Quote:
Originally Posted by Lisnaholic
^ Yes, The European nations are guilty of terrible exploitation of third world countries - you don't even need to put America in the equation to accuse them of that systematic historic exploitation. I mentioned Europe in defense of OH's suggestion that America was evidence enough to condemn Democracy in general.
And yes, plenty to complain about in Full Democracy countries, but my feeling is that the democratic model is the best way to deliver the greatest good to the greatest number, with stuff like healthcare, human rights, etc.
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But I suspect that the "need" to exploit other nations and maintain our military hegemony causes Americans to vote for politicians who are willing and morally deficient enough to enact tyranny worldwide, whereas many Europeans nations are allowed to reap the benefits of what America does while also having the luxury of electing more egalitarian or seemingly egalitarian leaders, whereas if we didn't exist they'd have to do the dirty work themselves and Europeans might not elect the leaders that they currently do.
Not to mention that America reaps the lion's share of the economic benefits from our imperialism, which corrupt our political system, whereas European nations probably get only a fraction of those benefits and so perhaps do not have nearly as corrupting an influence as billions upon billions of dollars flowing into their coffers.
This is again largely supposition on my part as I am no expert on modern Europe so I don't know how true it is but I am suspicious that European democracies are allowed to be less politically corrupted since they don't have to be the imperialist boogeymen that we are.