dronestar writes:
Yeah, way, way back in the
distant, nearly unmemorable distant past, america had a hegemonic past.
How long ago were the Spanish-American, Korean, Vietnam, Nicaraguan, Granadan, etc., wars? Unmemorable and distant do not seem accurate characterizations. Or was the "
" intended to indicate sarcasm, which would make it hard to understand as an appropriate response to what 1.61803 said. We're you trying to agree with him using sarcasm?
And conversely, my ability to travel effortlessly through airports, not have my phone or emails privacy violated, ability to travel to most parts of the world, and most importantly, not to financially support the murder of woman/children/civilians deaths are a direct result of someone else doing the very things humanity finds abhorrent.
I get the sarcasm, but I want to make sure I still get your point. Converse to 1.61803's point that your comfortable life derives from past abhorrent acts, you're saying that the discomforts in your life also derive from past abhorrent acts. In other words, our entire present derives from our abhorrent past (and, I assume, any other parts of our past). Did I get that right?
If so, then I don't think 1.61803 would disagree with you, but I think he would feel you've missed his point. I believe he was saying that while the west might have "all manner of horrors" in its past that past moral transgressions do not forfeit the west's right to make moral judgments today. The west is saying that ISIS is behaving in a morally repugnant fashion, and I think 1.61803 is saying that we didn't lose the right to say that just because, for example, we treated the Indians badly or bombed Hiroshima.
--Percy