Stream Of Commute - November 10, 2003

(these are spontaneous thoughts, flowing from head to keyboard, on the daily commute)

imagine the world if we had not won wwII, and hitler had won it, or hitler and stalin had teamed up to win it. what would the world be like? look at the world now. though we make, and have made, mistakes, we in America are not evil. there is no better alternative than what we have accomplished over the past few centuries.

europe ridded itself of powerful monarchs in WWI, and fascist dictators in WWII. they did so because of us. because of our help. otherwise, all of europe would be a fascist alliance with pockets of resistance, perhaps now irrevocably stamped out.

warts and all, America is the champion of liberal democracy. so far.

***

as for my point about self-determination in an earlier post, one example of how this is never totally free may be seen by our example of the Civil War. the South seceded, or tried to secede, and were stopped from doing so. violently. was this a violation of their self-determination (looked at solely from this particular lens)? were their people in support of the secession, or if in support duped into such? yes, and unlikely. the South wanted to do their own thing, and they were prevented from doing that by the dictates of an outside power. other-determination. this other overwhelming the "self" in order to change its image of itself. to a larger self that encompasses the larger wishes of the more fit and winning power.

a war not of extermination, or aggression, but of assimilation.

ecology and evolution.