Robert Wright: recommendation

Transcript context

…What's a grand bargain look like? That is kind of w- maybe you should just lay it out to us Well, for starters, we just have to get out of the business of trying to govern other countries, okay? Yes, there are, there are bad human rights things. There are bad things in the US, right? Like, the percentage of the US population in prison, that's in prison, way, way, way, way, way higher than in China, okay? That's not good. And China could say, "Oh man, that's horrible. We're not gonna do business with you," but, but China just doesn't really do that. We do. And, and the thing about our human rights policies is they basically never work and they often backfire. Like, our, our approach to helping the Cuban people has been decades of sanctions that have immiserated them, and now a full-on blockade. This just happens again and again and again. The, the, the, the sanctions, they just play a domestic US political function and, and they serve the purpose of various... And there are interest groups that believe in them wholeheartedly. But we... First part of, of a rational policy toward the world is get out of the business of trying to remake every country in our image because, A, you never succeed, B, when you try, disaster ensues, whether it's a regime change war or whatever. The record seems to be pretty clear. Sanctions don't work. They often backfire, hurt the people you're trying to help. Regime change typically makes things worse. So just stop. And by the way, this really is what the UN Charter kind of says. I mean, yes, there is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It deserves our respect. But in terms of the actual force of the UN, they focus it on trans-border aggression, and that entailed a tremendous respect for national sovereignty. And the idea was, like, you don't get to attack another nation unless it attacked you, okay? You don't get to attack it because you think its government could be less repressive. You don't get to attack it because of X, Y, and Z. The UN Charter is a treaty we ratified, and by the way, the US Constitution says that ratified treaties are the, quote, "supreme law of the land." So, you know, I, I think we need to get back to the spirit of the UN Charter, which is just say, okay, look, these are not the ideal governments. Personally, I don't think our government is the ideal government. But you just deal with the nations you have, and you start focusing on problems you share, and there are plenty of them. You just... A- a- that, that would be the fundamental philosophical shift our foreign policy needs, and I think you'd find that that would relieve a fair amount of tension with China right there if, if you, you know, if you quit lecturing about them, them about that. Now, I, I'm not saying this is all our fault, you know? Xi Jinping is more... He has concentrated power within his office in China, so he's more... He's closer to autocratic than past leaders of China. He's more authoritarian. And China has been, you know, sometimes belligerent regionally. ntrated power within his office in China, so he's more... He's closer to autocratic than past leaders of China. He's more authoritarian. And China has been, you know, sometimes belligerent regionally. But I mean, to give you another exercise of cognitive empathy, you know, I heard this guy Nick Burns, he used to be ambassador to China, say when they... Some b- some podcast asked him, "Well, what, what should we... What should Trump have done in China that he didn't do?" And he said, "Well, he should've talked to him about how, you know, they've been kinda throwing their weight around, like w- with the Philippines and stuff." And I just thought, do you not understand that once we have invaded Venezuela and we have a blockade around Cuba, you just... They're just gonna laugh at you if you start saying, "Quit bumping Philippines boats," right? Like, you know, you, you, you, you have to understand that we are widely viewed as completely hypocritical. And so, a- a- and, and once you see that, I don't know, it seems to me that you just realize, well, either we are going to have to start playing by the rules or we're gonna have to do a little less lecturing of oth- to other countries about playing by the rules, because human nature is just such that that kind of hypocrisy doesn't fly. So I don't know. I probably... I, I'm sure I've alienated half your audience, but-…

Stored transcript either side of the excerpt. The highlighted words are the published quote; the surrounding text is unedited source, never generated.