Anything less than unconditional surrender meant Japan would remain a threat. You're right about "saving face"... we could NOT allow them to do so.
But that's exactly what we did. We allowed the Emperor to remain as a puppet leader for that reason.
No, you're not getting it. Doing so on OUR terms means he DID NOT save face. It was only if it was on HIS terms that it would be saving face. And as your quote shows, keeping him there, for our part, was not about saving face at all, but of continuity. Make no mistake, this was a humiliation entirely for the Emperor. But he did help hold his people together by staying in power.
And how does a place like Sweden deny the right to life, liberty, and property?
That it denies the right to property is self-evident: taking your property by force to give it to someone else for the sake of distributing wealth is denying your right to property. The government is saying that someone else has a right to your property. Obviously.
Now, your property is the product of your liberty. You act freely and make things and use those things and buy other things. So when someone denies your right to property, it denies your right to liberty, since it takes away the product of your liberty.
It's like if you made a cake for yourself, and someone else ate it, and each time you did it the same thing happened: they are not just denying your right to eat your cake, but actually denying your right to make a cake for yourself at all.
And your liberty, of course, is what you do with your life. Same principle applies: affronts to your liberty are affronts to your right to life, itself. You have only a short time on this earth, and when someone takes your liberty, they take a piece of your life, too.
All that said, yes, Sweden is a free enough country that people can leave, sometimes. But that doesn't justify it.
The fundamental goal of empire building is control and dominance.
Which are NOT the fundamental goals of the American "empire," so you're just agreeing with me.
Right, that is why all of the nations mentioned are sporting economic and political structures oh-so hostile to the US interests....
Which doesn't prove your point, at all.
Oh, and that wee thing with military installations in nearly 70 countries...
And Japan has car manufacturing in the U.S. So?
I could go on but history lessons are probably quite lost on people who are so wilfully blind as you.
Yawn.
Which is often the case with competing empires. They attack each other.
Funny... ours never did. Ever.
You should also remember that in case of Japan, they were pretty much forced to act after US managed to cut off their fuel supply.
Nonsense. "Don't shoot your parents and ask for mercy because you're an orphan." Japan invaded Indochina, and we cut off their oil in response. Japan didn't have to attack us: they could have left China instead. This was all about Japan trying to take Asia by force, and the U.S. trying to come to the aid of the victim.
WTF?! Iraq attacked the US?!... At no time did Iraq attack the US
Yes. How soon they forget. They attacked our forces -- our no-fly zone patrols, in particular -- in the Middle East regularly for years in between the ceasefire in 1991, and the invasion in 2003.
In fact the US and Britan by themselves (without any UN backing) established self-serving "no fly zones" after 1991 Gulf War
No UN backing was needed.
completely violating Iraq's sovereignty
As a means to protect the sovereignty of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, yes. So? Iraq brought that on itself.
following which they claimed that Iraqis firing at the US planes were somehow "attacking" the US
Which is self-evidently and unassailably true.
UN resolutions
Iraq's repeated and intentional and nearly incessant violations of Resolutions 687 and following.
If that is the reason for US invasion then Israel should have been chock-full of US troops bringing "democracy" and "freedom" there twice over, since by 2003 it has violated two times as many UN resolutions as Iraq had (Iraq = 69, Israel = 138).
You apparently don't realize that makes no sense. Can you find me a single UN resolution against Israel that not only says "if you don't comply with all these terms, we will force compliance?" Let alone such a resolution that Israel itself agreed to?
No, you cannot.
Not to mention that the final UN resolution 1441 before 2003 invasion did not endorse military action
There was no need for it to. The United States was an independent party to the 1991 war, and as Iraq violated the ceasefire agreement, the United States had the authority to reengage to force compliance if the United Nations refused to take its stated responsibility to do so itself. Indeed, the UN violated Resolution 687 by not forcing compliance as it said it would: that was not merely a threat to Iraq, but a promise to the U.S. and other member States, and it failed to live up to that promise. The U.S. had every legal right to reengage. (Whether it should have done so is a separate question.)
In the light of the above stellar commitment to "international law" (i.e. ignore it when US is involved and sternly apply it to everyone else) this line must surely be an attempt at comedy.
If you're seriously saying that wasn't meant to imply that Sweden has a 60% taxation rate, I think you need to work a bit on your writing.
Again: you are the one with a reading problem. Nothing in there remotely implies the meaning you inferred. Perhaps you should consider not dictating how to interpret the English language to a native speaker? Or if you are a native speaker of English, perhaps you need to brush up on it.
Where do you imply that it's just some people that pay that level of taxes? Nowhere.
You have it backward. Where do I imply it is EVERYONE? Nowhere. Since I do not imply a quantity of any kind, that quantity is, by default, "some." That is how English works.
If I say, "I ate the chicken for dinner," does that mean I ate all the chicken? If I say, "Americans drink milk from cows pumped with growth hormones," does that mean all Americans do? If I say, "Sweden has a tax rate of 60%," does that mean that tax rate applies to all Swedes? No, no, and no. English is rife with examples of "all" not being assumed the default.
If I had said, "Sweden's tax rate is 60 percent," that implies a single tax rate which applies to everyone who pays tax. I did not use that, or a similar construction. I did not in any way imply a single tax rate. I stated only that *A* tax rate in Sweden is 60 percent.
You're wrong. If you still disagree, I defy you to actually pick apart what I wrote and show how it means "all." Simply quoting it does no good, because the quote itself shows you're wrong.
It's no good backpedaling...
I didn't.
You exaggerated...
I didn't.
Doing that just makes you seem dishonest.
And you are only proving you can't read English very well.
The average yearly income in Sweden is 309600 SEK ($43 272), so most people actually end up paying around 30% in taxes, not 60%.
Shrug. I never implied otherwise. I'm sure your numbers are quite accurate, but they have nothing to do with me or what I wrote.
Dishonest.
Nonsense. Just because you either can't read, or make unwarranted assumptions, does not mean I am dishonest.
You wrote "A 60 percent taxation rate is uncivilized", implying that that's what people in Sweden pay in taxes...
No. You are reading something that is neither in the words, nor in my intent for those words. I implied that's what SOME people in Sweden pay in taxes, which is true. There was no implication of any sort that everyone does so, or that the average Swede does.
That is irrelevant. We demanded "unconditional" surrender and they told us they refused to consider it. Anything less than unconditional surrender meant Japan would remain a threat. You're right about "saving face"... we could NOT allow them to do so. We did understand Japanese culture, which is why we had to bring them to their knees, because only through such humiliation could the war actually be won. Even a victory only in appearance, such as us agreeing to allow the Emperor to stay on as a condition of surrender, would mean trouble down the road.
Surrender had to be total. And I think history has proven we were right. Japan's culture has turned into a pacifist one, and they are no longer a threat, but a close friend; I doubt this would have happened if we didn't bring Japan to its knees. If we had started the war that would be one thing, but we didn't.
Except we (the human race) lost all the civilians who were obliterated at Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
Yep. Japan should have agreed to the unconditional surrender.
It just seems to me that their motivations were maniacal and the price too high, given the outcome.
It's easy to say that 60 years later, but at the time, they were faced with an enemy that by their own accounts and by history we believed WOULD NOT surrender unless they were forced into it by more than just conventional military losses. Our government had every reason to believe that Japan would not surrender, and would keep fighting, and that hundreds of thousands more would die.
I'm overthrown with your arguments on how an island blocked, almost starving, without navy, army or raw materials could sustain even the most passive "wait and see" strategy.
Then you don't know the Japanese people very well.
And the reason that they had to drop those nukes on the middle of civilian population centres and not, say, military installations would be what, exactly?
That would not likely have had the desired effect of forcing them to surrender.
No, but I admit to being not entirely clear. When I say "surrender," I mean "unconditional surrender." I don't think any other kind seriously exists, and neither did the Allies. As you can see there, the Emperor wanted "surrender terms that would protect his position." If you get to remain Emperor, that's not really surrender, is it?
You can, of course, criticize that position. But it's clear that actual "unconditional" surrender was the American position, and that Japan rejected it.
I already mentioned trade agreements, which EVERY country violates (Canada has violated NAFTA on timber and other issues, for example). These things are complex agreements that it's really impossible for a large country to NOT violate.
What is important is not whether a trade agreement is violated, but whether the country submits to a dispute settlement against it. And the U.S. has done so. So those are poor examples.
It's like saying a football player is a cheater because he committed pass interference. The system is set up such that such violations will occur, but then you have remedies to deal with it.
Completely unlike this is the Geneva Conventions and the ABM Treaty, where if you violate them, you ARE cheating.
If you look at it that way, then a 10% tax rate is just as much theft.
No. First, obviously, it is less. Because... it is less. Not much explanation needed there. I know you mean that definitionally it falls under "theft" just as much, and that is true, depending on the object of the spending.
As I noted in other comments, what makes it theft is what you spend it on. If you take from me what is necessary to secure my rights to life, liberty, and property, that is not theft. If you take from me to give it to someone else who doesn't have it, then that is.
A 10 percent tax rate might possibly cover just those essentials. I doubt it, but it is possible. A 60 percent tax rate certainly will not.
All taxes take money from one person and give it to another.
No. You misunderstood what I wrote. I did not say "take from one person and buy goods and services with it for the community," I said "give it to another." As in, "this $100 was yours, now it's Bob's." It's not payment for goods and services, it's just... a gift, basically.
you falsely believe that if government doesn't help poor people, then no one will.
History is rife with examples, many different times, many different places, of no one helping the poor when the government didn't.
Only when there were not enough people TO help, or when the government prevented people from helping. When almost everyone is poor, then yes, you won't see much private charity. Duh.
Worse is that government "charity" (a misnomer since charity, by definition, cannot be forced) significantly reduces the amount of private charity.
When used to, for example, redistribute wealth... yes, it is. Always has been.
I know I shouldn't ask, but what the hell: How on earth can you construe tax as being theft?
How could taxing for the purposes of redistributing wealth NOT be theft? It's mine. My property that I have a right to. You take it from me by force and against my will. You hand it to someone else. What about that isn't theft?
Because it's not violent and uncivilized.
That is debatable, to say the least.
Yes, it is. As I already proved with "dead horse" references to WWI and especially WWII, being involved in violent acts does not make you violent or un-peaceful. Simply citing "police actions" is not an argument.
You haven't "proved" anything...
If you really think our efforts in WWI and WWII, in defending ourselves and our allies from what everyone agrees were essentially unprovoked hostile invasions, are evidence of being "violent and uncivilized," then I have little to say to you.
Of course being involved in violent acts makes you violent
False.
... what other definition of "violent" can there be?
Being PRONE to violence. Lying doesn't make you a liar. Doing it habitually does. A man of peace can use violence to defend the defenseless from attack.
Our electoral system is not flawed.
Well, I and many others disagree.
Wow, you convinced me! What a great argument!
Our judicial system, while flawed, is less so than any other.
Geez, you really are trolling, aren't you?
Once again, you convinced me! Great job!
Oh, and a country that still enforces the death penalty can't be said to have a civilized judicial system.
False. There's nothing uncivilized about the death penalty. It could be uncivilized in its means and methods and so on, but not in and of itself.
No, your social welfare system is flawed primarily because it's designed to exclude people, not include them.
That's not a bug, that's a feature. A damned good one.
I defy you to name one [international treaty the U.S. has violated].
Err, those are precisely the very examples of US Imperialism.
Err, they are fundamentally different, in positive ways, from the previously referenced mongols, such that there's no serious comparison.
Military power servers to expand the influence and enforce the compliance of the conquered nations to US-centred commercial and cultural dominance.
OK. But you are arguing against youself, because that never happened.
Do you think it is a coincidence that all of these conquered countries do, or are expected to (in case of Iraq), follow precisely a US-elite-friendly model of law and commerce?
Ummmm. Dude. Japan attacked us. Germany attacked our allies. Iraq attacked us and our allies and violated treaties and threatened more attacks. These countries violated international law, we beat them, and when they lost they made concessions. That is almost completely unrelated to anything the mongols did.
Is it a coincidence that they are all expected (and did so) to replace in large degree their own culture with US imports?
That never happened, in fact.
As to "peace", ignoring the fact that US has, since WWII, unilaterally started multiple wars with millions of civilian casualties
That never happened, in fact. Which wars are you referring to? Vietnam, which the U.S. had no hand in starting? Iraq, which was not started unilaterally, and began in 1991 with the act of the United Nations? (Hostilities resumed in 2003, but was, legally, a continuation of the first Gulf War... but even if you pick 2003 as the starting date, it still wasn't unilateral.)
the Roman Emperors also spoke of "peace"... 'Pax Romana' it was called. Romans had even inscribed "peace given to the world" on their medals.
And if the U.S. subscribed to this, as you claim, we would today be in control of Iraq. We are not.
Little wonder then that US, like Rome, was so fond of slavery throughout its history
That's false, in fact. Far from being throughout our history, it is a minority of our history. It lasted less than 100 years in the U.S. as an independent nation that's lasted over 230 years. If you include the colonial period, it was just over 200 years, which is a little more than half of the nearly 400 years since then.
... and even now is still one of the most bigoted nations on Earth
Nonsense. You must not get around much. There's far more bigotry in most of Asia and Africa than in the U.S.... and much of Europe too. Even in the most racist parts of our country, for example, most people would be absolutely aghast at the racist slurs directed at black players in some Champions League games.
... complete with hordes of powerful religious lunatics no different, other than the god they pray to, from those of the Taliban.
Again, you just have no clue what you're talking about.
ongoing surrender negotiations during the first half of '45
The record is pretty clear. Japan refused to surrender. They did not engage in serious negotiations to surrender, but to end the war WITHOUT surrender. Granted, Togo and Sato and others did believe surrender would have to happen, but this was not communicated to the Allies. What was communicated to the Allies, even into late July after Potsdam, was that they would not surrender, that they would continue to fight... which was the view of many of the other top-level Japanese generals and ministers.
If they'd have had a real serious overture of surrender, the bombs wouldn't have been dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. They didn't, and we had no reason to think they were actually going to surrender any time soon.
Ignoring for a moment that the US was ignoring Japanese attempts to open a dialog for an end to the war...
Because they were not meaningful attempts, as the record shows. Japan was not willing to surrender. And they were not ignored: in late July the Allies released the Postdam Declaration, giving Japan the option of surrendering. They refused. The bombs were dropped in early August.
... what does flattening cities - you know, those places civilians like to hang out in - have to do with saving lives?
Obviously, because more lives would have been lost had Japan not surrendered (mostly Japanese lives).
If Germany was ever going to defeat the UK, they would have done it before the entry of either the USSR or the USA.
That's a fine opinion, but I disagree. Without the U.S. and USSR, Germany would have been able to concentrate its efforts on the UK to even greater effect later.
Also, due to some absolutely brilliant technology, determined fighting, (but perhaps mediocre command), the Commonwealth essentially drove the Germans and Italians out of North Africa before the USA really entered that theatre.
Right... after losing North Africa -- which would've happened about the same time it did, even without America's help -- Germany would have refocused its efforts on the UK itself. IMO. After D-Day, that prospect ended.
Anyway... we don't know what would've happened. I of course never meant Sweden would actually be speaking German or Russian, and I recognize that MAYBE Germany would have lost anyway (depending on what Russia tried to do). But the point is simply that not all entries into war are bad, and I presume we can agree on that.:-)
You really live in one hell of a dream world.... My image of you is a fat man blissfully stuffing cheeseburgers in his mouth while laughing as the children across the street slip and fall, then get sprayed by a sprinkler.
Yawn. You're the one in the dream world.
Far from me being one to laugh at children across the street who need help, I am criticizing people who would NOT help, but instead would just call the police to come help.
Torturing (waterboarding, sleep deprevation, etc) is clearly banned by the Geneva conventions
In fact, you're wrong. The Geneva Conventions does not define either of those things as torture, and it is up to the member states to come up with their own definitions. Many people go to this, but the international law in question is not what you say it is.
Imposing its will on nations around the globe: Installing the Shah in Iran, assassinations in Latin America, assassination of Patrice Lumumba in Congo (US is generally thought to have been at least complicit) to name a few. The list goes on and on all over the world.
In EVERY ONE of those examples, we were working WITH significant factions within those countries. I asked for examples of imposing our will on "unwilling nations."
Because it is theft, usually. It depends on how the money is used, but a 60 percent tax rate always represents theft.
Is it wrong for your neighbor to break into your home and take your money and property to improve his own home? Of course. So why is it OK if your neighborhood gets together and VOTES to do that? It's still just as wrong, and completely uncivilized.
I am not against taxes. I am against government taking money from one person to give it to another, to force a "sharing" of wealth. When my taxes are taken in order to make sure government can run effectively to perform its duty to secure my rights to life, liberty, and property, then that's good. When it is for other purposes, it's theft.
Do you have any idea what the public services in Sweden are like? No road tolls, free health care and education up to the university level, social services etc. With less taxes, there are less services, which means you need to spend more money to get the same services. The end result is that the poor are left to rot. How is avoiding that uncivilized?
First, let's point out the fact that you're wrong: like many socialists, you falsely believe that if government doesn't help poor people, then no one will. I shouldn't have to expand on this point.
Second, nothing is more important than liberty, except life itself. Public services paid for by theft are not justified just because you like them.
Slashdot Mirror
Anything less than unconditional surrender meant Japan would remain a threat. You're right about "saving face" ... we could NOT allow them to do so.
But that's exactly what we did. We allowed the Emperor to remain as a puppet leader for that reason.
No, you're not getting it. Doing so on OUR terms means he DID NOT save face. It was only if it was on HIS terms that it would be saving face. And as your quote shows, keeping him there, for our part, was not about saving face at all, but of continuity. Make no mistake, this was a humiliation entirely for the Emperor. But he did help hold his people together by staying in power.
And how does a place like Sweden deny the right to life, liberty, and property?
That it denies the right to property is self-evident: taking your property by force to give it to someone else for the sake of distributing wealth is denying your right to property. The government is saying that someone else has a right to your property. Obviously.
Now, your property is the product of your liberty. You act freely and make things and use those things and buy other things. So when someone denies your right to property, it denies your right to liberty, since it takes away the product of your liberty.
It's like if you made a cake for yourself, and someone else ate it, and each time you did it the same thing happened: they are not just denying your right to eat your cake, but actually denying your right to make a cake for yourself at all.
And your liberty, of course, is what you do with your life. Same principle applies: affronts to your liberty are affronts to your right to life, itself. You have only a short time on this earth, and when someone takes your liberty, they take a piece of your life, too.
All that said, yes, Sweden is a free enough country that people can leave, sometimes. But that doesn't justify it.
The fundamental goal of empire building is control and dominance.
Which are NOT the fundamental goals of the American "empire," so you're just agreeing with me.
Right, that is why all of the nations mentioned are sporting economic and political structures oh-so hostile to the US interests ....
Which doesn't prove your point, at all.
Oh, and that wee thing with military installations in nearly 70 countries ...
And Japan has car manufacturing in the U.S. So?
I could go on but history lessons are probably quite lost on people who are so wilfully blind as you.
Yawn.
Which is often the case with competing empires. They attack each other.
Funny ... ours never did. Ever.
You should also remember that in case of Japan, they were pretty much forced to act after US managed to cut off their fuel supply.
Nonsense. "Don't shoot your parents and ask for mercy because you're an orphan." Japan invaded Indochina, and we cut off their oil in response. Japan didn't have to attack us: they could have left China instead. This was all about Japan trying to take Asia by force, and the U.S. trying to come to the aid of the victim.
WTF?! Iraq attacked the US?! ... At no time did Iraq attack the US
Yes. How soon they forget. They attacked our forces -- our no-fly zone patrols, in particular -- in the Middle East regularly for years in between the ceasefire in 1991, and the invasion in 2003.
In fact the US and Britan by themselves (without any UN backing) established self-serving "no fly zones" after 1991 Gulf War
No UN backing was needed.
completely violating Iraq's sovereignty
As a means to protect the sovereignty of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, yes. So? Iraq brought that on itself.
following which they claimed that Iraqis firing at the US planes were somehow "attacking" the US
Which is self-evidently and unassailably true.
UN resolutions
Iraq's repeated and intentional and nearly incessant violations of Resolutions 687 and following.
If that is the reason for US invasion then Israel should have been chock-full of US troops bringing "democracy" and "freedom" there twice over, since by 2003 it has violated two times as many UN resolutions as Iraq had (Iraq = 69, Israel = 138).
You apparently don't realize that makes no sense. Can you find me a single UN resolution against Israel that not only says "if you don't comply with all these terms, we will force compliance?" Let alone such a resolution that Israel itself agreed to?
No, you cannot.
Not to mention that the final UN resolution 1441 before 2003 invasion did not endorse military action
There was no need for it to. The United States was an independent party to the 1991 war, and as Iraq violated the ceasefire agreement, the United States had the authority to reengage to force compliance if the United Nations refused to take its stated responsibility to do so itself. Indeed, the UN violated Resolution 687 by not forcing compliance as it said it would: that was not merely a threat to Iraq, but a promise to the U.S. and other member States, and it failed to live up to that promise. The U.S. had every legal right to reengage. (Whether it should have done so is a separate question.)
In the light of the above stellar commitment to "international law" (i.e. ignore it when US is involved and sternly apply it to everyone else) this line must surely be an attempt at comedy.
Non sequitur.
Right, that is why you can point to
That's an unfounded accusation. And very impolite.
Which makes it a perfect response to the claim that the second bomb was "mass murder."
You don't give an argument to support your 'wrong' statement.
Neither do you give any argument.
Instead you refer to the other replies. Yes, I read them. And some of them make excellent points (one way or another), thank you. Your reply does not.
Because I didn't need to re-make the same points.
What exactly did *your* posting contribute to the discussion?
What does this one of yours?
If you're seriously saying that wasn't meant to imply that Sweden has a 60% taxation rate, I think you need to work a bit on your writing.
Again: you are the one with a reading problem. Nothing in there remotely implies the meaning you inferred. Perhaps you should consider not dictating how to interpret the English language to a native speaker? Or if you are a native speaker of English, perhaps you need to brush up on it.
Where do you imply that it's just some people that pay that level of taxes? Nowhere.
You have it backward. Where do I imply it is EVERYONE? Nowhere. Since I do not imply a quantity of any kind, that quantity is, by default, "some." That is how English works.
If I say, "I ate the chicken for dinner," does that mean I ate all the chicken? If I say, "Americans drink milk from cows pumped with growth hormones," does that mean all Americans do? If I say, "Sweden has a tax rate of 60%," does that mean that tax rate applies to all Swedes? No, no, and no. English is rife with examples of "all" not being assumed the default.
If I had said, "Sweden's tax rate is 60 percent," that implies a single tax rate which applies to everyone who pays tax. I did not use that, or a similar construction. I did not in any way imply a single tax rate. I stated only that *A* tax rate in Sweden is 60 percent.
You're wrong. If you still disagree, I defy you to actually pick apart what I wrote and show how it means "all." Simply quoting it does no good, because the quote itself shows you're wrong.
It's no good backpedaling ...
I didn't.
You exaggerated ...
I didn't.
Doing that just makes you seem dishonest.
And you are only proving you can't read English very well.
The average yearly income in Sweden is 309600 SEK ($43 272), so most people actually end up paying around 30% in taxes, not 60%.
Shrug. I never implied otherwise. I'm sure your numbers are quite accurate, but they have nothing to do with me or what I wrote.
Dishonest.
Nonsense. Just because you either can't read, or make unwarranted assumptions, does not mean I am dishonest.
You wrote "A 60 percent taxation rate is uncivilized", implying that that's what people in Sweden pay in taxes ...
No. You are reading something that is neither in the words, nor in my intent for those words. I implied that's what SOME people in Sweden pay in taxes, which is true. There was no implication of any sort that everyone does so, or that the average Swede does.
Do you honestly believe that warfare in future will be nations fighting each other?
Erm. That is what YOU implied, not me.
It's interesting that you bring up 9/11, because that event epitomises the future of war as I see it.
So it's odd you said you would only work for the Pentagon if we were under threat of "military invasion."
Most surrenders are negotiated.
That is irrelevant. We demanded "unconditional" surrender and they told us they refused to consider it. Anything less than unconditional surrender meant Japan would remain a threat. You're right about "saving face" ... we could NOT allow them to do so. We did understand Japanese culture, which is why we had to bring them to their knees, because only through such humiliation could the war actually be won. Even a victory only in appearance, such as us agreeing to allow the Emperor to stay on as a condition of surrender, would mean trouble down the road.
Surrender had to be total. And I think history has proven we were right. Japan's culture has turned into a pacifist one, and they are no longer a threat, but a close friend; I doubt this would have happened if we didn't bring Japan to its knees. If we had started the war that would be one thing, but we didn't.
Except we (the human race) lost all the civilians who were obliterated at Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
Yep. Japan should have agreed to the unconditional surrender.
It just seems to me that their motivations were maniacal and the price too high, given the outcome.
It's easy to say that 60 years later, but at the time, they were faced with an enemy that by their own accounts and by history we believed WOULD NOT surrender unless they were forced into it by more than just conventional military losses. Our government had every reason to believe that Japan would not surrender, and would keep fighting, and that hundreds of thousands more would die.
Japan's surrender was not even the most significant part of the motivation to use the bombs.
Yes, in fact, it was.
Sweden's government is fairly popular with the people it serves ...
That doesn't make it right. There are principles higher than democracy; namely, the rights to life and liberty and property.
I'm overthrown with your arguments on how an island blocked, almost starving, without navy, army or raw materials could sustain even the most passive "wait and see" strategy.
Then you don't know the Japanese people very well.
If I felt my country was actually under threat of military invasion ...
So 9/11 is OK with you? (I know you don't mean that, but that appears to be what you are saying, and I don't understand it.)
I'd be the first person to sign up. It's far more likely that my work would be used to invade another country for economic or political reasons.
No, it's really not.
Killing people who are hiding in a bunker half a world away in a bunker isn't defense.
When that bunker is being used to house a nuclear warhead on top of missile pointing at ROK or Japan or Hawaii ... yes, it is.
The US is the democracy country to ever invade a peaceful democracy. Dominican Republic.
Um, no, that happened during a Civil War.
And the reason that they had to drop those nukes on the middle of civilian population centres and not, say, military installations would be what, exactly?
That would not likely have had the desired effect of forcing them to surrender.
Is this incorrect?
No, but I admit to being not entirely clear. When I say "surrender," I mean "unconditional surrender." I don't think any other kind seriously exists, and neither did the Allies. As you can see there, the Emperor wanted "surrender terms that would protect his position." If you get to remain Emperor, that's not really surrender, is it?
You can, of course, criticize that position. But it's clear that actual "unconditional" surrender was the American position, and that Japan rejected it.
The North American Free Trade Agreement.
The Free Trade Agreement.
The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.
The Marrakesh Agreement. (WTO)
I already mentioned trade agreements, which EVERY country violates (Canada has violated NAFTA on timber and other issues, for example). These things are complex agreements that it's really impossible for a large country to NOT violate.
What is important is not whether a trade agreement is violated, but whether the country submits to a dispute settlement against it. And the U.S. has done so. So those are poor examples.
It's like saying a football player is a cheater because he committed pass interference. The system is set up such that such violations will occur, but then you have remedies to deal with it.
Completely unlike this is the Geneva Conventions and the ABM Treaty, where if you violate them, you ARE cheating.
If you look at it that way, then a 10% tax rate is just as much theft.
No. First, obviously, it is less. Because ... it is less. Not much explanation needed there. I know you mean that definitionally it falls under "theft" just as much, and that is true, depending on the object of the spending.
As I noted in other comments, what makes it theft is what you spend it on. If you take from me what is necessary to secure my rights to life, liberty, and property, that is not theft. If you take from me to give it to someone else who doesn't have it, then that is.
A 10 percent tax rate might possibly cover just those essentials. I doubt it, but it is possible. A 60 percent tax rate certainly will not.
All taxes take money from one person and give it to another.
No. You misunderstood what I wrote. I did not say "take from one person and buy goods and services with it for the community," I said "give it to another." As in, "this $100 was yours, now it's Bob's." It's not payment for goods and services, it's just ... a gift, basically.
you falsely believe that if government doesn't help poor people, then no one will.
History is rife with examples, many different times, many different places, of no one helping the poor when the government didn't.
Only when there were not enough people TO help, or when the government prevented people from helping. When almost everyone is poor, then yes, you won't see much private charity. Duh.
Worse is that government "charity" (a misnomer since charity, by definition, cannot be forced) significantly reduces the amount of private charity.
The average yearly income in Sweden is 309600 SEK ($43 272), so most people actually end up paying around 30% in taxes, not 60%.
Shrug. I never implied otherwise. I'm sure your numbers are quite accurate, but they have nothing to do with me or what I wrote.
Tax is theft now?
When used to, for example, redistribute wealth ... yes, it is. Always has been.
I know I shouldn't ask, but what the hell: How on earth can you construe tax as being theft?
How could taxing for the purposes of redistributing wealth NOT be theft? It's mine. My property that I have a right to. You take it from me by force and against my will. You hand it to someone else. What about that isn't theft?
Because it's not violent and uncivilized.
That is debatable, to say the least.
Yes, it is. As I already proved with "dead horse" references to WWI and especially WWII, being involved in violent acts does not make you violent or un-peaceful. Simply citing "police actions" is not an argument.
You haven't "proved" anything ...
If you really think our efforts in WWI and WWII, in defending ourselves and our allies from what everyone agrees were essentially unprovoked hostile invasions, are evidence of being "violent and uncivilized," then I have little to say to you.
Of course being involved in violent acts makes you violent
False.
... what other definition of "violent" can there be?
Being PRONE to violence. Lying doesn't make you a liar. Doing it habitually does. A man of peace can use violence to defend the defenseless from attack.
Our electoral system is not flawed.
Well, I and many others disagree.
Wow, you convinced me! What a great argument!
Our judicial system, while flawed, is less so than any other.
Geez, you really are trolling, aren't you?
Once again, you convinced me! Great job!
Oh, and a country that still enforces the death penalty can't be said to have a civilized judicial system.
False. There's nothing uncivilized about the death penalty. It could be uncivilized in its means and methods and so on, but not in and of itself.
No, your social welfare system is flawed primarily because it's designed to exclude people, not include them.
That's not a bug, that's a feature. A damned good one.
I defy you to name one [international treaty the U.S. has violated].
The Geneva Convention
We never violated it, in fact.
Err, those are precisely the very examples of US Imperialism.
Err, they are fundamentally different, in positive ways, from the previously referenced mongols, such that there's no serious comparison.
Military power servers to expand the influence and enforce the compliance of the conquered nations to US-centred commercial and cultural dominance.
OK. But you are arguing against youself, because that never happened.
Do you think it is a coincidence that all of these conquered countries do, or are expected to (in case of Iraq), follow precisely a US-elite-friendly model of law and commerce?
Ummmm. Dude. Japan attacked us. Germany attacked our allies. Iraq attacked us and our allies and violated treaties and threatened more attacks. These countries violated international law, we beat them, and when they lost they made concessions. That is almost completely unrelated to anything the mongols did.
Is it a coincidence that they are all expected (and did so) to replace in large degree their own culture with US imports?
That never happened, in fact.
As to "peace", ignoring the fact that US has, since WWII, unilaterally started multiple wars with millions of civilian casualties
That never happened, in fact. Which wars are you referring to? Vietnam, which the U.S. had no hand in starting? Iraq, which was not started unilaterally, and began in 1991 with the act of the United Nations? (Hostilities resumed in 2003, but was, legally, a continuation of the first Gulf War ... but even if you pick 2003 as the starting date, it still wasn't unilateral.)
the Roman Emperors also spoke of "peace" ... 'Pax Romana' it was called. Romans had even inscribed "peace given to the world" on their medals.
And if the U.S. subscribed to this, as you claim, we would today be in control of Iraq. We are not.
Little wonder then that US, like Rome, was so fond of slavery throughout its history
That's false, in fact. Far from being throughout our history, it is a minority of our history. It lasted less than 100 years in the U.S. as an independent nation that's lasted over 230 years. If you include the colonial period, it was just over 200 years, which is a little more than half of the nearly 400 years since then.
... and even now is still one of the most bigoted nations on Earth
Nonsense. You must not get around much. There's far more bigotry in most of Asia and Africa than in the U.S. ... and much of Europe too. Even in the most racist parts of our country, for example, most people would be absolutely aghast at the racist slurs directed at black players in some Champions League games.
... complete with hordes of powerful religious lunatics no different, other than the god they pray to, from those of the Taliban.
Again, you just have no clue what you're talking about.
Your nickname suits you.
ongoing surrender negotiations during the first half of '45
The record is pretty clear. Japan refused to surrender. They did not engage in serious negotiations to surrender, but to end the war WITHOUT surrender. Granted, Togo and Sato and others did believe surrender would have to happen, but this was not communicated to the Allies. What was communicated to the Allies, even into late July after Potsdam, was that they would not surrender, that they would continue to fight ... which was the view of many of the other top-level Japanese generals and ministers.
If they'd have had a real serious overture of surrender, the bombs wouldn't have been dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. They didn't, and we had no reason to think they were actually going to surrender any time soon.
Wow, unequivocally, huh?
Yes.
Ignoring for a moment that the US was ignoring Japanese attempts to open a dialog for an end to the war ...
Because they were not meaningful attempts, as the record shows. Japan was not willing to surrender. And they were not ignored: in late July the Allies released the Postdam Declaration, giving Japan the option of surrendering. They refused. The bombs were dropped in early August.
... what does flattening cities - you know, those places civilians like to hang out in - have to do with saving lives?
Obviously, because more lives would have been lost had Japan not surrendered (mostly Japanese lives).
If Germany was ever going to defeat the UK, they would have done it before the entry of either the USSR or the USA.
That's a fine opinion, but I disagree. Without the U.S. and USSR, Germany would have been able to concentrate its efforts on the UK to even greater effect later.
Also, due to some absolutely brilliant technology, determined fighting, (but perhaps mediocre command), the Commonwealth essentially drove the Germans and Italians out of North Africa before the USA really entered that theatre.
Right ... after losing North Africa -- which would've happened about the same time it did, even without America's help -- Germany would have refocused its efforts on the UK itself. IMO. After D-Day, that prospect ended.
Anyway ... we don't know what would've happened. I of course never meant Sweden would actually be speaking German or Russian, and I recognize that MAYBE Germany would have lost anyway (depending on what Russia tried to do). But the point is simply that not all entries into war are bad, and I presume we can agree on that. :-)
You really live in one hell of a dream world. ... My image of you is a fat man blissfully stuffing cheeseburgers in his mouth while laughing as the children across the street slip and fall, then get sprayed by a sprinkler.
Yawn. You're the one in the dream world.
Far from me being one to laugh at children across the street who need help, I am criticizing people who would NOT help, but instead would just call the police to come help.
Torturing (waterboarding, sleep deprevation, etc) is clearly banned by the Geneva conventions
In fact, you're wrong. The Geneva Conventions does not define either of those things as torture, and it is up to the member states to come up with their own definitions. Many people go to this, but the international law in question is not what you say it is.
Imposing its will on nations around the globe: Installing the Shah in Iran, assassinations in Latin America, assassination of Patrice Lumumba in Congo (US is generally thought to have been at least complicit) to name a few. The list goes on and on all over the world.
In EVERY ONE of those examples, we were working WITH significant factions within those countries. I asked for examples of imposing our will on "unwilling nations."
A 60 percent taxation rate is uncivilized.
Ehh, why?
Because it is theft, usually. It depends on how the money is used, but a 60 percent tax rate always represents theft.
Is it wrong for your neighbor to break into your home and take your money and property to improve his own home? Of course. So why is it OK if your neighborhood gets together and VOTES to do that? It's still just as wrong, and completely uncivilized.
I am not against taxes. I am against government taking money from one person to give it to another, to force a "sharing" of wealth. When my taxes are taken in order to make sure government can run effectively to perform its duty to secure my rights to life, liberty, and property, then that's good. When it is for other purposes, it's theft.
Do you have any idea what the public services in Sweden are like? No road tolls, free health care and education up to the university level, social services etc. With less taxes, there are less services, which means you need to spend more money to get the same services. The end result is that the poor are left to rot. How is avoiding that uncivilized?
First, let's point out the fact that you're wrong: like many socialists, you falsely believe that if government doesn't help poor people, then no one will. I shouldn't have to expand on this point.
Second, nothing is more important than liberty, except life itself. Public services paid for by theft are not justified just because you like them.