Originally posted by rraley
I believe in a strong America that has strong alliances. I believe in pushing for human rights around the world.
This is where, I think, liberal ivory-tower type thinking comes grinding to a halt in the face of Republican pragmatism.
A good example - *presumably*, we are for promoting or pressuring for human rights in places like Cuba (strictly as an EXAMPLE) where we refuse to trade with them, and curtail our business with those that DO. But our "allies" have no such human rights agenda, and are much more concerned about the almighty euro, franc, peso and yen. So when we walk about and say "if you do business with Myanmar or Bhutan or Albania, we won't do business with you", they call us bullies and high-minded pricks.
There are nations such as Vietnam, Malaysia, China and Indonesia which have horrible labor practices - but if we don't do business with them, our allies WILL - and we lose *JOBS*.
The cold reality is that while it's nice to have these high-minded, lofty ideals of what is good for humanity, a lot of humanity hates it when we go about trying to set them straight. And a lot of our "friends" don't like it either. Republicans are pragmatists at heart, and so am I. It's nice to have wonderful ideas, but you have to go with what WORKS. They're the political equivalent of field medics. You might WANT everyone to live, but the truth is, trying to save the life of a man who WILL die condemns others to death, and the field medic MUST make the hard choices. From my point of view, the bleeding heart liberal field medic would try to save *everyone* - and lose most of them. Again - high ideals, impractical solutions.
Bill O'Reilly was once at Harvard giving a good Q & A session with a lot of, well, not so friendly audience members. At one point, he said probably the most interesting thing I've ever heard him say. He said "there's no doubt in my mind that liberal's IDEAS are better than conservatives; the problem is, they don't WORK".
Liberals are often these academia types who have great ideas, but in the real world, they're just impossible. I'm more the engineer type than the scientist type. A scientist may design the perfect engine, with perfect materials. An engineer will design an engine with the materials he has or can reasonably afford, and that will last - he builds a less than perfect solution, because it's the best that can be done. An idealist will waste his time and energy on an ideal that might be impossible to implement, because he's convinced it's the best solution. The pragmatist goes with what is possible.
Republicans are mostly pragmatists. They say "yeah, China stomps all over their workers - but unfortunately, we need five million jobs more than we need to help the Chinese laborer". Does that make them look like capitalist, heartless bastards? Sure, but that's unavoidable. They'll say "yes, universal health care would be great, but we can't force every business to do it, because the bulk of workforce works for companies ill-equipped to do that - *small* businesses". So they come up with practical solutions that aren't ideal.
Strong alliances are good. But they must have a meaningful *purpose*. We're not always going to be allied with the same people. Britain is our best friend, but for 100 years, they were our most bitter rival and antagonist. Japan is our next best friend, but we fought a horrible war with them not 60 years ago. Things change. Nations don't form "friendships" for all time.
I mean, I probably seem to be babbling like an idiot here, but the nasty truth of politics is that idealism is usually foolishness. I admit, liberals have high ideals. The problem with them is they're willing to beat their idealistic drums for eternity. I won't live that long.
j/k
