[BRIEF NOTE] Four Comments of Note

[rfmcdonald]

Livejournal has an automatic comments-delivery system that normally works well, letting LJ users like myself receive due notice of the latest comments. the system hasn't been working well. I thought I was unaffected, but going to the recent comments feature on the web I found out that I wasn't. This is a pity since I've gotten some good comments of late.

• frumiousb, responding to Alain Finkielkraut's interview with Ha'aretz in which he argued that immigrants alone were responsible for their alienation, takes him to task for ignoring the realities of debilitating prejudice. I'll just note here that in his moving 2000 bookIn the Name of Humanity, Finkielkraut argued that empathy for the plight of the Other was critical for the future of humanity.


• lostmuskrat writes that Canada has always fought its wars in coalition simply because Canada has always been a relatively weak power with non-coercive ties to the metropole. The British Empire of 1900 wasn't the Warsaw Pact; we voluntarily sent troops to fight in the Boer War. That said, we've retained the option to dissent from ill-judged conflicts, like the Vietnam War escalated by the United States' failure to properly support South Vietnam.


• creases and piratehead each observe that the United States can't be described as a particularly militaristic or Machiavellian state. They're right. It comes down to sheer power. Would I trust a superpower Canada to behave properly and morally? Hell no. Superpowers and great powers create their own rules, even if they act with the best of intentions.