Well, ghandi pointed out you could have stopped even hitler with civil disobediance but the loss of life would have been horrific, even when compared to the actual death toll of ww2. As for soemoen taking the country over, it will be who ever got there hands on the nukes we would get rid of. All that radioactive material won't just disappear
After the first world war, military planners on both sides looke ta the map and designed there strategies and positions of fleets and forces against the most likely opponent. Here we came up with England, they came up with us. So the military training, configuration, and plans centered around a war with England. They did the same. Now remeber we still had massive armies and fleets just sitting around from the war. It soon led to a mini-arms race against them were we each began to build up a military to fight each other on the off chance that we ever would. Both sides even began to see each other as enemies even though there was no real reason why they should. It quickly became apparanent that things were spiralling out of control and so we both sat down and signed a disasterous treaty were we both agreed to reduce our arms, disasterous cause it left us vulnerable to the germans ten years later. No one knows if it would have ever reached the point of war but we seemed to be definitely on that course for awhile. There are quite a few historians who admit that though they did not have forsee and prevent the war in the 30's agianst germany, they probably did forsee and prevent an anglo-american war in the 20's. There was a whole film strip about it in my High school american history class.
They already have ways to do this: there called Nuclear fucking Weapons. This is why I personally hope an actual space war doesn't happen but when it does it will be nukes detonated at extremely high altitudes. Satalites are too fast to hit accurately with a small missle and there isn't much atmosphere up there to get any type of decent explosion but a nuke has almsot the same impact up there as it does here and is good for not only the area of effect but also its em pulse.
If you remember a few years ago, no one was quite sure who the top dog was. Do you know what Gambia's position on the war on iraq is? I think I've proven my point...
The collapse of an unjust system is a bad thing when it leads to a system that is even more unjust. By your reasoning, the fall of the german government which led to the rise of the Nazi's was a good thing.
"The collapse of the Imperial Rome resulted in Europe going into the Dark Ages. That was a GOOD THING! Not because it went into the dark ages but because the people were more free."
Actually, they were less free. The rulers (aka tyrants) of the dark ages opressed the people far worse than the Romans ever did in mouch of europe (especially france, spain, italy). In the roman empire, the govereners of the provinces were held accountable to a higher authority. When the government fell, those govereners or the ppl who replaced them simply declared themselves kings and thus not answerable to any higher authority. Hence they quickly abused their powers. In the early middle ages, the average serf was as about as free as the average roman slave. The freedom of people declined when rome fell.
Colonialism? In some cases it did lead to more freedom, in many others it led to more opression. The end of colonialism in the united states, china, kenya, and india et al. was a good thing cause it lead us to be more free. The end of colonialism in other places was not a good thing becuase it led to even more opressive dictatorships.
I do understand and value freedom. I also believe that it is better to have an empty stomach and a free spirit than to be a wealth slave (our modern culture is full of them - slaves to money and power as there only goal in life). But I also believe that an event that results in the loss of a good environment and freedom is a bad thing. Overthrowing a czar is not a good thing if in doing so you are replacing them with an even more opressive ruler. I don't know enough about the indivisdual circumstances of each of the people responsible for the over throw of Rome to say there actions in overthoring rome indivisually was a bad thing, but I can say that the overthorw of Rome itslef was a bad thing cause in doing so the conquerers replaced it with something worse.
"No one invades whoever they want! Even the terrible Romans and Mongols only invaded those that they wanted (usually for wealth, resources, strategic reasons, etc)."
What about: The babylonians under nebacanezzer, the sumerians, the assyrians under just about all ther kings, the hitities under suppliama and just about all there other rulers, the eygptians under the pharoahs Ramses the great et al., the greek city states of sparta, athens, thebes, and corinth, the persians, alexander the great, the ancient chinese rulers, the aztecs, the incas, the myans, the english, spanish, and french, russia under ivan the terrible et al.. The spanish american was was started mainly becuase a press eager for war spun details and even made stories up to get the people angered at Spain. Hitler's entire career as a dictator was about driving the people towards invading a continent that he wanted to rule. Napolean's career was the same. You are truly niave if you believe that no one invades a country just becuase they want too. Ever hear of the war of Jenkin's ear? And your statement is contridictory - they don't invade cause they want to but for what they want? History is defined by rulers invading countries simply because they want to be more powerful or just want to be famous for it. Look at Caeser. His military career is based largely on his desire to top that of Alexander the Great whose military career was driven by his desire to rule the whole world.
People invaded whoeevr they wanted all the time. And throughout history you could, might not be sucessful, but if you wanted to invade a country for any reason, then you did. As for the romans invading certian regions, i can't name one where they didnt try. Augustus sent a legion to germany and they got wiped out. The military campaigns in the british isles were definite attempts to take over the entire isle and they eventually settled for just the south cause they ouldn't effectively conquer the north. There wasn't anything to conquer in africa. For all they knew the desert extended to the south pole. Not a lot of people lived in the desert, certianly not enough to conquer, and they pretty much layed claim to the entire desert which extended only along the sea shore cuase they thought that was all there was. The invaded eygpt and they didn't think there was anything worth invading farther south of that. They invaded the middle east so many times you can pretty much just say that the area was constantly at war. As I said: they invaded whoever they wanted to invade.If they didn't want to invade them, why would they. And history is full of rulers who invaded for nothing but power and fame.
"BTW, collapse of IMPERIAL Rome was a GOOD thing. Europeans were severly oppressed by the Romans.
YOU don't know that and you probably don't. But it was terrible for the Europeans. Romans brought wealth and technology but they also destroyed the original European cultures (ever wonder why modern European culture is Roman with very little traces of the indigenous people (only left in Ireland, and Nordic countries))."
When rome fell those same people were still oppressed by the local lords and it remained that way until the reniassance for most people. Also, not everyone was severly oppressed. The goths and huns kept on getting nice bribes from the romans and they lived especially in the late empire with virtual autonomy. There were many severely oppressed but there were many that actually invited the romans in. As long as you didn't casuse trouble, the romans generally left you alone. The great cultures the romans destroyed? Oh, the gauls who had a class system so rigid that even the hindus would be shocked and a religion where human sacrifice was a regular event. Also, rome assimiliated cultures more often than it destroyed them.
"When Romans raped all the women in Europe, it certainly wasn't a good thing. Of course, no one mentions it."
Give me a break. Everyone committed atrocities during the ancient wars. The enlightened athenian Pericles attacked cities just becuase they were nuetral and on one occasion hacked the inhabitants of a village up and tied there corpses to boards and let them rot as a sign to all those who refused to ally with Athens. The romans were sadistic, I'll give you that, but so was everyone else. The goths raped roman women just as readily as the romans raped the goths.
And why did the goths invade rome? They didn't want to free the people. They wanted to be the romans. They wanted the riches and power of Rome. Granted, the romans oppressed a lot of peopel, but the fall of the civilization which led not only to death of any type of progress but also to an age were cruelty and early death was even more commonplace was not a good thing. Getting rid of the russian czar was a good thing but not when he was soon replaced with stalin.
What about all that money we send to saudi arabia to prop up there governemnt, all that moeny we send to russia for there rockets, all that money we send to the third world for all those programs, all that money we spend keeping the UN nice and clean, all those peace keeping misions, all that money we throw into defending germany agaisnt god knows what...
Western world means western culture dude. And which continents? Asia had the middle east and byzantium who cared a lot. Africa had eygpt. If your talking about the americas, they weren't part of the western world unitl the 1500's when the spaniards brought the western culture to it and made it the dominant philosphy there.
Even after it had been sufficently proven otherwise, Colubus still believed to his dying day that he had found the orient. Some people are just stupid.
We prepared for a war against russia. A good thing it never happened. We prepared for a war against england in the 1920's. Good thing we didn't fight that one...
Why? Because I view the fall of rome as one of the world more important events even though large sections of the world whose cultures have had only a minimal impact on the modern world didn't care?
Actually they do. Cuba has a whole host of problems that aren't in our national interests. Castro keeps Cuba stable. They don't lob rockets at us, or go trying to invade jamacia or anything. It ewouldn't be in our national interests to make a country 92 miles from ours unstable. We'd have to invest in fixing the place up, send troops, etc and it would just be a mess. And what would we get from it? Nothing worth the money we would have to spend to get it. Just wait until Castro dies, then we can easily set up a friendly governemnt there almost free of charge.
When it comes to international relations dude, that is what works. If you aren't the top dog, no one gives a damn what you say. As to applying that philosphy outside the field of politics, I don't now about that. What works with indivisuals does not work with groups or nations and vice versa.
Actually you shoudl learn history, throughout most of the 1800's England was actually free to do what it wanted. There was no germany, austria would grow to be a world power but never interefered much with england, france was hamstrung after Napolean, and spain was bankrupt and a world power in name only. They pretty much were free to do whatever they wanted all over the globe. In a similiar manner, the holy roman empire, at leats in its early years, did what it wanted without opposition.
The backwaters of the world rarely care dude. With the exception of china, all the world powers are either european or european decendents (india is where it si now becuase of england). Secondly, its pretty obvious I am talking about the western world dude.
Even then, we still generally get what we want. Even if we don't, we do it anyway. Whose to stop us now? Let em mandate agianst us all they want. When other countries set up trade restrictions and tariffs against us, they are hurting themselves a lot more then there hurting us. And since the idea was invented by thomas jerfferson in the early 1800's, no embargo has ever worked. The UN, whent hey don't have our backing are nothing but a league of nations - they talk like tigers but have no real power behind there words. The french can talk big, but they won't do shit.
Oh, like Rome? When Rome fell, so did the world. It may be harder for us to live with it, but it will also be hard for you. None of our money being sent to your countries anymore. World depression, china (which even now doesn't give a damn what others think) rolling over your asses with tanks. Last time I checked, the chinese respect its enemies far more than it does the pansies who stay nuetral. And the truth throughout history has always been that world powers never have true allies, only ppl who want to hang on and grab as much of our table scraps as they can get. You think anyone is going to give a damn what Europe has to say when China starts rolling tanks over anyone who disagrees with it?
Where was your talk of balance of power when england was the #1 world power? This balance of power crap is a result of the cold war. Throughout history there has almost always been one major power that gets what it wants. England, Rome, Eygpt and none gave a amn about balance of power. Stop your balance of power, and no one cares what we think whining cause guess what, no one cares. Losers always whine about winners.
Slashdot Mirror
The Curse of Monkey Island" "I want to be a pirate!"
Every nation gets there asses kicked in the end, the trick is to grow old and die before esomeoen gets a chance to kick yours.
I think they said that about Napolean and Hitler as well. This is the 20th century after all, hitler wouldn't...
Well, ghandi pointed out you could have stopped even hitler with civil disobediance but the loss of life would have been horrific, even when compared to the actual death toll of ww2. As for soemoen taking the country over, it will be who ever got there hands on the nukes we would get rid of. All that radioactive material won't just disappear
After the first world war, military planners on both sides looke ta the map and designed there strategies and positions of fleets and forces against the most likely opponent. Here we came up with England, they came up with us. So the military training, configuration, and plans centered around a war with England. They did the same. Now remeber we still had massive armies and fleets just sitting around from the war. It soon led to a mini-arms race against them were we each began to build up a military to fight each other on the off chance that we ever would. Both sides even began to see each other as enemies even though there was no real reason why they should. It quickly became apparanent that things were spiralling out of control and so we both sat down and signed a disasterous treaty were we both agreed to reduce our arms, disasterous cause it left us vulnerable to the germans ten years later. No one knows if it would have ever reached the point of war but we seemed to be definitely on that course for awhile. There are quite a few historians who admit that though they did not have forsee and prevent the war in the 30's agianst germany, they probably did forsee and prevent an anglo-american war in the 20's. There was a whole film strip about it in my High school american history class.
Plus, we won't be fighting it with regular missles. We'll be using nukes at super high alitude and as such there won't be much left up there.
They already have ways to do this: there called Nuclear fucking Weapons. This is why I personally hope an actual space war doesn't happen but when it does it will be nukes detonated at extremely high altitudes. Satalites are too fast to hit accurately with a small missle and there isn't much atmosphere up there to get any type of decent explosion but a nuke has almsot the same impact up there as it does here and is good for not only the area of effect but also its em pulse.
Exactly!
If you remember a few years ago, no one was quite sure who the top dog was. Do you know what Gambia's position on the war on iraq is? I think I've proven my point...
The collapse of an unjust system is a bad thing when it leads to a system that is even more unjust. By your reasoning, the fall of the german government which led to the rise of the Nazi's was a good thing.
"The collapse of the Imperial Rome resulted in Europe going into the Dark Ages. That was a GOOD THING! Not because it went into the dark ages but because the people were more free."
Actually, they were less free. The rulers (aka tyrants) of the dark ages opressed the people far worse than the Romans ever did in mouch of europe (especially france, spain, italy). In the roman empire, the govereners of the provinces were held accountable to a higher authority. When the government fell, those govereners or the ppl who replaced them simply declared themselves kings and thus not answerable to any higher authority. Hence they quickly abused their powers. In the early middle ages, the average serf was as about as free as the average roman slave. The freedom of people declined when rome fell.
Colonialism? In some cases it did lead to more freedom, in many others it led to more opression. The end of colonialism in the united states, china, kenya, and india et al. was a good thing cause it lead us to be more free. The end of colonialism in other places was not a good thing becuase it led to even more opressive dictatorships.
I do understand and value freedom. I also believe that it is better to have an empty stomach and a free spirit than to be a wealth slave (our modern culture is full of them - slaves to money and power as there only goal in life). But I also believe that an event that results in the loss of a good environment and freedom is a bad thing. Overthrowing a czar is not a good thing if in doing so you are replacing them with an even more opressive ruler. I don't know enough about the indivisdual circumstances of each of the people responsible for the over throw of Rome to say there actions in overthoring rome indivisually was a bad thing, but I can say that the overthorw of Rome itslef was a bad thing cause in doing so the conquerers replaced it with something worse.
"No one invades whoever they want! Even the terrible Romans and Mongols only invaded those that they wanted (usually for wealth, resources, strategic reasons, etc)."
What about: The babylonians under nebacanezzer, the sumerians, the assyrians under just about all ther kings, the hitities under suppliama and just about all there other rulers, the eygptians under the pharoahs Ramses the great et al., the greek city states of sparta, athens, thebes, and corinth, the persians, alexander the great, the ancient chinese rulers, the aztecs, the incas, the myans, the english, spanish, and french, russia under ivan the terrible et al.. The spanish american was was started mainly becuase a press eager for war spun details and even made stories up to get the people angered at Spain. Hitler's entire career as a dictator was about driving the people towards invading a continent that he wanted to rule. Napolean's career was the same. You are truly niave if you believe that no one invades a country just becuase they want too. Ever hear of the war of Jenkin's ear? And your statement is contridictory - they don't invade cause they want to but for what they want? History is defined by rulers invading countries simply because they want to be more powerful or just want to be famous for it. Look at Caeser. His military career is based largely on his desire to top that of Alexander the Great whose military career was driven by his desire to rule the whole world.
People invaded whoeevr they wanted all the time. And throughout history you could, might not be sucessful, but if you wanted to invade a country for any reason, then you did. As for the romans invading certian regions, i can't name one where they didnt try. Augustus sent a legion to germany and they got wiped out. The military campaigns in the british isles were definite attempts to take over the entire isle and they eventually settled for just the south cause they ouldn't effectively conquer the north. There wasn't anything to conquer in africa. For all they knew the desert extended to the south pole. Not a lot of people lived in the desert, certianly not enough to conquer, and they pretty much layed claim to the entire desert which extended only along the sea shore cuase they thought that was all there was. The invaded eygpt and they didn't think there was anything worth invading farther south of that. They invaded the middle east so many times you can pretty much just say that the area was constantly at war. As I said: they invaded whoever they wanted to invade.If they didn't want to invade them, why would they. And history is full of rulers who invaded for nothing but power and fame.
"BTW, collapse of IMPERIAL Rome was a GOOD thing. Europeans were severly oppressed by the Romans. YOU don't know that and you probably don't. But it was terrible for the Europeans. Romans brought wealth and technology but they also destroyed the original European cultures (ever wonder why modern European culture is Roman with very little traces of the indigenous people (only left in Ireland, and Nordic countries))."
When rome fell those same people were still oppressed by the local lords and it remained that way until the reniassance for most people. Also, not everyone was severly oppressed. The goths and huns kept on getting nice bribes from the romans and they lived especially in the late empire with virtual autonomy. There were many severely oppressed but there were many that actually invited the romans in. As long as you didn't casuse trouble, the romans generally left you alone. The great cultures the romans destroyed? Oh, the gauls who had a class system so rigid that even the hindus would be shocked and a religion where human sacrifice was a regular event. Also, rome assimiliated cultures more often than it destroyed them.
"When Romans raped all the women in Europe, it certainly wasn't a good thing. Of course, no one mentions it."
Give me a break. Everyone committed atrocities during the ancient wars. The enlightened athenian Pericles attacked cities just becuase they were nuetral and on one occasion hacked the inhabitants of a village up and tied there corpses to boards and let them rot as a sign to all those who refused to ally with Athens. The romans were sadistic, I'll give you that, but so was everyone else. The goths raped roman women just as readily as the romans raped the goths.
And why did the goths invade rome? They didn't want to free the people. They wanted to be the romans. They wanted the riches and power of Rome. Granted, the romans oppressed a lot of peopel, but the fall of the civilization which led not only to death of any type of progress but also to an age were cruelty and early death was even more commonplace was not a good thing. Getting rid of the russian czar was a good thing but not when he was soon replaced with stalin.
What about all that money we send to saudi arabia to prop up there governemnt, all that moeny we send to russia for there rockets, all that money we send to the third world for all those programs, all that money we spend keeping the UN nice and clean, all those peace keeping misions, all that money we throw into defending germany agaisnt god knows what...
Western world means western culture dude. And which continents? Asia had the middle east and byzantium who cared a lot. Africa had eygpt. If your talking about the americas, they weren't part of the western world unitl the 1500's when the spaniards brought the western culture to it and made it the dominant philosphy there.
Even after it had been sufficently proven otherwise, Colubus still believed to his dying day that he had found the orient. Some people are just stupid.
We prepared for a war against russia. A good thing it never happened. We prepared for a war against england in the 1920's. Good thing we didn't fight that one...
Why? Because I view the fall of rome as one of the world more important events even though large sections of the world whose cultures have had only a minimal impact on the modern world didn't care?
Actually they do. Cuba has a whole host of problems that aren't in our national interests. Castro keeps Cuba stable. They don't lob rockets at us, or go trying to invade jamacia or anything. It ewouldn't be in our national interests to make a country 92 miles from ours unstable. We'd have to invest in fixing the place up, send troops, etc and it would just be a mess. And what would we get from it? Nothing worth the money we would have to spend to get it. Just wait until Castro dies, then we can easily set up a friendly governemnt there almost free of charge.
When it comes to international relations dude, that is what works. If you aren't the top dog, no one gives a damn what you say. As to applying that philosphy outside the field of politics, I don't now about that. What works with indivisuals does not work with groups or nations and vice versa.
Actually you shoudl learn history, throughout most of the 1800's England was actually free to do what it wanted. There was no germany, austria would grow to be a world power but never interefered much with england, france was hamstrung after Napolean, and spain was bankrupt and a world power in name only. They pretty much were free to do whatever they wanted all over the globe. In a similiar manner, the holy roman empire, at leats in its early years, did what it wanted without opposition.
The backwaters of the world rarely care dude. With the exception of china, all the world powers are either european or european decendents (india is where it si now becuase of england). Secondly, its pretty obvious I am talking about the western world dude.
"China's not going to be a serious military threat"
Didn't they say that about Nazi Germany too...
Even then, we still generally get what we want. Even if we don't, we do it anyway. Whose to stop us now? Let em mandate agianst us all they want. When other countries set up trade restrictions and tariffs against us, they are hurting themselves a lot more then there hurting us. And since the idea was invented by thomas jerfferson in the early 1800's, no embargo has ever worked. The UN, whent hey don't have our backing are nothing but a league of nations - they talk like tigers but have no real power behind there words. The french can talk big, but they won't do shit.
Oh, like Rome? When Rome fell, so did the world. It may be harder for us to live with it, but it will also be hard for you. None of our money being sent to your countries anymore. World depression, china (which even now doesn't give a damn what others think) rolling over your asses with tanks. Last time I checked, the chinese respect its enemies far more than it does the pansies who stay nuetral. And the truth throughout history has always been that world powers never have true allies, only ppl who want to hang on and grab as much of our table scraps as they can get. You think anyone is going to give a damn what Europe has to say when China starts rolling tanks over anyone who disagrees with it?
Where was your talk of balance of power when england was the #1 world power? This balance of power crap is a result of the cold war. Throughout history there has almost always been one major power that gets what it wants. England, Rome, Eygpt and none gave a amn about balance of power. Stop your balance of power, and no one cares what we think whining cause guess what, no one cares. Losers always whine about winners.