“The danger I think is when the United States or any country thinks that we can simply impose these values on another country with a different history and a different culture,” the president told the broadcaster.
But he stressed: “Democracy, rule of law, freedom of speech, freedom of religion — those are not simply principles of the West to be hoisted on these countries, but rather what I believe to be universal principles that they can embrace and affirm as part of their national identity.”
“And that’s why closing Guantanamo, from my perspective, as difficult as it is, is important.”
Obama said he would be “encouraging” countries on his trip to promote these values, but added: “I think the thing that we can do most importantly is serve as a good role model.
1. Far and away the most successful example of us imposing our values on another country is Japan. In a few short decades, we turned them from a backwards, largely feudal people into a western style democracy. Indeed, it may well be the greatest example in human history of one people imposing its values on another. And we didn’t do it by being nice and showing them what sweet, cuddly teddy bears we can be; we did it by burning their cities to the ground, killing their citizens indiscriminately, and spending an absurd proportion of our national income just to invent a super weapon to drop on them. We were murderous asses to them, and because of it they are now as free, prosperous, and baseball-loving as any people to ever live.
2. Note the “from my perspective” in the third paragraph. He can’t even “impose” (i.e. persuade) his countryman of something; of course he’ll never persuade foreigners of anything. One of the great liberal conceits is if you just seem like you don’t care, but you really do care, then people will be drawn in by your apathy and then suddenly persauded of the view that you’ve pretended not to favor. They’re like the awkward high school guy with the hot girl: “Of course I don’t want to impose my views on foreigners . . . but if those foreigners would just suddenly, and inexplicably, come around to my non-imposed views, then that’ll be awesome!” That guy never gets the girl.
3. And what “national identities” can embrace western ideals? What if – let’s just pose a hypothetical – some people don’t base their identity primarily on their nation state. I know that might be hard to imagine for someone who sees government as the answer to all questions, but let’s just pose the hypothetical. And let’s say those people base their identity on their religion. And their religion is quite adamant than not everyone has the freedom of religion. That is, they consider it a capital offense for someone to change their religion from the one true religion. Why, exactly, are those people going to be persuaded to adopt freedom of religion when we release their coreligionists from Guantanamo? I don’t think that follows intuitively.
Posted by Apollo in CHANGE!