I agree with some aspects of your OP but I think it's framed in a somewhat inflammatory way

Why is is inflammatory to say it with the proper words? This is yet another example of the effects of hyper-tolerance: we no longer can admit to ourselves the obvious truth—instead, we dance around it.

But lumping China and India in with that - both of which have considerably longer histories of civilisation than does Europe - veers pretty close to out-and-out racism.

It has nothing to do with race.

China is a totalitarian regime; harvests the organs of North Korean defectors to sell in the market; uses North Korean defector females as sex slaves; bans free speech; bans freedom of religion; has concentration camps; helps recapture North Korean defectors; … need I go on?

India stills has an unofficial caste system, where there is a caste considered so worthless that they are untouchable.

I challenge you: how are these societies not inferior?

Also agree with the above that Trump/MAGA is a serious internal threat to liberalism

To you, is that a good or bad thing?

I dream of a state of universal human flourishing; where each person, not just human, has equal, fundamental rights and liberties......or do you mean when I am sleeping?

It's framed in an extremely inflammatory way. It's one thing to criticize say, the Chinese or Iranian (or Indian) government; it's a whole other thing to call their society degenerate and inferior. OP completely lost me there. The phrase to use is "repressive government" not "inferior society."

The reason I used those terms, is because it is true; and your terms do not accurately portray the point.

For example, india doesn’t have just a problem of a repressive government: their society, the legacy of castes, is still enforced by everyone at a societal level. The society itself still embodies the view that the untouchables are worthless scum—you can’t mask that with “it’s a repressive government”.

I do believe certain societies can warrant that label, but we need to be very careful.

That’s true; but wouldn’t you agree Talibanian Afghanistan is a prime example where it is warranted?

Think of different societies as being like plants. Some are corn plants, some are palms, and some are cacti. Each evolved to survive its own set of challenges

That’s an oddly good analogy.

Governmental systems are about the survival of a society rather than about some higher good. Basically, what's healthy for a corn plant will kill a cactus.

Ughhhh, cultural relativism—yet again. Nope. There are moral facts.

Like the US and its allies did for 20 years?

The US did not do anything remotely similar to what the Taliban is doing: am shocked you are trying to make that comparison. Perhaps I am misunderstanding.

The US public isn't even willing to support Ukrainians, who are actually willing to fight for their freedom in large numbers and seem plenty competent enough to win if given decent support.

The US isn’t in a position to be funding external wars right now; that’s why US citizens are fed-up. They have a serious budgeting problem that needs to be fixed.

However, to your point, I agree that most people would rather trade the lives of innocent out-group members a bit more flourishing in their in-group.

And note: the US didn't try to push democracy on South Korea originally. It applied some pressure, but that was largely internal, as it generally has to be.

Hmmm, let me ask you this:

if the US could take over North Korea with zero casualties (across the board) without threatening a war with other countries (like China) nor a nuclear war, then should they do it?

Like what? The UN is a charade.

There are moral facts. — Bob Ross

You would have to prove that there is an underlying principle that is necessary for government to even justly operate.

The American Revolution used a lot of "self-evident" truths for this. The problem is that contrary to your view, it was not brought from without, but came from within. Even then, only 1/3 of Americans were "pro" revolution. 1/3 were "Torries" (wanted to remain British), and 1/3 were agnostic (and this is not including slaves or Native Americans of course).

Importing a revolution only works if people want it internally. The American Revolution was fueled by mainly large landholders, lawyers, and merchants that were well-read in Enlightenment ideals (Locke, Hobbes, Rousseau, Montesquieu, Diderot, Voltaire, etc.). The culture comes before the action, generally. China, Iran, North Korea, et al. are highly restrictive precisely to reduce exposure to this. So, perhaps the validity of your argument comes from somehow opening doors of cultural exchange, not outright war.

Do you think members of a government, in representative republics, are self-appointed??? — Bob Ross

As guardians of other countries, yes. Candidates don't run on aggressive foreign policy. The American people have just elected an isolationist president who doesn't give a sweet ff about other countries.

No empire conquers other peoples in order to help them.
- Why not? — Bob Ross

Because:

The US isn’t in a position to be funding external wars right now; that’s why US citizens are fed-up. They have a serious budgeting problem that needs to be fixed. — Bob Ross

conquest is far more expensive than aid, and many representatives oppose even the barely adequate level of aid that might prevent those bad effects you want to march in to remedy.
If the biggest, healthiest (for whatever short time in the future) economy and the biggest, most expensive army in the world can't or won't oppose dictators, who do you think is capable or willing?
Nations go to war when they or their assets are threatened, when they have an obligation to allies, or when they have something to gain.

You don’t think we should try to help oppressed people in other nations?

I absolutely do. By prevention - like, not propping up and arming bad leaders; like not bombing civilians or supplying bombs to those who will; like empowering the common people; like supplying medicine and technology. Not by conquest. That only substitutes a foreign oppressor for a native one.

You are conflating a subset of scenarios with all of them. — Bob Ross

I'm opining that your subset is a pipedream.

Besides the point you are trying to make maybe, but

You are absolutely right to note, in practicality, the consequences matter.

I don't think you get to strip away everything that is salient about a concrete situation, and still have something usefull or applicable to say about how to act in that situation.

Of course you can. That’s how ethics is done. What you are arguing for is moral particularism—which doesn’t work.

The reason it matters to analyze imperialism on its own merits, is that it changes how one thinks about politics ideally. If you are absolutely anti-imperialism; then you will never try to subject another nation to one’s nation’s values out of principle—irregardless of the consequences.

China is at least acknowledging the problem and trying to do something about it.

None of this is true. China abuses the environment and does nothing about it. They are the largest annual emissions since 2006, and their total energy-related emissions is twice that of the US.

Does it really need to be an existential threat?

It doesn’t. My point is that it has to be severe enough to warrant taking a nation over. Not all cultural differences are worth fighting about—worth imperializing over.

So maybe my counter-example wasn't the best example for the point I was trying to make, that morality by itself seems like a poor reason to attack a country.

Then you have no good reasons to ever attack a country; for you are not basing it off of what is actually good, which belongs to ethics.

When nationalism is defined as identification with one's own nation and support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations, then it's totally logical to oppose this idea.

The nationalism I was advocating for can sometimes be at the detriment of the interests of other nations but it is NOT necessarily so: countries behave this way all the time. The in-group matters more than the out-group---just not always.

I surely do love my country, but I won't think that my country and it's people are better than others as I've met a lot of foreigners too

Is there any disparity in values between your country and another that would make you think it is better? What if we kept slowly making your country better and better and another worse and worse—when, roughly, if at all, would you say “yeah, my country is objectively better”?

So what's wrong with patriotism then?

Nothing is wrong with it; nor certain forms of nationalism. Patriotism is a form of nationalism.

Just what do you mean by "want to expand its values to the more inferior ones"?

E.g., westernize Talibanian Afghanistan.

But don't be so cocky and full of hubris that you think you have to expand your values to others

Why is that cocky and full of hubris? We do this all the time. E.g., if my neighbor likes different food than me, then no big deal; but if they like raping women...now I am going to intervene and subject them to better morals. What you are saying, e.g., is that we shouldn’t ever intervene because it is ‘cocky’. Confidence is not the same as arrogance.

If it works well, they can copy it from their own free will

You think North Korea is willingly going to stop torturing their citizens?!? Do you think a serial killer is going to magically decide to stop raping and killing women? This is hyper-liberal nonsense.

Three issues give me to reject the proposal.

My methodological individualism leads me to oppose the sociology. A nation does not impose its values on other nations. The individuals in government impose their own values on individuals in another nation, whether the rest of the nation approves or not.

Human flourishing is not the goal of the state. Its goal is to secure its power and advance its own interests. It is an anti-social institution and not fit to impose social values.

Imposing values on another group of people is wrong for the same reason it would be wrong for them to do it to a western nation: it isn’t up to them. They have not been afforded any right to do so.

That’s an oddly good analogy. — Bob Ross

It's like beer, it's good and it's good for you.

@NOS4A2 As a fellow anarchist I concur with this.
It is only Authoritarians,control freaks and the ignorant who want to culturally hegomonise and use group violence as a means to enforce economic slavery.

Of course you can. That’s how ethics is done. What you are arguing for is moral particularism—which doesn’t work.

The reason it matters to analyze imperialism on its own merits, is that it changes how one thinks about politics ideally. If you are absolutely anti-imperialism; then you will never try to subject another nation to one’s nation’s values out of principle—irregardless of the consequences. — Bob Ross

Yeah, we have a different sense of what morality is it seems... I'm not sure we can get over this in this discussion. I'm not a moral realist, and I don't think this is how we should do ethics at all.

None of this is true. China abuses the environment and does nothing about it. They are the largest annual emissions since 2006, and their total energy-related emissions is twice that of the US. — Bob Ross

The West has been exporting its production to low-income countries like China for decades to get its products cheaper, it's the production-center of the globalised world... and China's population is three time the size of the US like I said, of course it will have larger emmissions at this particular moment. But it seems hardly fair to only judge a country on that singular metric without regard to historical context.

Then you have no good reasons to ever attack a country; for you are not basing it off of what is actually good, which belongs to ethics. — Bob Ross

Yes, I don't view things in terms of some overarching actual good.... "Actual good" in war is usually merely things valued from the perspective of the one citing it as a justification for war.

"Actual good" in war is usually merely things valued from the perspective of the one citing it as a justification for war. — ChatteringMonkey

Yes, that. No country invades another country and kills its people for their own good. After the pillage and installation of a governor, the conqueror might bring some of its more advanced technology and introduce its own - sometimes - more efficient admininstrative style ... usually to the detriment of the local culture and class structure; usually with the result of another war for that country's independence.

Like what? The UN is a charade. — Bob Ross

I was just pointing out to Vera Mont that the UN would not be useful in the situations you two are discussing.

I get that. You're wrong, it's illegitimate, it kills more people than it saves and it doesn't work.

That’s not always true though. You are conflating a subset of scenarios with all of them. — Bob Ross

Give us some examples where it's worked. The only possible one I can think of is the Balkans in the 1990s, and I'm not sure about that.

The nationalism I was advocating for can sometimes be at the detriment of the interests of other nations — Bob Ross

Why should it be so?

Is there any disparity in values between your country and another that would make you think it is better? What if we kept slowly making your country better and better and another worse and worse—when, roughly, if at all, would you say “yeah, my country is objectively better”? — Bob Ross

Sovereignty is one crucial thing for any nation. And we shouldn't "make some country worse and worse". Those countries that have internal problems, those are for themselves to solve. If the idea is to let's say make North Korea part of South Korea, just like the allies fought Nazi Germany then well, there's a war to be fought over that. And that kind of "helping" isn't what helping other nations is about. Only If they make their problems to be a problem for other countries, then there is a reason to respond.

And first of all, people in those countries that have problems do really understand and know there own problems, it's not something that others have to tell them.

Patriotism is a form of nationalism. — Bob Ross

So are jingoism and ultra-nationalism also part of nationalism, then why promote a term that has also such much negative aspects and can be misunderstood? One can surely define just what one wants to promote. People surely can understand the benefits of a collective idea of a nation and a state and can understand how these ideas can be also abused.

Just what do you mean by "want to expand its values to the more inferior ones"?

E.g., westernize Talibanian Afghanistan. — Bob Ross

Hah!

And how did that end up? It ended with the US backstabbing it's own ally it put into place and left it's NATO allies dumbfounded about just what happened (there were more NATO troops than US troops in Afghanistan in the end in Afghanistan). Just like the US did with South Vietnam. Luckily the US stood with South Korea and didn't leave it to Kim Il Sung. I guess if it would be for Trump, the US would handed over South Korea to the North: Kim Il Sung would have gladly signed a peace deal like the Taliban got. Then we could have a discussion of how simply Koreans are incapable of democracy or anything, I guess.

E.g., if my neighbor likes different food than me, then no big deal; but if they like raping women...now I am going to intervene and subject them to better morals. What you are saying, e.g., is that we shouldn’t ever intervene because it is ‘cocky’. — Bob Ross

Wow.

So what society is OK with their daughters being raped? Tell me what society in the World is where parents are OK with that? Seems that you have quite the obscure ideas about the morals of "inferior people" or "inferior nations".

Sorry Bob, but now perhaps your ideas of other people are coming out...

And I'll repeat what I said: if some country makes their own problems to be problems of other countries, then obviously the countries been effected can intervene.

Bob Ross
Wow.

So what society is OK with their daughters being raped? Tell me what society in the World is where parents are OK with that? Seems that you have quite the obscure ideas about the morals of "inferior people" or "inferior nations".

Sorry Bob, but now perhaps your ideas of other people are coming out...

@ssu. I said as much earlier in the thread.
These "ideas" are really deliberate propaganda against non Europeans and especially Muslims.
There is no society at large that has these ideas that @Bob Ross is claiming.

But I know one "civilisation" that has plundered and enslaved mankind economically by military force. And it ain't the east.
So really,the oppressor is the imperialist colonial west. And that is historically irrefutable over the last 110 years.

It is topic that ought to be discussed, but those kinds of arguments will just get someone banned in the end. But I would give Bob the chance to explain himself.

But I know one "civilisation" that has plundered and enslaved mankind economically by military force. — Swanty

Yes, the Mongol Horde made quite a wreck of places. Although it wasn't enslavement, but ideas like clearing the people away to make grasslands for the horses. I remember it was a Chinese person that had to persuade the Mongol rulers in the benefits of having humans around to pay taxes.

And that is historically irrefutable over the last 110 years. — Swanty

How irrefutable has this been in the 2010's and the 2020's?

I think the last vestiges of this colonial rule has been going out with the French having to leave the Sahel countries.

It is topic that ought to be discussed, but those kinds of arguments will just get someone banned in the end. But I would give Bob the chance to explain himself.

I believe in free speech,so Bobby is free to explain and give his opinions. They are very instructive to me.

The one civilisation I was referring to that enslaved and hegemonised was Europe,and it's rampant colonialism,with the US also.

2010 we had the orchestrated "Arab spring"interventions,we have genocide in Palestine currently. The US engineered Ukraine conflict. And the less talked about western backed conflicts currently in Africa.

And one of the biggest imperialist projects still going is the IMF loans with tremendous debt and political strings attached.

The book "confessions of an economic hitman" shows how some of this economic thuggery is achieved and maintained.

, , you know, a charitable reading might help here. :)

However, I think the western, liberal principles of tolerance and inclusiveness, although to some degree are perfectly warranted, have gone too far: there is such a thing as having an inferior culture (e.g., the Nazis), and there is such a thing as having a view which should not be tolerated (e.g., a supporter of sex offenses). — Bob Ross

The success of liberalism lies in it's individualistic approach to values, and the formation of a government which doesn't force a set of values upon its population. Any belief that a set of values should be forced onto the population is an extremist and anti-liberal belief. The extremity of the ones value is of no regards to such a society, as long as the individual acts within the lawful framework, they should be free from any unnecessary government action. The liberal government enforces neutrality in actions, not in minds or communication.

We are still in a jungle: the in-group is more important than the out-group—even though no Westerner likes to say that anymore (although they will still act like it when push comes to shove). — Bob Ross

The in-group is the individual, their friends and, their family. If an individual was to extend their care to all factors that effect them, then you wouldn't get nationalism, you'd get globalism (since countries are no longer distinct, not even in culture). I think you are confusing conservative values for classically liberal values. A conservative wants a common culture, a classical liberal wants a government that allows him to be left to his own values. Individualism is a primary goal of liberalism, it is antithetical to this conservative goal.

------------

However, I agree that liberalism should be spread and enforced globally. Individuals should have rights and freedoms everywhere.

China is a totalitarian regime; harvests the organs of North Korean defectors to sell in the market; uses North Korean defector females as sex slaves; bans free speech; bans freedom of religion; has concentration camps; helps recapture North Korean defectors; … need I go on? — Bob Ross

I do see your point.

Have you heard of Sufism wayfarer,and how many Muslims have you interacted with to draw your incorrect conclusions? — Swanty

Please enlighten me. What conclusion did I draw that was wrong?

@Wayfarer
Why are you asking me for enlightenment when you already presumptously claimed to know about Islam and what migrants face?

]There can be a troubling contradiction in extending the value of liberal tolerance to those who don't necessarily support or understand the liberal attitudes that fostered it.

Case in point is the difficulties faced by Islamic migrants and refugees coming to Western cultures. Islam doesn't recognise the separation of church and state, and in theory at least, can only support Shariah law. At the same time, refugee support groups and activists do all they can to support Islamic refugees, even despite this tension. But this can have difficult consequences when Islamic conservatism conflicts with Western libertarianism. The town of Hamtramck, Michigan, made headlines in 2023 for being the first US city with a majority Muslim council. Great joy amongst supporters of cultural diversity. But one of the first things they did was to ban displays of LGBT flags on public property on the grounds that homosexuality is forbidden in Islamic law. (I wonder how Green Left activists who are strident in defense of both refugee and LGBT rights manage to reconcile this conflict.)

So do American conservatives and American Christians also have problems with the "liberal enlightened tradition"? Or just Muslims?

Why are you asking me for enlightenment when you already presumptously claimed to know about Islam and what migrants face? — Swanty

I made a remark about a particular situation in North America, that I thought illustrates the tension between liberalism and Islam, and that it must be a tough conflict for refugee advocates to handle. So, tell me in what respect I am mistaken, I'm always open to correction.

@Wayfarer
I edited my previous post,so have a Luke.

Most migrants are economic type migrants,who regard their Islam as a personal religion, separate from a countries secular law. Most "Muslim countries" have secular law.

The only tension is the same as between US liberals and conservatives,so why single out migrant Muslims? Ask yourself your motivation for that and what info leads you to believe migrants are extreme in their interpretation of Islam?
It's not tough for most migrants religionwise. No more than for an orthodox christian.Whats tough sometimes is the stereotyped clichéd hackneyed information that liberals like yourself say. Just like your post. Implying we are inferior or backwards.

India stills has an unofficial caste system, where there is a caste considered so worthless that they are untouchable. — Bob Ross

India has also absorbed and practices Western style democracy, it's often noted that it's the 'world's largest democracy.' No doubt there are many social activists and movements who campaign against caste barriers.

Ask yourself your motivation for that and what info leads you to believe migrants are extremely in their interpretation of Islam? — Swanty

Your question is inappropriately parsed. In any case I wasn't referring to 'most Muslims'. I said there is sometimes a tension between Islamic principles and Western liberal values. I gave the example of Hamtramck Michigan where a council mainly comprising Muslim members banned the Pride Flag. My point was mainly to address the question of tolerance, and what it means to tolerate an attitude that is itself not committed to tolerance.

@Wayfarer
And I keep saying no more tension than that between western conservatives and liberals.

So why use one example to highlight this mythical media boosted tension? And then obfuscate by saying "not most Muslims".

So what's the problem with religious people not wanting to be forced to display a pride flag?
Aren't conservatives Christians of the same mindset?