Wednesday, June 27, 2012

What Is Your Country? - The State Department Vs The United States Of America

The article details how President Reagan was ready to lend England one of our warships in the event that they lost a carrier in their fight with Argentina over the Falklands.

The article has a curious tidbit:

It was as if they were deliberately treating the State Department as if it had trouble understanding where it's loyalties should be.
I was reminded of something that I had heard about Secretary Of State, George P. Shultz.
It is an important caution.
It would be far to easy to work in the section for a particular country or region and forget that you are working to promote what is best for the United States of America, not necessarily what is best for that particular country or region that you are assigned to.

Another issue that comes into play is how a person's world-view fits or conflicts with role of State Department. Those that look at themselves as more of a "citizen of the world" than a "citizen of the United States of America" would be in conflict with the State Department role of protecting and promoting the interests of the USA over and above the interests of other countries or of "the world."

For the Constrained, the question of "What is your country?" is not confusing or difficult to answer. For the Unconstrained, the "citizen of the world" concept confuses and makes difficult a question that if answered wrongly, puts their country at risk.

Friday, June 8, 2012

From the "Why haven't we kicked the UN out of the US yet? files:

See: U.N. could tax U.S.-based Web sites, leaked docs show
The United Nations is considering a new Internet tax targeting the largest Web content providers, including Google, Facebook, Apple, and Netflix, that could cripple their ability to reach users in developing nations.
The UN and the rest of the world needs to be reminded that the Internet is ours and they are free to play on it.  This kind of scheme can be dealt with fairly easily. Any country that adopts this tax should be kicked of the net entire and invited to create their own Internet that they may tax and regulate to their hearts content.

If they come to their senses, they can be allowed back on to the US created Internet. Until that time, they can go pound sand.