Word: self-interest
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Moynihan is notably devoted to self-interest, but at the moment party loyalty runs a close second. "There will be a bill," he declares. "My job is to get 11 committee votes." He knows, however, that delivering that tally will be only the beginning of the battle...
...post-cold war liberalism, self-interest is a tainted, corrupting motive for intervention. It is not just a dispensable criterion for intervention; it is disqualifying. The apparent liberal flip-flops on intervention now begin to make sense. In the Persian Gulf, where American national interests are seriously engaged, they opposed armed intervention. In Somalia, where American national interests are not at all engaged, they supported armed intervention. And in Bosnia, where American national interests stand to be seriously jeopardized by intervention, they are positively enthusiastic for intervention...
...America. On the contrary, out of ! the deep desire to purify, to redeem America by making it an instrument of justice. The critics do not lack for patriotism. On the contrary, they sincerely wish to ennoble America with a foreign policy of altruism. And because only intervention devoid of self-interest is morally unimpeachable, it is the only kind that a good conscience can support...
What to say of these liberal hawks? That they are marked by good faith but a terrible confusion. The confusion is between individual and national morality. In private conduct, altruism is the ideal. For a nation, it can mean ruin. In private conduct, self-interest is a suspect motive. Intervening in a fight for reasons of right is the stuff of western heroes. Intervening in a fight because you need the weaker party...
...Intervention in Bosnia is not in any country's immediate hard-headed concrete interest," Wallander says. "There is an enlightened long-term self-interest...that is the stability of Europe...