(March 24, 2019 at 4:38 am)Equinox25 Wrote: But again, don't complain and blame us when things go downhill.

Why not? If it's our fault that things go downhill, we should complain and blame. 

Quote: Lots of us don't want to see our taxes being wasted on another country when we have plenty of our own problems back home. 

We lefties agree with this completely. 

The trillions wasted on Iraq, Syria, etc.etc.etc. made the world worse. We should have left those countries alone and spent the money at home. Some of it could have gone to actual help for those countries, not death and destruction.

(March 24, 2019 at 8:22 pm)Gawdzilla Sama Wrote: Strawman much?

How so ?

(March 24, 2019 at 8:43 pm)Amarok Wrote:

(March 24, 2019 at 8:22 pm)Gawdzilla Sama Wrote: Strawman much?

How so ?

My personal Rule of So states that when a comment starts with "So, you..." it should examined for a strawman argument. You should look up "Strawman Argument." It's a fallacy.

(March 24, 2019 at 4:38 am)Equinox25 Wrote: That's fine. Then don't complain when we don't "meddle". And things go down the shitter. By this logic, imagine for a few seconds what would have happened if the United States said "fuck you, you're on your own" to Europe during World War 2. 

I dislike American intervention as much as the next guy. And yes, I'm an American. But again, don't complain and blame us when things go downhill. Lots of us don't want to see our taxes being wasted on another country when we have plenty of our own problems back home. 

Oh yeah, don't expect us to take in immigrants when things in said country go down the shitter either if you have this attitude.

America intervenes/interferes with the affairs of other nations because it is America's perceived best interest to do so.

The US went to to war with Japan because Japan attacked the US. No choice. Germany declared war on the US. Until that time , America's policy had ben isolationist, and probably would have  remained so.

Since 1950, the  US has been almost continuously involved in overseas conflict due to its basic gunboat diplomacy.

The most egregious interference was Vietnam. The US went because of its fatuous domino  theory about the spread of communism. Had the US stayed out of Vietnam, the result would have almost certainly been the same, but without the level of Vietnamese deaths and of course, no US deaths.

Without US  involvement  in WW 2, Australia wold probably have have fallen to Japan, and the map of Europe would probably be very different.

I'm most pleased at how things worked out. However, nations never go to war on thee basis of moral values. They go to war because it is in their perceived best interest or because they are given no choice , as was was the case with WW2

(March 24, 2019 at 9:06 pm)Gawdzilla Sama Wrote:

(March 24, 2019 at 8:43 pm)Amarok Wrote: How so ?

My personal Rule of So states that when a comment starts with "So, you..." it should examined for a strawman argument. You should look up "Strawman Argument." It's a fallacy.

1. Not a refutation 

2. I know what a straw man is I don't accept that I committed one

Say what you will about the US but at least it doesn’t force millions of people into re-Education camps and built a literally 1984-esque state (with refusal being met with being disappeared) to ensure everyone loves the state:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt...dden_camps

I mean it’s not an exaggeration to say that China’s ‘interference’ in world politics is massive, and much of it behind the scenes. And I for one am not so keen, lest I be sent to be re-educated.

(March 24, 2019 at 10:04 pm)Amarok Wrote:

(March 24, 2019 at 9:06 pm)Gawdzilla Sama Wrote: My personal Rule of So states that when a comment starts with "So, you..." it should examined for a strawman argument. You should look up "Strawman Argument." It's a fallacy.

1. Not a refutation 

2. I know what a straw man is I don't accept that I committed one

Yeah, that's part of it.

(March 24, 2019 at 9:06 pm)Gawdzilla Sama Wrote:

(March 24, 2019 at 8:43 pm)Amarok Wrote: How so ?

My personal Rule of So states that when a comment starts with "So, you..." it should examined for a strawman argument. You should look up "Strawman Argument." It's a fallacy.

My experience with posts in which a person just lectures about a fallacy, is that the poster read some silly book about winning arguments, and they think that reading that book turned them into philosophers. Eristic argumentation has become very popular with especially dumb people. There's a real market for it.

The last time America was an Isolationist country was after WW1. The problem with having an all or nothing mentality is that unfortunately, by over punishing Germany and leaving it to rot, that allowed a very sick individual to sell the idea he could save Germany. 

The argument can be made that our involvement after WW2 in places like North Korea, Nam and Afghanistan and Iraq have been stalemates and or fruitless.

But there is always going to be a risk of our enemies like Russia and China pushing to fill in the gaps we don't fill. They try to expand too, so to claim that America always has a colonial agenda, would be false and misleading. While I would not want a 2nd war with North Korea, sorry, but we do need our troops over there because they are a threat to our allies in South Korea and Japan and us as well. 

My point is, while I don't have any simple solutions, I do not think global diplomacy is 100% isolationism all the time. I also don't want Chinese subs or Russian subs off the cost of California or Florida. Much less allow them to expand close enough to launch an invasion.

I think we SHOULD avoid war where we can, yes. But we still need bases in Europe and Japan and South Korea regardless.

I think it isn't as simple as anyone wants to make it.

(March 24, 2019 at 9:18 pm)fredd bear Wrote:

(March 24, 2019 at 4:38 am)Equinox25 Wrote: That's fine. Then don't complain when we don't "meddle". And things go down the shitter. By this logic, imagine for a few seconds what would have happened if the United States said "fuck you, you're on your own" to Europe during World War 2. 

I dislike American intervention as much as the next guy. And yes, I'm an American. But again, don't complain and blame us when things go downhill. Lots of us don't want to see our taxes being wasted on another country when we have plenty of our own problems back home. 

Oh yeah, don't expect us to take in immigrants when things in said country go down the shitter either if you have this attitude.

America intervenes/interferes with the affairs of other nations because it is America's perceived best interest to do so.

The US went to to war with Japan because Japan attacked the US. No choice. Germany declared war on the US. Until that time , America's policy had ben isolationist, and probably would have  remained so.

Since 1950, the  US has been almost continuously involved in overseas conflict due to its basic gunboat diplomacy.

The most egregious interference was Vietnam. The US went because of its fatuous domino  theory about the spread of communism. Had the US stayed out of Vietnam, the result would have almost certainly been the same, but without the level of Vietnamese deaths and of course, no US deaths.

Without US  involvement  in WW 2, Australia wold probably have have fallen to Japan, and the map of Europe would probably be very different.

I'm most pleased at how things worked out. However, nations never go to war on thee basis of moral values. They go to war because it is in their perceived best interest or because they are given no choice , as was was the case with WW2

We oversimplify history to a pretty ridiculous extent in my opinion. We tend to stick pushpins into historical events that tell a story of history that we are most comfortable with. For example, it is arguable that we were already at war with Japan before Pearl Harbor. We cut Japan off from their supply of oil, and without oil their militaristic regime could not survive. The Japanese understandably considered this to be warfare. And they no doubt felt sort of betrayed by us, because we had supported them in their aggression against Russia. So we fostered the formation of their militaristic regime. It is almost certainly true that we wanted Japan's militaristic regime to be our pitbull in that region of the world, and we thought that we could control them by controlling their access to resources that they needed to sustain their regime. They had no oil resources of their own, and we thought that we could control them through oil.

I don't agree the Vietnam was our most egregious interference. Vietnam was just the one that became publicly acknowledged as interference. Korea was ridiculously egregious. We forced a phony election down the throats of the South Koreans. And then we insisted that the government that was formed as a result of the obviously corrupt election was the one true government of all of Korea. To this day, oblivious people will insist that the 'lawfully' elected government of South Korea was the 'legitimate' government of Korea because it was the one recognized by the United Nations. But the United Nations shoved that utterly corrupt election down South Korea's throat. Korea was not ready for elections at that time. Quite frankly, I am pretty certain that if we had just given the Koreans a couple of more years to decide their own destiny, then the south would have reconciled with the north. But that would have probably made Kim Il-Sung the official top guy over all of Korea. Our meddling in Korea caused one of the greatest catastrophes in human history.