possible commonplace

I typically get my news from the Arizona Daily Star website, and am compelled to comment on stories I feel particularly emotionally or opinionated about. This is a comment I left today on an article reporting Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

I do not like Obama's domestic policies, but I believe he is handling the Iranian nuclear situation correctly. He has given Iran the option to either provide a transparent nuclear program, or to prepare for strict trade sanctions and/or a military invasion. I believe this ultimatum with eventually cause Iran to acquiesce.
#16; the comment regarding the Monroe doctrine.
Typically retaining a withdrawn foreign affairs policy is (would be) beneficial to our country. However, when a country (Israel) is threatened with nuclear obliteration, and we to have the means to prevent it, we should, without hesitation, do everything in our power to prevent it.

After I wrote this comment, I went on to read the Ancient Rhetoric chapter on commonplace. While I was reading the chapter (especially on American commonplaces), I thought about what I had written and realized that I had displayed two contradictory commonplaces of American ideology:
“If someone is in need, or is threatened, we should feel obligated to help them.”
“We should not interfere in others disputes”

Thesis: Excluding those who retain libertarian viewpoints, or those who closely follow the Monroe Doctrine, the commonplace “Aid those (countries) who are threatened or in need”, is embedded in American ideology in order to pacify moral standards. This commonplace appears to gain its roots from a biblical story, where a Good Samaritan sacrifices his time and resources to help a man in need, which ultimately spells out the moral “do unto others as they would do to you.” Despite the cost of war, and the sacrifice of human lives, this commonplace, which stems from the golden rule, can be invoked as a means of somehow justifying interventionist military conflicts. Although some instances of intervention such as, the liberation of Nazi concentration camps, and prevention of a nuclear war, may be justified, calculating the lives and cost of war may prove to refute this commonplace as a reason to go to war.