Talking with the Authors...only at GWC

Platonic Dialogue between me and Condoleezza Rice
This is what happens when you go to George Wythe College. You end up having long arguments with the authors of every piece of writing you see in your head as you're reading. I usually have lots of questions too. Those questions could be expanded into an entire essay on their own!

Quote from Rethinking the National Interest: American Realism for a New World

Condoleezza Rice, Foreign Affairs, July/August 2008

“What has changed is, most broadly, how we view the relationship between the dynamics within states and the distribution of power among them. Or the interplay between them. As globalization strengthens some states, it exposes and exacerbates the failings of many others what if globalisation purposely targets and uses theories meant to weaken or strengthen different countries? Oxygen good for humans, carbon dioxide good for plants. Purposely using plants to create a certain environment and consequences become pronounced. -- those too weak or poorly governed to address challenges within their borders and prevent them from spilling out and destabilizing the international order.some things can’t be kept in. what are they? How is international order so destabilized? In this strategic environment, it is vital to our national security that states be willing and able to meet the full range of their sovereign responsibilities, both beyond their borders and within them. You don’t act like they’re responsible. If they can’t handle something on their own, you don’t make them do it. You make them turn responsiblilty over to someone more capable. Like an international alliance that takes their sovereignty. This new reality has led us to some significant changes in our policy. We recognize that democratic state building is now an urgent component of our national interest. Who is the real audience here? Are you truly concerned for the world, or just yourselves? If a good principle is good for us, it should be good for others too. And in the broader Middle East, we recognize that freedom and democracy are the only ideas that can, over time, lead to just and lasting stability, especially in Afghanistan and Iraq.” Lots of things like monarchy, tyrnanny, communalism, and dictators can lead to stability. Only a few ideas lead to freedom and democracy. Is stability our real end goal? If so, many paths will lead us there, and I suspect we’re on one of them.