From: Ascmjk@aol.com
Date: Mon Dec 15 2003 - 22:30:06 GMT
David, all others
I want to pose a question to the group. I think America is the greatest
nation on earth. Many obviously think otherwise. But my question is not which
country you think is greatest, but this: Which country does the world NEED the
most?
Answer honestly. Or evade the question completely if you chose. If you think
it's a low-Quality question, I can't change your mind. But to ignore what the
world NEEDS is to not care about the world. I think the world needs freedom.
People make, on a micro-level in society, dramatic STATEMENTS from time to time
(Martin Luther King Jr, rose parks, for example), about the Values they
believe in. Iraqi Freedom was a macro-level STATEMENT about the Values America
believes in. Macro. People seem to leave the intellectual level completely out of
this debate, which is unfortunate. The reasons I supported the war were
largely intellectual. These words factored into my support: Values. Morality.
Dynamic Quality, both Intellectual and Social.
It's good to keep a watchful eye on our own power, but wouldn't we be a lot
uneasier if it were Russia or China instead of us who had this unique position?
I think America routinely uses far more *restraint* than any other nation
would if it had the kind of power America had.
While there will always be people out of work at any given time, the economy
of America is strong. Our *system* is strong. Evidence of this claim? Look the
crash of '87. The *biggest* single crash in history, but it barely registered
as a blip on the economic radar screen. It didn't dramatically effect lives,
there were not people jumping off roofs as in the '29 crash. It was big news
for a few days, but it didn't result in a depression. Such is the Quality of
our system. People were worried about Japan's economic dominance around that
time period as well. The Quality of our system again proved itself. And the myth
of American manufacturing going down the tubes is just that--a myth. I can
recommend an article from Fortune.com that backs this up, but this kind of talk
doesn't belong in this group. I'll just quote this one part: "What really
counts is the U.S. manufacturing, which contributed a staggering 1.43 trillion to
GDP in 1999, is *huge* in absolute terms." And: "A country's manufacturing
prowess isn't measured by the number of people working in factories. If it were,
China and India would be the world's leaders....for sheer size and steep growth
no other country comes close to the US in manufacturing."
I mention things like this because of many of the posts I've been reading
that seem very ambivalent regarding the Quality of the US. No one came seem to
come to grips with *simple* concepts like good and evil. It simply *has* to be
complicated or it can't be true. I don't buy that. I don't think Pirsig buys it
either.
David. You said yourself in one of your more memorable posts (and you know I
read your posts with interest), that the attack on the World Trade Center was
brilliant symbolically. There is the key word. Symbolism. George W Bush seems
to have an intuitive grasp on the power of symbolism. If you ignore its power,
you ignore history. If the WTC attack was brilliant, symbolically speaking,
then Iraqi Freedom was just as brilliant. Saddam was perhaps the world's best
known, most recognized Tyrant. Taking *him* out sent an extraordinarily
powerful SYMBOLIC message to other Tyrants. A Warning to Tyrants.
While the article you recommended contends that America felt "humiliated" by
9/11 (which I don't agree with), it utterly fails to mention the demonstrable
uniqueness of America. That is, what America *means* to the rest of the world.
Something very, very special. Immigrants often have a better understanding of
it than native born Americans do, and I'm sure you'd agree with this. The
article doesn't recognize at all that America is unique, except to say that it is
the most powerful. It is unique in other ways than just strength. The
strength of the American IDEA, for example, is ignored in that article. It's that
idea that has so many people risking their lives to get here. America has more
immigrants than any other nation on earth, and more people dream of life in
America than any other nation on earth. Why is that?
Mythic? Yes, I'd say so. That's where Quality starts.
Jon
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