Posted by
Playful Walrus on Tuesday, May 20, 2008 5:38:50 PM
Another “America is bad” study is out. Funny, everyone still wants to come here. Would someone please tell our neighbors to the south how horrible we are? Sue Pleming reports:
Iceland is the world's most peaceful nation while the United States is ranked among the bottom third, according to a study released on Tuesday.
Yeah, but didn’t Iceland foist Bjork on the world?
I’ve noticed that studies that say “Hey, the U.S. is great!” don’t get a lot of press.
The "Global Peace Index," compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit, ranked the United States 97th out of 140 countries according to how peaceful they were domestically and how they interacted with the outside world.
Well, sure. You know, plenty of cowards and slaves can be considered peaceful. All they have to do is not fight back and never stand up for themselves or anyone else. It is also easy to keep domestic peace when you don’t have the problem of third-world illegal alien gangbangers flooding your cities and when you keep a really tight leash on your citizens. I prefer freedom rather than “peace” under a tyrant. Just let me keep a gun.
Its image has also been damaged by the prisoner abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the detention of terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba.
Ah, so let all of terrorists out of confinement and then we'll be "peaceful" as they blow up our cities. Two of the differences between the U.S. and other countries in the "prisoner abuse scandal": 1) the pictures got out, and; 2) the "perps" were punished instead of rewarded.
Small, stable and democratic countries were found to be the most peaceful in the index, with 16 of the top 20 coming from western or central European democracies.
They will be even more “peaceful” when the Muslims impose sharia law.
The index looks at 24 indicators of external and internal measures of peace, including U.N. deployments overseas and levels of violent crime, respect for human rights, the number of soldiers killed overseas and arms sales.
I see – so because we step up to the plate and our soldiers are getting targeted by terrorist savages, we’re no peaceful. The counties that are content to let us do the heavy lifting are “peaceful.” Arming people for defense is apparently not peaceful, either.
The index was launched under the auspices of the Institute for Economics and Peace, a new think tank that looks at the relationship between economics, business and peace.
Supporters of the index urged policymakers to focus more on education, wealth, and well-functioning government and pointed to the role of business in creating more stability.
The smaller the government, the better. But what does it meat to “focus more on education, wealth”? With free market capitalism, wealth will be developed independent of government actions. There are many “educated” people who are neither wealthy nor peaceful.
While I do believe that free market capitalism can promote peace, it always involves open competition, and “peace” for the sake of material gain is not necessarily a good thing.