Where do our morals lie?

Last class our ORC group talked about the Amy Tan article and her struggles with finding the place of American freedoms in the rest of the world. In other words, where does the line lie between respecting another country's sovereignty and a moral responsibility to help other human beings in need? One lens through which we could answer this question is one of a global perspective. For example, which side would maintain peace between nations? Clearly the first value, respecting another country's sovereignty over it's own domain, would maintain a peaceful political balance between nations, however is the World really at peace if a country denies it's own people help that they need? This then also begs the question, 'what is peace'? Is it enough to achieve 'world peace' from a political stand-point? I believe that it isn't but I also don't believe that peace is accomplished by requiring everyone to cherish the same values and beliefs that we do as Americans. I think humans possess an innate sense of compassion and our humanity drives us to help others when we can, however, often we limit ourselves in the help that we can give by only trying to help in ways that are familiar to us. This 'my way or the highway' standpoint which we saw in Tan's editorial failed to help the orphans of China and in fact worsened their situation, barring them from receiving further assistance. Perhaps a compromise can be made in situations such as these. Perhaps it is best to exercise our sense of compassion and moral responsibility in a way that is most convenient for those who we are trying to help rather than only considering the ways of helping with which we are most fluent. In this manner we avoid dictating how other countries should help their own citizens, yet we can still have a voice in securing a better future for those in need.