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Ray Reply
"What I don’t subscribe to is the pithy piety being showcased in the pseudo moral jabberwocky of 'Freedom and Democracy'."
Brigadier,
I understand but don't see it as pseudo-moral. Let me explain. It may seem as pap fed to the masses for their consumption but behind the pithy phrasing lies some fundamental tenets that deserve support. The notions of public secular education, democratic elections and transparent governance, public health, free and unfettered trade, and bills of rights are the instruments of ultimate power and not pie-in-the-sky rhetoric to mask Machevellian intentions.
We are hardly perfect and I understand that you damn us with faint and disingenuous praise for seeming self-serving duplicity. Still, realpolitik concerns require our engagement with onerous leaders. This is true for every democratic nation on this planet. We know that- nearly all of us. It doesn't require that we surrender our principles and, for the most part, we don't.
Those principles, we believe, represent our best weapons to creating a world that will be no less competitive but far more cooperative. Laura Bush's comments about the Myanmar leadership were spot-on and hardly untypical. In sum, this nation has "walked the walk" as well or better than any nation on earth and our goals/objectives certainly further our interests- and yours and every other nation that believes in those aforementioned principles.
Don't lose sight of those "tools", Brigadier. It's what separates altruistic interest from narrow self-interest.
__________________
"This aggression will not stand, man!" Jeff Lebowski
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