I was talking to someone from vgc, and mentioned the prospect of bush getting impeached. This was the response. (I'm putting this here since I think it will start an argument, not becuase I have any topic to discuss per se. Also, I'm leaving this anonymous, but if the person wants to come forward they can.)
[quote=Anonymous]Even when that all happened and I was fairly young, I still always felt that it was really not our business. I felt that it was between him and his wife, and not for the general public to sort out. His job was to "run the country", if you will, and he did that. He did his job while it was expected of him. But when the working day was done, he just wanted to have fun. I never saw how it was our business.
Like, I work in a ----. At a ----. And there is specific ettiquette expected of me while I'm working there. The company (--------) is paying me to behave a certain a way and do certain things, and I do them when I am supposed to. But I'm not all polite, friendly, helpful and understanding when I'm sitting in my living room, with my friends. And I'm certainly a different person when it comes to sex. So the way I see it, Bill Clinton did his job, and I don't think that what he did in his spare time should really matter, especially something as trivial as marital infidelity, which happens all the freaking time.
Yeah, Bush spending hundreds of billions of dollars on a war founded on lies seems worse to me. Plus, the way he promotes himself seems kind of... Well, big-brotherish. Like, instead of being reasonable, sensible and realistic, he does extravagant things like landing on air-craft carrier. These ceremonial things are meant to place him above the average human, because they're extraordinary and have no reason behind them.
So here we are, in Iraq, and no real evidence of WMDs. Saddam Hussein wasn't a threat to us after all. And now he's gonna die for being a jerk to an ungrateful bunch of people, many of whom base their philosophy of life around violence.
I hate saying this, but I genuinely feel like the Iraqi people needed a guy like Saddam Hussein. Democracy is not for everyone, and if a country does decide to be a democracy, the people of that country should decide that with little or no influence from the rest of the world. If the Iraqi people wanted a democracy, they would've had one. Just like we decided in 1776, and the French decided a few years later, and many other countries have before and since then.
I'm reminded of Germany's Weimar Republic, after WWI. The winners of WWI imposed a democratic government on the people of Germany, who didn't want this at all. We took away their army, gave some of their land to neighboring countries, and told them how to operate their government, essentially stripping them of their sovreignty as a nation.
Adolph Hitler tried a violent revoltion, but failed, and while in jail for his crime, he wrote "Mein Kampf" ("My Struggle"). Upon his relase, he got into politics and was voted into the office of Chancellor, by the German people. He didn't form a military coups or anything, the people of Germany wanted this guy to rule them because he promised to change things.
And he did.
So what do we do when the Iraqi people get sick of the new country we've built for them? What do we do when the elect the next Adolph Hitler into power, out of desparation with the misery we made their lives?
Remarkable thought process. Sounds like something I'd say.
They say we ought to observe history and learn from it. Nations have a few basic rights: Borders/Land, Sovreignty, Military...
The winners of WWI did take all those things from Germany, and we gave them a swell republic, quite similar to ours. We took them from being an Empire with a monarch and such, and changed them into a nation that was "free and prosperous", as opposed to the oppressed miserable nation they were before, with a guy like Kaiser Wilhelm running things.
While we did not directly have our hands in the collapse of USSR, I'm certain that our influence and pressure contributed to the decision. (Gorbechev, tear down this wall!) And I've met many people who have left Russia since then because it's a depressing place to live now. I've heard that they have a really high rate of alcoholism and suicide these days.
Although in their case, it may just collapsed because it's a poor idea to begin with.