BANANACUE
REPUBLIC
Vol I, No. 8
Oct 27, 2004
DRIVE-THRU (Letters)
ARCHIVE
#056
On America's Incongruity
This seeming fixation with double standard in the US government's attitude towards democracy--guarding it vehemently in its own land while paying lip service or downright supporting undemocratic practices in other lands--is a matter of logistics. The US government can only afford to maintain democracy as a political system to support its capitalist economy in its homeland. It will support democracy in other countries only up to a certain point, and at a price (e.g. foreign aid, foreign investment), but may have to condone despotic governments if their economies feed on the American free-enterprise market. Americans, still, are the most nationalistic people in this world.
This double standard could also be a case of arrested development, continually being fixated with the Machiavellian maxim "the end justifies the means," thereby leading to the practice of employing any questionable means or conflicting methods as a last if not only recourse, to achieve a relatively specific goal or end. Ethics is relative, and Americans want results, results, and like to get things done fast, according to their rules.
We have to face the situation that with all its benevolence, America has a lot to protect in its resources, its image, its ageing population plagued with afflictions brought about by over-consumption, its way of life, and its economic and political system that is slowly being eaten by its own excesses. So the US government has to fork out its policies; one prong towards Americans in the mainland, another prong towards Americans abroad, and another towards those people belonging to the rest of the globe.
-Daphne,
Philippines (10/25/04)
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Posted 10/26/04.
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