The White Man's Burden

[eynon81]

[Spider]

[eynon81]

[Saz]

LOL it's the 21st century. I believe you mean the Asian man's burden.

[Stratego]

[broken robot]

[The Comrade]

it's a little simplistic to blame colonialism, neo or otherwise. some areas of africa, for example, were brutalized(congo) others were kind of just owned, left to their own devices or even built up (algeria, for example). they ALL have had problems since independence. taking zimbabwe as an example, mugabe has convinced the population all their troubles are because of the UK and white people. reality being all their troubles are mugabe. mugabe himself isn't a product of colonialism either. he's just another man that decided to seize more power than he deserved.

also it seems like you're defining morality to violence objectively?

[broken robot]

[The Comrade]

not sure how this response fits with what i said.

i didn't say zimbabwe wasn't a colony, or that it wasn't brutalized. i just said their problems were not the UK or white people, they are mugabe. and mugabe is not a product of colonialism, he is just an opportunist who seized power and won't let go of it. he is no different from any power hungry individual in history. never said congo and algeria weren't colonies either. i said congo was brutalized, algeria was kind of kept nice by the french. colonialism was imperialistic, but not every colonial power was the belgian king and not every area owned was subject to the same levels of oversight and centralization.

no, i don't deny it. but most of the americas are no less dependent on larger powers economically than african nations are. and, in almost every case, those south american countries faced far more brutal conditions as colonies than many african nations did. yet the americas are doing much better for themselves in comparison to africa (and have faced, arguably, much more direct intervention in their domestic affairs by the US and others). in that context, colonialism isn't a very good reason.

yes, i do disagree. some things are results of cultural traits that you, again, cannot just blame on colonialism. wealth, power, prestige, and economic independence haven't tempered some of the barbaric behavior of the arab oil states. if you want to deconstruct it you can make a long train going back 1300 years to the foundation of islam and everything that has followed. but like with the africa-americas comparison, why did europe stop being terrible and the middle east, save for a few pockets, remain in the 1300s?

[Professor]

Not speaking to the larger aspect of the OP (because that gets into philosophy, which I view largely as a waste of mental effort, because it rarely results in any action), but speaking to the specifics of this case.

If a village doesn't want help, then we don't help them. If they want to close their little village borders to outsiders, we'll be glad to help. We'll even supply a few Humvees at strategic bridges and such to ensure no one goes in and no one gets out.