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In reply to the discussion: Poll: Because Gaddafi was a bad man, it was OK for the West to help overthrow him? [View all]BainsBane
(53,180 posts)The concept of national interests is not Republican or Third Way. It's the basis of any nation's foreign policy. Either you know nothing about your own nation's history, or you flailing because you can't work off script. Either way, it's weak. Was Teddy Roosevelt Third Way? Truman? JFK? LBJ? They were Third Way decades before the Third Way existed? Was the Cold War Third Way? Anyone with ANY knowledge of US diplomatic history knows there has been very little to no difference between the two parties. Democrats and Republicans alike fought the Cold War. If you aren't going to learn the most basic things about your country's history, how can you possible make political decisions in the present? There is nothing admirable in refusing to learn about or engage with your nation's history. It fact, it's tragic, particularly since you hold yourself up as some expert on politics.
This only shows the limitations of your game. You are backed into a corner and can't engage in any thoughtful way with the diplomatic history of your own country, so throw out Third Way when referring to a time period long before the Third Way existed.
The only people who believe the US seeks to carry out benevolence around the world are those who uncritically accept US propaganda as fact. They tend to be Republicans, and I have never before seen anyone who purports to be on the left who didn't understand the gap between public statements on foreign policy and reality. Even the most cursory exposure to foreign policy, an intro poly sci course, shows that the foreign policy is about national interests. It's particularly odd omission for anyone who was alive during the Cold War.