Worldwise: The Struggle for Syria (Robert Wright & Michael Young)

[Bloggingheads]

[Flaw]

Did no one watch this?

[JonIrenicus]

Originally Posted by Flaw

Did no one watch this?

I did, thought it was pretty good, maybe no one disagreed. I liked that Young pushed back on Bob a bit and was glad he was not to the left of him in all things, especially in the theme that keeps coming up in many of Bobs talks - the popularity of the US and how it is viewed in the muslim world.


http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/392...4:58&out=48:24



key takeaways from me, there are times when no matter what you do you will step on someones toes and sensibilities, so if you are going to have someone dislike you no matter what you do, why not do what you think is right?


Now for some, what is right is heavily tied into how the US is perceived. For my part I have alot less tolerance for that kind of idea. Once you start getting into the realm of kowtowing to the beliefs and wants of crazy/ruthless people, like truthers or birthers or fundamentalist butchers.. I just have alot less concern about upsetting them. That way is too value neutral for me. So I was glad to see someone push back against that a bit.

[Don Zeko]

Originally Posted by JonIrenicus

Now for some, what is right is heavily tied into how the US is perceived. For my part I have alot less tolerance for that kind of idea. Once you start getting into the realm of kowtowing to the beliefs and wants of crazy/ruthless people, like truthers or birthers or fundamentalist butchers.. I just have alot less concern about upsetting them. That way is too value neutral for me. So I was glad to see someone push back against that a bit.

Honestly, I suspect that the causality is running the other way with myself and a lot of other more dovish folks. We think that various actions on the part of the US should make people view us poorly, and then we emphasize arguments about foreign perceptions of the US in order to argue against policies we dislike without relitigating whether or not those policies are good ones in and of themselves. The proof of this is that I doubt you'd be able to find an example of people like myself or Bob Wright arguing against a policy that we would otherwise support because of how it would be perceived abroad.