Wouldn’t the moral or right thing to do be for superpowers to aid or help out other countries that need it? Especially with these superpowers having advanced technology, military might, and nearly unlimited budget or resources relative to other countries?
The world is becoming more and more of a global society, where we know what’s going on everywhere across the globe, communicate and befriend anyone anywhere, and travel to anywhere in a relatively short amount of time.
Gone are the days of isolationism, where everyone kept to themselves because we didn’t know what was going on anywhere else, didn’t have the manpower or resources to do anything but help “our own,” etc.
Realistically, we already DO live in a global society and superpowers, including the US act as the world’s police in many instances.
The issue is what we put it and at what cost
Also, how we go on about helping or improving another country or nation.
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Being in the military, specifically infantry, I can tell you that what more honorable way to serve than to fight TRUE injustices overseas? Enslaved and oppressed people?
It doesn’t have to be Americans we save, but just HUMANS.
Again, global society.
Why can’t the US or other first world superpowers be the world’s police?
Well, taking into account the "Update," the problem with the theory is that man does not exist as "humanity." This was the great error of the Enlightenment philosophers - men will not leave their families and friends and risk their lives for an abstraction called "the human race."
That may be regrettable, but man is a being that defines himself not by his humanity, but rather by nationality, by religion, and by a host of other more narrow subcategories. Men will fight and die to protect hearth and home. They will be less likely to rally to the banner, "Humanity."
Indeed, as Burke pointed out, when things like nationality, family, religion and the like are stripped away, man is "reduced to his naked shivering nature." In that context, he seeks out "false gods." Hence were born the "secular religions" - Communism, Fascism, National Socialism and a host of other "isms" that have wrought much bloodshed and "more history than mankind can consume."
Beyond that, at a more practical level, the international arena is just that - an arena and NOT an "international community." There exists no consensus among peoples as to what constitutes the good life and the common good. Thus the great powers - and the lesser powers to boot - compete. There is then no agreed upon authority above states with the power to enforce, impartially and objectively, the law. Thus did Theodore Roosevelt famously say, "World peace comes not from human kindness or moral restraint, but from balanced power; equilibriums of force restraining the selfish aims of nation-states."
Here, in its essence, is why the USA and the other great powers cannot be "the world's policemen." People will not sacrifice their blood and treasure for an abstraction called international law, let alone "humanity." Even were they willing to do so, there is no agreed upon consensus on what that "law" in its final form and analysis ought to be. Thus did the League of Nations - a "parliament of man" - fail. Thus does the United Nations Organization only imperfectly and infrequently find a consensus on which to authorize action by its member states. (Indeed, it is why the five permanent members of the Security Council - conceived of as the UNO's enforcement body - have veto power over any UN action.)
For all that, at some level, the great powers do act as something of a police force. Not always or consistently, but for example, the Korean War was fought against North Korean, and later communist Chinese aggression, because there was a consensus among the great powers present that such aggression should not stand. ("Present" being the key. The trick here was that, at that time, Taiwan was still legally regarded as China and thus held a seat on the Security Council, and in a diplomatic blunder, the USSR was boycotting the Council to protest Taiwan's presence. Thus the two states that could have wielded a veto of the action were not present.)
Similarly, when piracy off the coast of Somalia became an issue in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the UN Security Council authorized naval escorts in the region. Thus did a combined naval force of the various great powers begin escorting civilian tankers in the region.
There are other examples. However, of their nature - and of the nature of the United Nations Organization and of states - such examples are episodic. There is an international law and it does get enforced - primarily by the great powers as they have the material resources to enforce it. However, given the imperfectibility of man and the nature of the states that they form and of the nature of the international arena, a "police force" in any formal sense will always be unevenly defined and problematic.
For that matter, it is morally problematic. What to one group of men will seem to be doing good and enforcing law will, to another, seem threatening and imposing an unwanted order. Solve that problem and the great powers of the world may indeed become the world's policemen. However, it is unlikely, given that in 4.5 million years of human existence, that has yet to transpire - and where it has been attempted to date it has been bloody and brutal.
The big question is who pays for it. Looking at how NATO and the UN work, which are sort of supposed to be a type of multi-national police (diplomacy has to be a big part of it), everyone wants the US to foot the bill. And its a big bill. How much of what is going on in the rest of the world is really our business and how much of American tax dollars should be spent on it? We can't even afford to manage our own problems.
Also, countries tend to like their independence. Not many countries would want to submit to a world police, they want to be in charge of their own back yard.
Lastly, who is right and wrong, sometimes, is not exactly clear - so practically speaking there would be a lot of disagreement and friction and even resistance in lots of cases to what the "world police" thinks is right.
Its a very complicated world where much of the time, countries around the globe struggle to get along. Everyone is looking out for their own national interests. Its a mess, quite frankly. The reality is not some idealistic view of everyone holding hands and singing songs. There are a lot of economic drivers and national interest drivers that are behind a lot of what happens in the world, And having 1-2 superpowers trying to dominate under the guise of being "world police" would not go over well. Few would that that at face value. It does not go over well now, every time we try to act as a world police in the past, we get hated for it abroad and a ton of our own citizens are against it as well. It gets characterized as bullying and the US trying to create puppet states.
Im not feeling so great rn ( possible covid ) so am not perky and ready to answer my usual cocky amazing reply, but I've just received bad news of a friend in Afghanistan loosing his mate to a suicide bomber. The 🤡 Biden needs to piss off and let people with an actual brain fix what he messed up or else we are absolutely heading for another few not one but a few 9/11s.
We've been the world police long enough. It's not our job, and frankly, we have way more problems at home. We can barely keep our own house in order.
Our sons, and now our daughters, have died for way too long for other's unending wars. We need to figure out how we can cohabitate the world without war.
I generally favor what you are describing, but. . . it is wrong for us to fight to install democracy in a country if the people do not want democracy. That was the ultimate problem in Vietnam. How do we decide what "laws" must be enforced by the police. Some things are obvious, such as egregious human rights violations, but some things involve value judgments. There are people elsewhere who would like to intervene in our affairs to eliminate the death penalty; how would be feel if France, Spain, and the UK all sent their military to the US to take control of state prisons?
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Oh of course, if they are not asking for our help then that is different.
Just look at the situation in Afghanistan right now.
With the Taliban in control, what are the citizens doing?
They’re trying to escape
If we disagree with a country’s policies or values, but their citizens seem to not care or don’t want our help, then that’s something else Im not referring to.
Im saying, what if peoples need our help due to failure of their government? What do we do? What can we do? What ought we do?
I think it most certainly shouldn’t be a US only endeavor but the first world superpowers. There’s a lot of specifics involved, but I’m just trying to say, we are currently and rapidly living in a more and more GLOBAL society where we cannot be isolated to the problems of the world in any political, financial, moral, or economic manner.
Policing is inherently antithetical to a democracy. The foundation of an ideal democracy is a courageous trust in the humanity and reason of strangers - especially those you might consider your lessers. The very existence of police is to admit to not having that trust. Which is fine in the interim but we must still strive for it or we are hypocrites. And hypocrites have no business telling others what to do. And if we're not hypocrites then it's still the case that the continued need for police in our own country means we haven't yet proven that democracy works, so imposing it on others would be premature.
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Well, most people are trustworthy enough to not stab you on your way to work.
The thing is, almost all crime is performed by a very small percentage of the population.
This is why we have police.
The majority of people are everyday good people.
It’s the small percentage that can truly make life hell for everyone and that’s not an exaggeration unfortunately.
Also, good people can still make poor decisions that endanger people such as speeding, not stopping at a stop sign fully, etc.
So, laws and police exist to keep democracy in place in the face of disorder whatever form that may come in. It’s also to ensure justice is met, in the form of making sure that when an injustice as occurred that it is not occurred again the second time, ideally in general, but specifically by the individual (s) that performed the injustice.
Right, but it is critical to democracy to trust that, barring the genuinely mentally disabled, even that small percentage of criminals would not be so if democracy, as it currently is, hadn't left them behind. I fully understand why we have them in the interim. The point is to strive not to leave anyone behind and trust that that would eliminate the need for police, but it is equally important to acknowledge we are far from that ideal.
Is it worth pursuing that ideal? Even though it’s near impossible, in our pursuit of it, we improve all sorts of things.
It’s just like the saying, you can never attain perfection, but in your pursuit of it, you attain excellence. You’re only going to obtain good things from trying to pursue an ideal that is impossible to achieve but nonetheless the pursuit makes you better.
I think we ought to try.
Think about the money we’ve wasted on things we didn’t really want or need
Think about our misled priorities and how we can better focus on things that matter
Think about politics becoming more objective (it’s heading there with the outcry of the people of the two party system)
We can most certainly achieve some betterment than where we currently are
I of course think we should pursue it. I would, however, counter that saying you mentioned with pointing out that the belief that perfection is obtainable can drive some people mad attaining not excellence but apathy, spite, and disillusionment to a self-inflicted illusion. But also without the belief that perfection is attainable it's hard to motivate anyone to reach for it.
Democracy is entirely unnatural. But if we are to be the only species that dares to insist we are above nature, then it fits so long as we also insist on taking up the social responsibility that comes with it. It is like how a spring has a natural length. To change it at all requires a constant force and if that force ceases to be maintained the spring will not only snap back to its natural length but also do the opposite of what we wanted for a time. To wish ourselves above nature but not wish for the responsibility that comes with it is to hold only one side of a spring and try to stretch it. If you're fast enough you can make it look like it's working for a time, but the reality of neglected responsibility will inevitably catch up to someone.
Well…. the issue is that we have our own set of values we operate off of, but those values aren’t the same everywhere. I don’t really believe any society’s values to be correct or incorrect on an objective level, simply “different.” It’s our own subjective opinion from being raised under our usual values to say that another culture is wrong in something they do, just as it is for someone from another culture to judge or demonize us for OUR values. I don’t think we’ll ever come to a point of mutually agreed-upon global values. I think the concept of religion would need to disappear in order for that to happen, which certainly won’t be in our lifetimes, and really, my lifetime is all I can really concern myself with.
What in the world? You post outright easily verifiable lies. And you mock and namecall also. You just call it by a different name.
Then you go tattletell on me like you are in kindergarten. You have serious issues with your masculinity. And it is my fervent hope you seek counseling before you decide to get married.
There is nothing masculine about being attracted to jobs or to roles where you think you have control over other people.
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Americans WERE the worlds mercenary army. You see how bad US cops are, yet still have too much shit in your eye to see why your "policing" of the world has been so bad?
The US should have been broken up along with the Soviet Union. The world has no need for either relic.
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How bad US cops? No, I don’t see how bad they are. If I’m honest, I see a whole lot of good, with some bad. A lot of research and common sense can prove this to be true. The police in the US certainly have their issues, but are those issues blown out of proportion to be made more drastic and more common in their occurrence than what they actually are? Yeah, of course.
I think there are some things that can be done wrong and some things that be done right, so as we progress through society we live and we learn so that we can better solve situations that in the past have troubled us.
There’s no reason to suggest that how things were in the past, whatever they were, are destined to be that way forever.
We can do better, should do better, and ought to do better since it is the right thing to do.
Until we get out shit together domestically, until we stop meddling in ways that fuck over entire regions, until we stop acting out of pure self interest, we have no grounds to fuck with other nations and less so to talk about morality.
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Well, isn’t that similar to watching a woman get raped on the street but not wanting to do anything because you have family troubles at home, late on your car payments, and/or just lost your job?
Nope. It would be similar if we went to help her under the guise of helping her, when we really just want to steal her money and snoop in her phone. That's what we do. We go in pretending to be liberators, whilst taking their resources, spying on them and destabilizing the area.
Would you get notified if they did? I think it was @Ninani that I posted the comment I’m thinking of. I’ve written quite a bit and don’t feel like scrolling through all of it.
Either way, we can agree to disagree.
I get burnt out quite fast talking about these issues.
What I mean is your analogy about the rape does not work. At all. But may as well add, your idea of a world police would never work either. Its never going to happen.
Yes, and how many, infinitely more things truly do not ever happen. Like everyone agreeing with you and congratulating you on your overly simplified, naive view of the world. Not happening, sorry.
I think you should submit your plan to the White House. I am sure they will get right on it.
We cannot even police our own country, our own internal government and politics are the biggest mess I have ever seen in my lifetime. And we are in massive debt. Yeah now is the time to take on solving world peace and getting all of the countries of the world, most of whom hate us, to agree to be policed by us.
Yeah, we do disagree. And I bet we will both be dead and buried and there still won’t be a world police. But maybe by them we can figure out how to run the US properly.
That’s not the same as saying there are ZERO mistakes
The US is fairly civilized and stable in everyday life.
Crime rate is decreasing every year to every few years
It’s becoming less and less barbaric
Is that solely because of the police? Definitely not
Are the police a contributor? Yes
Look at when you drive, how many people versus not, obey the traffic lights? Almost all
Everyone in the store going to the cash register to LEGALLY purchase their product? Almost all
You get what I’m saying right?
The US and other first world countries are doing well when you stop watching the hyperbolic news media that ONLY seem to report on the crimes of the week.
There can be 10 years of peace
But that one year of slight skew from peace and guess what the media will do?
Pounce on it like a hungry tiger on a piece of tasty thick meat.
They’ll give the impression that the 10 years of peace didn’t even exist
America is because we were build on the idea that we would keep to ourselves and no be in the business of others. Other western countries have weakened themselves since the end of WW2 with social welfare programs and relied on the United States to be the worlds police men.
Because that's like me saying " why can't Jerry Seinfeld rule the world". Now Jerry might a be a likeable guy but regions of the world I'm thinking the mideast in particular it ain't gonna fly lol. And some would say we're already the policemen of the world. I guess that's why we're loved world over. Lol
Because the world doesn't share laws and moral beliefs.
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Well, I don’t think that’s a significant issue.
For example, imagine a country that had a dictator in place that subjugates the citizenry to all sorts of injustices such as forced rape of women, confiscation of all firearms, etc.
You have an absolutely draconian regime.
Now, we can all have differences with regards to certain laws and beliefs, certainly, but with other things we have to be objective in saying “this is right and this is wrong.”
No matter what culture you’re from, you’re always objectively wrong if you believe in the forced rape of women.
It’s just wrong.
If countries can do something about the injustices all over the world, should they ought to do it? Morally speaking?
Again, it’s a question of how one goes on about alleviating whatever injustices exist
@EmbracThePain you're talking about having them police the entire world, that means that the majority will have to agree to the same justice systems, laws and rectification. Otherwise that superpower will dictate how the rest of the world should live and be yet another tyrant.
Well, I didn’t give exact specifics. I’m not talking an exact policing of every country, to where everyone in every country has to abide by American laws, values, etc.
Of course, each country can be their own country with their unique laws, governance, culture, etc.
What I am saying is that, with our current standing and ability as a global superpower, when we see an injustice occurring, should we intervene? How would we do it? At what cost?
If you look at policing here in the US, do officers tell you how to live? No, not necessarily.
You can’t torture your daughter for the fun of it, that’s when intervention will occur.
Police don’t tell you whether or not to hike today, listen to the Beatles and not The Rolling Stones, get a career in dentistry, etc.
@EmbraceThePain it doesn't matter. Not all countries have the same ethical and moral standards and just because they're a superpower doesn't mean their standards are right or should be enforced on other countries without consent.
No, you’re right, just because they are a superpower doesn’t mean their standards are right or should be enforced on other countries.
Still, we need to, as a global society, be able to see injustice and reasonably address it. There are many things that are wrong in this world and we have the science and knowledge now to address it whereas we didn’t before.
So much of the world is living in ways that mimic barbarism, savagery, and cruelty all due to a number of reasons such as religion, politics, etc.
Is it really bad that women are being forced to be married, not taught how to read and write, are treated as second class citizens, and more in many parts of the world?
Yes, it’s bad.
We cannot live in a moral relativist society or else the person saying
“we should allow rape to happen because, who are you to say what is right and what is wrong? If someone believes it is morally right then they should be allowed to rape.”
@EmbraceThePain maybe those superpowers should start managing their own countries and citizens before starting to lecture other countries on how to manage crimes and injustices.
Yeah, again, I wouldn’t disagree with you. The thing is, when will be at ZERO issues or problems?
Never
We don’t have to and can’t wait for such a moment in our history to finally start branching off and doing other things.
We have people here at handle issues domestically
We have people that can handle things internationally
I don’t see the issue.
We can put out fires at home if we have a fire extinguisher ready close by or within the home
Likewise, fires everywhere else can be put out with fire extinguishers in place there, that we have allowed to be there.
Hope that’s a another decent way of describing what I’ve said.
We are at a point in the world where abject poverty is becoming less and less a thing.
Same with serious illness
Same with civil war
Same with famine
We are getting better as the future progress, in all areas of life important to us.
I’m not saying we always intervene every time we see something bad, rather, it should be on the table, AND we shouldn’t be alone. There’s an “s” in superpowers for a reason.
@EmbraceThePain the issue is that you want to place fire extinguishers in other people's homes without their consent because it bothers you that they sometimes have fires that they handle differently than you would.
The fire extinguisher is there to be used or not used, depending on the situation. If a country has their own fire extinguisher then they don’t have to use ours, or if they have their own way of putting out the fire that’s the proper way then they don’t have to use anyone’s fire extinguisher.
But what if they don’t want to put out the fire? What if they start it?
What if there are other houses on the block? Made of wood, that can also catch on fire.
What if they don’t care about themselves and others catching on fire.
@EmbraceThePain it's not up to you to determine whether their fire needs to be extinguished, no matter how it started. However, if they start fires in their neighbour's home they've crossed jurisdiction and should be managed to stay in their own home. This is already being done. Before you have your own house in order, you shouldn't throw blame at others for doing it differently.
What do you mean by “order” though? It’s never going be 100% fully in order.
But that doesn’t mean I can’t drive to work in the morning
Invite friends over for dinner
Etc.
Also, it should 100% be up to the civilized world and it’s super powers if we should stand for immortality or injustice by letting it happen when we can stop it.
Again, rape is wrong, should be stopped.
You can still stop rape despite your house having a sock or two lying on the ground when they should be in the laundry.
How helpful is it that we allow the belief that stoning cheating women is morally grey?
It does no one any good except the chauvinistic/male dominant hierarchy in place in wherever that such a practice occurs.
Many are coming out now more than ever claiming that science can indeed tell us what is right and wrong objectively. If we are to find objectivism in morality, science/reason is a great place and perhaps only place to start and end.
Well, let’s first ask “what is morality?” I think we can all agree that it is centered around people’s mental, physical, and emotional well-being. When it comes to mental and emotional, that is all within the brain and physical encompasses everything. Actually, all 3 encompasses the body.
Morality is what is good and what is bad according to the well-being of things that can suffer. Namely creatures like us and beyond, hence why the term morality exists.
It’s objective facts about things like US
If you’re too hot, your well-being markers for all 3 domains will not be good. This is especially true if you’re hot and do not want to be hot anymore.
So, what can science say? Well, get out of the heat, drink water, rest in the shade, etc. Plenty of things to be done.
Being hot and how to not be too hot anymore can be answered in scientific terms.
We can then say that it is right that being too hot when you don’t want to be is not good objectively speaking.
Morally, speaking, imposing this onto someone who doesn’t want this imposed on them is WRONG because it is not good all relating back to science.
It’s not good to be too hot because it goes against well-being.
In scientific terms, we can describe what happens if one is too hot.
-heat exhaustion -dehydration -death
Etc.
No one in a state of being too hot when they don’t want to believes what they are experiencing is good.
@EmbraceThePain that's not measuring morality, just quality of life. You are still the one deciding what counts as morality, there's no science for that.
At the end of the day, we, as humans just have to wonder “do we want to rape?”
“Do we want to torture unjustly?”
“Do we want to live a good life? Whatever that means for everyone”
And more questions.
Pretending that there is a different answer of “yes” to the statement
“Being on fire is bad”
Is quite an interesting thought experiment.
Who can possibly believe the answer is “no”
No one
Why? Why does it seem like no one wants to be on fire?
No moral relativist truly believes they would answer “no” yet they argue, you argue, that there must be some other relative truth here that actually means something.
For the sake of humanity and well-being, certain obvious things need to be universal.
I thought they were the world police still. The United nations is in America for a reason right. Otherwise the United nations would be in the Hague in the Netherlands. But it's not. So I feel like the USA is still thankfully the world's police.
It's not our job to fix the rest of the worlds problems, especially since we can't even handle our own.
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We can and have been handling our own problems quite well for years and years.
Every year the world becomes a better and better place to live, specifically the US, with the advent of technology, science, medicine, engineering, etc.
So, we will never get to a point where we have ZERO issues or problems we have to deal with at home, so waiting for such a point will never happen.
Instead, we should analyze how we would do things, what we should do, why we do it, the resources and lives involved, etc.
Our “job” is whatever we make of it in today’s global society. With countries such as ourselves becoming more and more powerful and people looking up to us and others for guidance, our “job” changes
Other countries should be allowed to succeed, or fail, under their own power. It's not our place go over there and tell them how their society should be. If we do, how long before another country declares war on us because we invaded them under the pretense of restoring peace and order to them when we had nothing to do with their conflict in the first place.
No offense, but I think the disaster in Afghanistan clearly proves that would not be a good idea. German would be a better candidate. I do not live there, so this is not me praising my country. I really think they would be the best ones for that.
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Either we spend the money to be the worlds police or we isolate and cause a massive arms race in all the countries.
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Yeah, we most certainly have the money it looks like.
Also, we can divert money from things we can do without or don’t really need towards better things. This is an obvious fact, perhaps unfortunate that there is indeed wasted money.
We should care about HUMANS, not Americans specifically, since we live in a global society and cannot shut ourselves out of the happenings of the world.
We can’t even isolate ourselves in any significant way from the world in terms of economics, politics, morality, finances, etc.
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