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by malms 2532 days ago
> If you believe your system is better, then you really should not have to actively participate in fighting opposing systems of belief. Forcing it through just shows that you are motivated by self interest, and not a core belief in the superiority of your own values.

Uh why ? I think it's exactly the opposite

2 comments

I don't claim to be an authority on this by any means and it's a very complex space but...

the approach of "forcing" a foreign country to take on social/political beliefs seems like a very difficult task when the local culture doesn't already support them implicitly. The worst example of this in recent history is probably our(US) interactions in the middle east that in many ways have backfired and made the situation worse by creating economic uncertainty and power vacuums.

I think generally more liberal values become more attractive as economic prosperity. if this is true it seems like a simpler/more effective foreign policy strategy to create economic opportunity for citizens of the foreign country and simply tie an example of the liberal values we want to spread to those opportunities. Then pushes for these sorts of changes would have a much stronger local, and thus more aware of the local situation, base of support.

If the views really are superior it should be easy to derive them independently given examples as your lower level concerns become less of a problem. And if they come to those positions in a more independent way the likelihood that they'll last is much higher.

Depends on "better". For any definition where better includes economic superiority, the easiest way to show that is to let time sort things out.