Should the USA butt out?

[Mooshi]

Should the sole superpower of the world stop butting into other country affairs? Not only military occupation, but imposing "our" values as well. Do you support this or no?

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It seems that current day America is hyper-sensative. Whenever someone from the US visits another country and finds something offensive, the country kisses the Americans butt by giving into them. Case in point, a not so distant trip made by Oprah to Australia. Someone screamed racism over dolls and one of them was taken off display. Comments from the Australians themselves were along the lines of they grew up with these dolls, love them and Yanks are too sensative - they can go back home if they find offense to everything. I agree with the Aussies on this one. As an American, it makes me facepalm every time another country is a victim of our own PC nonsense. American policies should stay American. Believe it or not, other countries don't need US holding their hands. In fact, this usually ticks them off and affirms our "bully" label.

[Sky Striker]

It's a bit of a gray area. We should definitely stop occupying other countries as willy-nilly as we do. I also think we should stop imposing our values, but there are certain things we should keep imposing. Such as environmental policies to China, sure we need to clean up our act but there are other countries doing much worse.

[furtopia02]

It's a complicated, difficult line of decisions that have to be made all the time. Over all though I'm more for pulling out of other places and focuses on national problems in our own country and avoiding trying to help others with their problems as much (whether they want it or not) since we have plenty of stuff to fix and give aide to here. As well as security holes to fix and having more forces on home turf makes us stronger to resist attack. But.. that is just being general and isn't always possible to be so pseudo-isolationist as I'd like.

[Mooshi]

Even with the bad, no one is going  to deny the US isn't a major player. It's easy to blanket term Americans are overweight dim people obsessed with cheeseburgers. Some do fit that, but a good majority of services such as the military is made up of bright men and women. Some things are insane, but the USA is more free than other countries. This doesn't always mean our values are. I think they mean well with democracy for all, but is it really America's right to tell other countries their values are wrong and we are right? Arguing with someone on an indivudal level isn't the same. Ideas clash, words are exchanged and we move on. Can't please everyone. But doing that on a grand scale is just silly. :3

[Drake Blackpaw]

Nothing in the world is that simple.  I don't believe the US should be pushing our values onto other countries, but there are lines that shouldn't be crossed.  We shouldn't be going out alone when these lines are crossed.  Usually when a line is crossed, there are many nations that feel something must be done or said, I mean that's a big part of what the UN is for.

Now for the Australian - Oprah example you gave Mooshi.  I don't see that as US pushing its values, it was a few idiotic people pushing their values.  I want our country and others to stand up against things like the systematic rape and murder of the people of Darfur, not for the removal of a doll that someone finds offensive.

The US has gotten involved in many things in the past that we shouldn't have been involved with.  We had no business going to war in Iraq under George W Bush (We did have a legitimate reason under his father, but his father was smart enough to realize that removing Saddam from power was going to a huge mess and didn't go there).  Discretion is necessary if we are going to step in somewhere or push or view. And though we haven't used the best discretion in the past, doesn't mean we should never get involved.

[Alsek]

Our military is for protecting our country,  plain and simple.  Sending our citizens out to fight battles that do not concern us puts the lives of our citizens needlessly at risk...  Especially in the case of Vietnam where we had to draft people to get them to fight.

If we ever really need soldiers,  it will be serious enough that they enlist on their own. If so few people were interested in fighting in 'Nam,   then maybe it wasn't in our countries interests to fight.

[Serra Belvoule]

Not only military occupation, but imposing "our" values as well.

Yes. Butt out. Other cultures copy USA enough, no need to push it further