We also publish report cards on other nations’ human rights records because it’s important that it be done by as many groups as possible, as often as possible. My guess here is that we criticize other nations without ever examining ourselves.
And that’s where Hiatt really brings the argument. In his opinion, we’re too eager to criticize others while never criticizing ourselves. That’s the basis for his final paragraphs – the ones I quoted at the beginning of this post.
Again, Hiatt misses something very important. We do criticize ourselves. We criticize ourselves through the democratic process continually. Every single election we hold is a direct examination of the job our elected officials are doing and the direction in which our nation is headed. We are rare among nations in that we do this self-examination on so many different levels of government so often. As a result, our nation does not commit genocide, or build a gulag, or become a tyranny because our people will never allow such a thing to happen.
That is the entire thrust of the Bush Doctrine – free people who form a democratic government similar to ours don’t do the things to which the Vice President wants more attention drawn. If our government were the form of government in the Sudan, there would be no genocide in Darfur. If Kim Jong-Il had to stand for office in a free election, he would never be in the position he’s in right now and millions of North Koreans would be alive today. If Fidel Castro allowed his people the rights that we have here, he’d be out of a job in a month. The irony here is that we’re not telling people they should be just like us – just that they should be free to choose their own destinies.
Identifying a core value and application. We basically believe that freedom and the democratic form works best for everyone, and best safeguards the entire world from tyranny and its atrocities.
This is identifying what we consider the Good; this is confronting the underlying controversy that we are witnessing.
Interesting that this writer, Jimmie@ Sundries Shack identifies this as paramount in keeping to the straight and narrow:
We criticize ourselves through the democratic process continually. Every single election we hold is a direct examination of the job our elected officials are doing and the direction in which our nation is headed. We are rare among nations in that we do this self-examination on so many different levels of government so often.
Remember who you are. Remember what you come from. Understand where you are going.
Replay from The French in Modern Mode
“the danger of dechristianization, understood as a return to paganism: the “new pagans” of the cities and the factories live in the social vacuum and the moral corruption of a society characterized by a purely materialistic vision of the world.” -H. Godin and Y. Daniel,”La France pays de mission?” published in 1943
and ” If the idea of justice …. is connected to the Christian ethos, and this ethos is diminished, then there is the risk that the very idea of justice would be lost”
We are struggling to define our ideal of justice and we are questioning the idea of a just war. Basically the Left is going to have to answer for themselves whether they would rather put up with turning a blind eye to everything they hold dear, in terms of justice for women and the minority, and the disenfranchised, in order to uphold their ever rising bar on American moral superiority. Their own sense of moral superiority is on the line.
The Right is going to have to examine how much they are willing to excuse themselves for the sake of the upper hand and less protracted conflicts in this difficult area of the world. Their convenience and bottom line will have to be considered lower on the priority scale if they are going to have the inner fortitude to do this thing right. We are all going to have to make up our minds where our line of morality will take us.
And are we brave enough to face that we are not hewn from Islamic views. We cannot countenance what they do to promote their agenda. We have a fundamentally different system and mindset. and finally, we will have to ask ourselves: can we coexist in their system as they can in ours?
Isaiah 51:1
Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the LORD: look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged.
You bring up all the hard points, but they are the ones we must address to make progress.
As for the criticism, I think one of our problems is that we have been less willing to criticize ourselves in a useful way. We want to turn everything into a dogfight, but that does not work in a democracy.
And one thing is certain – this is not a strategy we can pursue piecemeal. To really stand for democracy and human rights will further isolate us and expose us to heavy criticism, and it also will demand taking a good long look at what we are doing ourselves.
In a lot of ways one can see the reports of abuses at Gitmo and Bagram as a subset of our abuses in our prisons domestically. I am afraid we have become a callous society. I no longer know whether we really believe in what we say our values are.
wow. -what you said! That is where this whole matter is taking me and I don’t really want to address it much anymore. It is as if the hounds of war are unleashed and the only sound is baying and yelping.
Those who talk loud about values but aren’t trying to discuss the real points at hand… mark them under hypocrite. Just rabble rousers, imo.
Right now I am holding strong opinion in check, still looking over the horizon for someone who has some grasp of what is at stake.
your remarks further make me consider that we are a rudderless society- coming down too hard on things of lesser consequence and letting the important things slip by.