Word: self-interest
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...conquest, it is not a place for the advancement of self-interest. It is a mutual sharing. People must completely physically open themselves in sex, and therefore they are completely vulnerable emotionally, physically and psychologically. If a man views a woman's expression of affection as a weakness to be exploited in his conquest, he destroys her respect for the affection she gave and thus destroys her self-respect, her self-image, her capacity for free self-expression...
...perceive a woman as a sexual object is to deny the value of her feelings and thoughts. And to act based on this perception in the process of sex, to use her at that moment as an object, a means of furthering self-interest, is to take from her her very self...
...even the accumulation of self-interest, morality, international approval and domestic popularity are enough to make a war worth fighting. If it was, we might have invaded Lithuania last month. Before the U.S. gets involved in a foreign adventure, we must have a reasonable expectation of achieving our objectives with an acceptably low casualty count. Bush was smart enough to wage a winnable war. And he was smart enough to give his military commanders enough firepower to win it quickly, while minimizing allied losses...
...does not intervene purely for reasons of morality. If it did, it would spend itself dry righting every wrong in the world. Nor does it act purely out of self-interest. If, for example, a genuine pro-Iraqi coup had led Kuwaitis to join voluntarily with Iraq, the U.S. would hardly have gone to war to reverse that action. (During the oil shocks of the 1970s, suggestions that the U.S. seize the oil fields of Arabia were never even taken seriously...
Well now we're in a major war, and lo and behold, we still can't get people to see past their narrow self-interest. Even war itself is no longer the moral equivalent...