No effect on the outside world at all. Neutrality can be a BAD thing. Causes internal stagnation as well.
*looks at the state of the outside world* Clockwood, are you so sure that Switzerland's lack of involvement with the outside world is unintentional? Hell, the way it's going, I can sincerely understand the desire to just say "to hell with them" and just focus on living my own life. To me, it seems the Swiss just copped on to that a few hundred years ago... And please show how switzerland is suffering from internal stagnation, or that it's neutrality has had adverse effects for them.
I voted Yes, but not because of those wars you suggested. Most of those were fought because Americans feared the USSR and were the only ones with the ability to confront it. Others were because of our allies with the UN. Yeah that against what George Washington said something about being warry of alliances. The United States was founded on philosophies around John Locke: Life liberty and the persuit of property. Socraties: Democracy is nice but isint perfect and must be contained and have safeguards. Basically individualism and capitalism. The United States has been moving away from this from its creation. The problem of why the United States has fallen from its original philosphies I guess would come down to slavery. Thomas Jefferson, Benginmin Franklin and Adam Smith were all abolistionist but they did not think they had the power to get ride of it at the time. Later on it required a larger more powerful federal goverment to abolish slavery forever. This then gave the Federal goverment the power to regulate industry which peaked around the great deprsion.
Well I guess all I can go on, really, is what others see as the American Beacon. Most of the Chinese I know (here in Australia) say they all wanted to go to the USA before Au. Every one of them. Even yesterday I was talking to a Malaysian-Chinese and she wanted to work in the USA. If it’s not the USA then almost always then want to go to Japan. Obviously, as I know them, they came here (Au), probably as a fifth or sixth pick. The same is true of a few Singaporeans I know very well. The number of Chinese wanting to go and work in the US is astronomical. The same for many Indians I know (Just go to Northern CA and you’ll see a nice replica of Bombay – great curries there!). Anyway, The massive number of Chinese (over a million) graduating from University are finding it hard to get good jobs in China so they look abroad and when they look abroad they (generally) look first to the US. All of this has to be taken into account, I think, when the Freedom Beacon is thought of. They think they want to go to the USA because it’s rich. Why is it rich – because it has a Free and Fair government (supposedly). If it was rich and it had a communist government they’d want a communist government. If it was poor and Free and Fair they’d probably want a rich and restricted government (see: Singapore). So the Liberty Bell notion of the US should be more aptly replaced with the Money Flag (how about a big GW Green-Back fling up there!). Puke!!! I also talk to my Chinese friends about the war in the ME. They almost always say – yes, of course its right, we will do it to when we have the power. Maybe the Asians are just less PC and more honest?(by the by I thought it was/is wrong) It’s funny, but I find most of the people that see the USA as a beacon are from poorer countries and those from Au, NZ, etc. . . see the US in a much more of a negative light. So maybe not much beacon there. But it is truly an individual thing. I was talking to a Vietnamese the other day at dinner (his English was very poor) so he struggled to tell me something – just one thing he really wanted to say. “Please come back and help us. You need to send the military back. The Chinese are directly buying huge amounts of Vietnamese land from (who ever runs the place).” (incidentally, I have no idea if that is true or not.) But he felt like the only people who could come save his country (from China) was America. So there’s one person, who sees the USA as a beacon of Freedom. IS that what the founding fathers wanted? I don’t think so. They had a few little “states” on the East Coast. They probably thought of themselves as Englishmen (or at the least European). The quintessential American identity that Americans (today) think of when they think about the founding fathers is probably just nostalgia for something that didn’t really exist. The founding fathers knew the difficulties in creating a government that would answer to the people (rich educated people). I have to say these guys were pretty smart. They modeled much of the government on other governments and took a great deal of ideas from the Scottish (a people who knew what it’s like to be on the receiving end). I’m sure the notion of being a beacon to other people was not really what motivated these people. It was simply: How to create a government that will not use it’s power to screw over the rich people. The answer was to elect those same rich people (wealthy educated ones that owned land, had slaves, and therefore had something to lose and as such SHOULD be governing the place) into the government itself. Do people see the USA as a beacon: I think many would say yes, because it’s a rich powerful country. And they want to be rich and powerful so they see and example and want to follow it.
What do you mean 'as an example of democracy'??? Democracy was never going to work, and it's never even had the capacity to working!! We will never actually 'see' the bad side to democracy because democracy is based on the idea of publicity. Plus how did democracy even come about: it cannot have been implemented democratically, so it must have been implemented by those in power; thus it is biased in it's very foundations. Mike- While you may have some valid points there, I think there are better ways to find answers rather than peoples opinions. Books help a lot more I think, and reading enough texts to find deeper answers takes a long time, so I wouldn't recommend shutting oneself away for hours on end. Just bits here and there helps me, and that way you can still lead a balanced life. Like I said it can take a long time to find true answers, and the books that are selected is important too; remember someone has actually wrote it! It can sometime's help to read the inside cover about the author(s) to find out more about them, and what their motives might be. For example a banking chairman writing about sport (for example) may not be likely to understand as much as a player, who spends much of their time actually in the sport. Having said this this may not always be true, which is why it is important to sometimes find out about the author; which is other medias can be important. The most important thing to remember is that work life (including any study) should be quite separate from one's spare time, in my opinion. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Switzerland is a peacful country. Wouldn't you say that most of the world would like to see peace; so if democracy is working correctly then a peaceful country is most likely to have implemented it correctly! yeah, some good info. sparks.
