'm not arguing in favor of this position, though.  I'm mostly on the fence.

Yeah, its a tricky issue.  Not sure what I support exactly, I just have all my imperialism arguments fresh from Midterm studying for History class   Between the two papers I wrote about it, I think I managed to argue both sides of the issue, although it wasn't about modern imperialism.

[skybridge]

"As I said in my speech, not every nation is going to immediately adopt America's vision of democracy and I fully understand that. But we expect nations to adopt the values inherent in a democracy, which is human rights and human dignity, that every person ought to have a voice. And his majesty is making progress toward that goal." -George W. Bush 1/26/05

Democracy, human rights and their derivatives apparently established themselves as the most virtuous of values. However, the fact that Bush speaks of "America's vision of democracy" leaves room for a lot speculation that this definition of democracy may come closer to preserving economic and political interest by adpoting imperalist measures to a degree. Bush "expect nations to adopt the values inherent in a democracy" could be interpreted as a threat to tyranny as well as call to preserve capitalism. As far as ancient times, democracy was considered the rule of the have-nots which might make it seem curious that there have been no independent pushes in these outposts of tyranny. A number of aspects of democracy itself deserve criticism, but that constitutes another debate. I just wanted to introduce some more arguments.