What We Say Goes

If anyone has read Noam Chomsky, you may have unleashed the destruction of some of your foundational beliefs you may have had since kindergarten. Noam Chomsky is a very influential linguist and sociology professor at MIT, and is one of the most brilliant men of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. I recently read a book of his interviews, essentially summing up his political science views.

The keys were simple: America is a menace on the world stage. We have been so powerful for so long that our audaciousness has reached such hypocritical levels that if we were to submit to the very international laws we pridefully support, we would be humbled to the point of nonexistence.

There are very clear international laws, made by the Geneva Conventions, the UN/NATO, and the WTO most significantly. The problem with these laws is that only the nations that aren't the most powerful nation are policed by them. The select few otherwise cannot be held accountable unless you go to war with them. In the case of going to war against the U.S., probably still the most powerful nation in the world, that's a most unhealthy proposition.

The overall effect of this is that the U.S. does whatever it wants, and the rest of the world be damned. We topple anti-US, completely democratic regimes... in the name of freedom, in order to install pro-US despots that massacre their own population, but smile at the US while they do it. This is the height of hypocrisy, a tragic happenstance of a country too big for it's britches.

Does our country promote freedom and democracy? Do you still believe that? Or are we merely the biggest bullies on the block, with so much power that our abilities have become such that we believe it is our national duty to abuse our powers. What are your thoughts? Agree, disagree? Do you remember events in your childhood where it occurred to you that you might be being more or less brainwashed?