UNITED NATIONS: Kim Jong Un has been working diligently toward arming North Korea with nuclear weapons. We must do something!
UNITED STATES: Whoa, whoa…calm down. This CLEARLY isn’t about nuclear weapons.
UN: It’s not?
USA: No. [Afterschool special music starts to play.]
America is the most powerful nation in the world, by just about any measure.
We have an enormous military budget, bases and warships strategically scattered all over the globe, the most sophisticated weaponry, and diplomatic ties to allies that exponentially multiply our reach. We have the world’s largest economy, accounting for a full quarter of the entire world’s GDP, with only 4.4% of the world’s population.
Through humanitarian aid, we’ve saved millions of lives around the world. We’ve educated, fed, and healed people. Many other countries thrive because we helped them up, and now we’re standing there with a big stick right behind them. Continue reading
Article 33 of the Geneva Convention prohibits “collective punishment.” Simply put, it’s against the rules to punish someone for something they didn’t personally do. Makes sense at an innate level.
We understand basic fairness from the time we are babies. We cannot internalize cause and effect when we’re being punished for something that someone else did.
Instead, the cause and effect will shift away from the behavior being punished and toward something that makes more instinctive sense. Continue reading