Really tired about Syrian news

Post Reply New Topic

People can debate whether a country is real. However, debating whether a being is real, while some have tried, is more problematic.

As a Critical Realist, I would suggest that humanity is real. Roy Bhaskar says that we are all connected through co-presence or a cosmic envelope.

On the other hand, countries come and go. Some countries are not even recognized as legal entities by other countries. (For instance, China does not recognize Taiwan as being separate from Mainland China.)

Pffff!! !

(That means: I strongly disagree.)
You have it easy to say so from where you live.


I live in Europe and I'd also prefer my money to be spent on other things than that (wars, injuries, violent people - for example).

We're not even part of Europe yet they spend our money (UK)

I agree with you when you say that there is no objective different between humans from different nations, and I strongly agree that "there is no 'other'". However, he fact that the idea of nation is a social construct doesn't mean nations do not exist. Nations may only exist in our collective minds, but as such, they do exist, and they have very real effects, one of which would be the sadly common attitude observed in Raptor's first post.

Okay, enrico, would you like to go out there and "help protect" Syria?
Would you like to send a few thousand people you will never know the names of to work on/off there for years while their families suffer the loss of moms/dads/sons/daughters/husbands/wives for the sake of winning an Internet argument?
Better yet, if a government is intervening these days there's usually something to be gained from it. So would you rather they did gain or exploit something from a rather battered people of Syria and their leader?

I really don't think you grasped the full extent of what you were saying. Regardless of Raptor's stance on the left / right not everything he says should be opposed to favour your left / right stance. There's a lot of common ground that can be reached by PEOPLE (the thing you and nominalist feel favour over the idea of nations and "other people"). And that common ground is war is not peaceful, and sending people out to intervene sounds a lot like the non-liberal suggestion anyway. Perhaps there seems to be this universal Orwellian doctrine of "War is peace" in the West. If this is so, then regardless of what happens in Syria and who wins, the West in its ideology has already lost.

I never said anything of the sort, to be honest. If you read my post again, you will notice that I never mentionned Syria, let alone foreign intervention in Syria, so I don't know why you quoted me.

Does anyone else find it ironic (or hypocritical) that the left was hysterically upset over any military action, especially Iraq, when George W. was in office but now that their man is in office we can waste American lives and resources without a second thought?

Yes. If there was any proof needed there is only a 1 party system with 2 subsidiaries this would be it.

Once again, why did you quote me to say this? There is no relation between my post and what you just said.

The way I read it you implied that since you found my hands off stance on US involvement in Syria to be "sad".

I don't think they are really comparable situations. I am not saying I support intervention in Syria, which I don't, but there is a war where actual WMDs might come into play and fall into the hands of the US's enemies. US rightists aren't interested in Syria really because it doesn't have much strategic value to them at this time, at least until Fox starts talking about the WMDs. Though I wonder why the Right aren't the ones shouting for intervention since it could affect the "Biblically important" Israel, especially with Syria's long overdue admission that they do in fact have chemical and biological weapons, and the risk that them falling into the hands of Hezbollah could pose to Israel.

Oh, I see where the confusion is.

What I find sad is your "It's not our problem, it's their problem" attitude -- as if they were not worth the trouble. There is no "us" and "them", only human beings living in different places.

However, I also think that any kind of foreign military action generally creates more distrust between peoples. Social constructs though nations are, the frictions are real. Therefore, such interventions should be avoided, moreso when the intervening party is a world power or one of its agents.

I don't disagree at all with your opinion, only with the attitude I perceived in your post.

Last edited by enrico_dandolo on 24 Jul 2012, 2:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I think it's not so much "not our problem", but "not our business to interfere".
A superpower interfering with the politics of a lesser nation (not inferring the people are lesser, just the economic/social stability and military prowess) for their own benefit is nothing short of divine intervention and I don't agree with it.

The US is more than happy to interfere if big money is involved. Otherwise it "is not their business"

enrico_dandolo wrote:

In my world there is a them and us, especially when it comes to that perpetually troublesome part of the world. It may come as a surprise to you but most of the nations in that region do not share your neighborly outlook.



And a lot of unnecessary headaches for the intervener possibly for years to come. We really don't need that kind of hassle now.



My attitude on matters like this and some others won’t change. It’s one of the constants in the universe.

There are different cultures, different types of politics and different general attitudes. You're not having people from all over the world hug each other and drink lemonade under a rainbow by replacing a militarist semi-secular dictator. What you'd get in return wouldn't be tolerance - in fact, in religious terms, you might get the exact opposite of that, as we've seen in Egypt. There are very few people who believe that there is one mankind with compatible values, and they tend to be concentrated in a few select places, namely the better parts of Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand. You're ignoring the people this is about, who are not in favour of progressive politics or international cooperation beyond the islamic world. In essence, it's like multiculturalism - you think you're uniting cultures, but you're just keeping several isolated ones fighting for power.



"Morning, neighbor. Can I borrow some sugar?"
"I'll take your farm, because you are a kafir."

Fun fact: did you know that, in Palestinian law, selling land to Israelis is an offense punishable by death?
So much for the attitude that we're all brothers and there is such a thing as tolerance.



Exactly. Interventions are never good. My reasoning might be a lot different, though. Societies should prove themselves sensible or go extinct, without any kind of foreign intervention both destructive (armed conflict) or semi-constructive (foreign aid, food aid). You can't keep an artificial situation up by putting up external rules based on your morals and forcing them upon a society that, for the past ten thousand years at least, has been based on the premise of 'military power equals control over the means of production equals power.' If this conflict drags on, and chemical weapons are brought in, that's the choice of the people fighting in Syria. It sounds rather extreme, but it's probably for the best to let a society at odds with itself settle its own conflicts, whatever the internal cost may be. If they're viable, they'll survive as a society. If they're not, there's no more Syria.