Reply #12: Phony Baloney.

[apocalypsehow]

On so many levels, I don't know where to begin.

The United States government routinely "sticks its nose" right in to just about any situation that ruffles its feathers - and I'm not talking about Iraq and other related illegal wars. Let's take a stroll down the lane of U.S. "nose-sticking," and take a look:

Item: as we speak, the United States government is so bent out of shape about the flow of drugs into our country (sparked by a seemingly insatiable craving for such drugs from our citizens) that we have sent para-military law enforcement personnel into any number of Central American nations. Take a long hard look at that sentence again: we are enforcing our laws with our law enforcement personnel on the soil of another country. Of several other countries, in point of fact. Looks a lot like "nose-sticking" to me.

Item: the United States dislikes the government of Cuba, even though it has been decades since Cuba has ever been even the slightest fig of a threat to us (and it never was a very serious one, in any event). So the United States maintains an embargo on that nation out of, oh, I don't, sheer spite I guess you'd say. Now, are we content to just maintain our own embargo and leave it at that? Noooooo, see we routinely bully other nations into curtailing their trade with Cuba, or at least limiting it in any number of ways. This doesn't work with Europe, Canada, and any number of other countries that aren't dependent on our largess: they have all quite properly told us to go pound sand regarding this matter. Others have complied with our government's wishes in any number of ways, and to varying degrees. The point is if that's not doing a little "nose-sticking," I don't know what is.

Item: the United States government has its icky nose stuck deep into the cesspool of right-wing anti-choice politics on a world wide scale. It has promulgated a policy that ties aid to such wispy notions as "abstinence only" in poor and developing countries around the world, as well as noxious anti-choice bullshit. This often involves UN programs that could save any number of poor women's lives, but since Jesus spoke to W and told him how to proceed in these matters, it's been to hell with the women and how would you like a KJV to go with that abstinence only pamphlet? It really is a quite disgusting version of "nose-sticking."

Item: I don't remember the details, and don't really have the time to Google it, but I seem to recall that a few years back Canada or one of the European countries was considering a serious liberalization of its drug laws, particularly related to cannabis. Did the United States government keep its prim nose out of what is, by definition, an internal affair of a sovereign nation? It did not: IIRC there was all sorts of puffery and snorts of outrage, coupled with not so subtle threats to hold up trade deals and the like.

Now, there may well be good reasons that one sovereign nation feels obligated to "stick its nose" into the internal affairs of another. The punitive actions taken by the U.S. against the apartheid government of South Africa was certainly one prime example of some excellent (if overdue) "nose-sticking": that loathsome government deserved to have it internal affairs mucked around with. And a case could be made that our drug laws and the way in which they are being flouted might justify some "nose-sticking" into, say, the internal affairs of Columbia. I don't make the latter case; I just point out one could be made. In this case, one of our neighbors is being harmed by the flow of a product we refuse to properly regulate, to wit, firearms. I dare say that if the roles were reversed, and we perceived that we were being significantly harmed by the flow of an illegal (within our own borders) product that Canada refused to lift one finger about, the Marine Corps would be in Ontario quicker than you can say "the shores of Tripoli," and Stephen Harper would be down in GITMO as a "detainee" awaiting one of our infamous, illegal, and bogus "tribunals."

So please spare us this chest-thumping about those mean Canadians, and their "nose-sticking."