stevelovesmoonspell wrote:
completely antithetical to what this country was founded upon.
I'm not American.
I'm a Croatian Australian.
Croatia has been involved in many nasty activities in the last few wars we've been in. In WWII we sided with the Nazis and ran our own concentration camps.
In 1991-95 we ethnically cleansed 250,000 Serbs.
Australia was founded in 1901 on premises of retaining white cultural supremacy in Australia and of safeguarding British Empire interests against the "Yellow Peril" or "Asiatic Hordes."
So what may be unethical to an American is fine for someone like myself.
Besides the Americans are a bit delusional about their history. One of the British acts of tyranny was to not support American expansionism into Native American territory or of funding American defenses when agitated Indians slugged it out with settlers encroaching on their land.
Or the whole slavery thing - even the Founding Fathers were slave owners.
I have no qualms with any of this. My point is that idealism is dangerous be it Islamists, National Socialists, Communists, environmentalists or liberal democrats. Utilitarianism is a much better and saner approach.
stevelovesmoonspell wrote:
I am not quite sure what you mean by international affairs, the course of the last 40 or so years of geopolitics, the rest of the world has stood idly by while the US has collectively fucked over
USSR fucked over people too (Eastern Europe, Afghanistan, large chunks of Africa). The French tried it in Suez, Algeria and Vietnam. Brits did it in Suez and Malaya. Ethiopia did it to Eritrea. Or issues in Southern Sudan.
And before that we had the European colonial empires, Christian Crusades, Islamic jihads and Arab expansionism in the middle ages, Ottoman expansionism, Mongols, Huns, Chinese expansionism, wars of conquest amongst the Aztecs and later Maya, Roman, Greek, Carthagainian, Egyptian expansionism etc etc.
People have been killing each other and interfering in each others affairs since time began and mainly to get rich.
stevelovesmoonspell wrote:
but hey when history looks at the West they won't be seeing a bastion of freedom by any means.
At least here in Australia that freedom has always been fake.
You can do whatever you like:
1. Provided you have government approval. Even putting up a fence or a small 1.5 m x 2.0 m shed requires government approval.
2. It's not viewed as offensive to anyone. This is viewed as slander and you can get sued for it. USA is much better in this regard.
At one stage carrying an Australian flag in public was viewed as offensive and was even banned at some events. Carrying a Lebanese flag is fine though.
3. Don't expect your elected representatives to have any power or be anything more than figureheads. The bureaucracy runs Australia regardless of what the elected politicians do.
I am a bureaucrat myself and can tell you that the ministers have no power whatsoever.
4. Don't say anything that can be construed as politically incorrect. It will kill your career and result in ostracisation. The government goes out of their way to ensure this through press releases (e.g. hounding of politician Pauline Hanson).
5. You have to accept legally acceptable corruption for politicians and no repurcussions for one's that commit illegal acts.