Northern states, and the Federal Government, were not doing their due diligence
You mean because we wouldn't return your fleeing slaves to you?
or keeping up their end of the bargain
You mean like the cynical Southern attempts to involve the European powers?
and were actively engaged in policies to undermine the South economically
While the South was actively engaged in the policies of trying to spread the abhorrent institution known as slavery? They weren't even content to just keep it going in their own states -- they had to spread it to the frontier.
The Southern States, being soveriegn entities and agreived parties, therefore, removed themselves from the deal. This is not rebellion.
It was after they fired on a Federal fort. Up until that point even Lincoln (the 'little bitch' as you say) wasn't prepared to try and end the dispute with violence. Go read his first inaugural address. He did everything that he could do to preserve the Union without violence. When that failed his choice was to let it be torn apart or fight to save it. Do you really think he made the wrong decision?
I grew up most of my life in Virginia, but was born in New York and had family on both sides
I was born in New York and spent some of my teenage years in North Carolina. I met way too many people that buy into the "Lost Cause" and try to whitewash over what the Confederacy was really about. The whole fucking war was about slavery from the Southern perspective -- their own Constitution said as much. How anybody can defend that is beyond me. There was no romantic lost cause -- their cause was clear for anyone to see.
#2: A TV show season rarely fits on less than 5-6 DVD's (especially if you include bonus footage.) A movie DVD almost always fits on one DVD (with the exception of some special features). How is this "orders of magnitude" higher than DVD?
I don't think the cost of the extra DVDs is a big consideration.... how much does it cost to have a DVD pressed? I think that "orders of magnitude" was a bit of an exaggeration but I don't find it hard to believe that the margins on TV releases are much higher then those on a movie. Consider:
1) How much does a typical TV season cost vs the typical Hollywood blockbuster?
2) Didn't the TV season (assuming a successful show) already pay for itself with advertising? Aren't the DVD sales just gravy?
3) Older TV shows that are currently being resold are pure profit for the studios/networks involved.
What you are not saying is that this American nuclear umbrella, as you describe, implicitly puts American cities on the nuclear firing line.
In a smaller nuclear club, this was a semi-reasonable risk to make. If the Russians nuke Europe, we nuke them. That's somewhat sane because the Russians at least had brains. You aren't going to get that when nuclear weapons proliferate
Sounds like an argument for why we don't want proliferation to me. Of course that won't happen if we withdraw from the global community as you suggest.
If you pull the GIs out of that equation, what happens is that, North Korea nukes South Korea, and Americans at that point, -may- be upset about it.
So your basically willing to abandon a democratic ally and important trading partner in favor of pursing your isolationist foreign policy? Where do you draw the line? Do you also abandon Japan? The Philippines? The United Kingdom? Canada? Your entire argument is based on this idea that we should just stand by and allow other nations (democratic nations at that!) to be conquered and/or destroyed. I personally find that both reprehensible and hopelessly naive. Reprehensible for obvious reasons. Naive because you are completely dense to the fact that sooner or later we'd wind up getting involved anyway.
Telling them to pursue their own nuclear deterrent isn't any better either. Do you really want to live in a World where dozens of nations have nuclear weapons? Do you think it's more or less likely for stateless actors (aka: terrorists) to get their hands on a bomb if eight countries have them or if a few dozen do? Do you really want nations on the 'firing line' to have to decide between surrender and the wholesale use of nuclear weapons?
Labor and environmental standards are euphemisms for protectionism and we both know it.
Sorry, I completely disagree.
Come on, just look at how fast he ran from NAFTA in Ohio
If by 'ran from NAFTA' you mean 'purposed changes to NAFTA' then I'd agree. And FWIW, I also think it was stupid pandering on both sides to run away from free trade for the sake of a few votes. Obama has been at his best when he tells the truth and doesn't pander -- look at the gasoline tax issue for further proof. In any case, our politicians do represent us and you'd have to be blind to say that free trade has benefited regions like Ohio or Pennsylvania. Protectionism isn't the answer but ignoring those regions and allowing them to rot (as GWB has done) isn't acceptable either.
There's only been two free traders in the Democratic party, generally. The first was FDR, who invented this system
Funny that you should mention FDR, because he saw the dangers of America remaining isolationist quite clearly.
We are getting off topic. We started discussing isolationism. Somehow we wound up talking about free trade. I still don't think you've made a compelling argument for isolationism but I digress. It's been a fun argument!
and the judgment of the American people at that time was the same as our elected representatives
Yes, and that 'judgment' was based on the Administration telling us that it would be a cakewalk ("I doubt it'll last six months"), that it would pay for itself and that we'd be greeted as liberators. I didn't even mention the WMDs -- I'll give the Administration the benefit of the doubt on them, because our Allies thought he had them too.
At best the Administration was incompetent. At worse they outright lied to us. Either way, don't tell me it was the 'judgment' of the American people to go to war when the American people were never given all the facts or told the truth about the sacrifices in blood and treasure that would be required.
As for Al Gore, hasn't his inability to manage even his own environmental initiatives-- without making personal attacks on his critics, summarily dismissing evidence that threatens his positions
That's funny, if you replace 'Al Gore' with 'George W. Bush' and 'environmental initatives' with just about anything else (the war, social security reform, disaster recovery, the economy, education policy, etc, etc.) that statement still makes sense.
engaging in elitist hypocrisy
As opposed to the non-elitist hypocrisy of the GWB Administration?
or stubbornly sticking to unreasonable strategies
Are you sure your talking about Al Gore? Once again it sounds more like you are describing GWB.
Like I said, get the fuck over it. If the Chinese people can't handle a little bit of criticism on the World stage then they should go back to a policy of isolationism and abandon free trade and the free flow of ideas.
I've heard no end of people criticizing my country for various reasons and I'm not stirring up nationalist sentiment as a result. I'm not whining about being treated "like a dog". I'm not empathizing every single negative bit of our history with other nations while whitewashing/ignoring the positive parts of that history.
Admit it, if an American was whining about other nations criticizing us for human rights violations they'd be modded troll and ignored in short order. Why the hell is Chinese whining about criticisms of their own human rights record any more legitimate then an American doing so?
Like I said, we can debate the wisdom and legality of Gitmo all day long. Personally I want to see it closed down ASAP and those within given every bit of due process that I'm entitled to as an American citizen.
None of that changes the fact that the GP was a blatant troll designed to stir up a flamefest though.
One of the biggest strength of the Chinese government right now is that it can leverage a massive and widespread feeling in the population that the West is treating China unfairly and more like a stupid dog than an equal nation
They need to get the fuck over it. How are we treating them like a 'stupid dog'? By giving them nearly unlimited access to our markets? By allowing them to manipulate their currency to undercut our own exports while promoting their imports without taking any steps to stop them? By giving them the World stage to host the Olympics in spite of concerns (well justified as it turns out) about their suppression of human rights?
This isn't the 19th or even 20th century any longer. The opium wars ended a long time ago.
Mentioning Gitmo might be a valid rebuttal and not an offtopic troll, however:
The United States are the only country where if you disagree with the government they will give you a beautiful orange suit and send you for a life vacation in Guantanamo Bay, without right of court, a lawyer or a bail...
-1, factually incorrect. People aren't being rounded up and sent to Gitmo because they disagree with American policy. They are being sent there because they were captured as illegal combatants and/or provided support to a terrorist orginization. We can debate the wisdom and legality of that all day if you'd like -- but the fact remains that the GP made blatantly incorrect statements that appear designed to incite anger -- not a productive conversation.
I'll be marking this moderation as 'fair' on the off chance I see it in meta-mod. I would encourage everybody else to do the same.
The problem there was that Bush's opponents were lousy too. I mean really - did the Democratic Party actually think that its best possible candidates for President were Al Gore and John Kerry?
Al Gore wouldn't have launched an unprovoked invasion of a hostile Arab country while flipping off the entire World (including major allies) in the process. Al Gore wouldn't have squandered our post 9/11 goodwill with the World for the sake of invading a country that was no threat to us. Anyone with a brain who paid attention to the people giving Governor Bush advice (starting with the selection of Dick Cheney as running mate) had a good idea of what was coming. I guess it was more important to vote for the guy you'd like to have a beer with -- ironically enough (by all accounts) Bush was quite the violent drunk in his young and impulsive days.
Having to choose between either of those two and George W. Bush is liking asking which of two men you'd rather have kick you in the nuts
I'll never understand that point of view as long as I live. What the hell was so wrong with Al Gore that would make choosing between him and Bush 'picking the man who will kick you in the nuts'? And Kerry? Kerry was a douchebag who couldn't give a speech to save his life but I'd really like to know why Bush looked better standing next to him.
I've never had an issue with it but I'm probably the wrong one to ask -- I primarily use it as a server so I'm not overly worried about graphic/sound cards and other devices. As long as the console and network cards work I'm happy.
There's nothing the present global security system has that will prevent proliferation. There's no doubt that if you are a nation state, and you want the bomb, you can get it.
But if you have an alliance with the United States and the protection of the American nuclear umbrella then you don't need nuclear weapons. You brought up Iran but conveniently ignored my main point -- an American withdrawal from the Far East would end with Japan (and possibly South Korea and maybe even Taiwan) building nuclear weapons. We don't want that. China doesn't want that. Russia doesn't want that. Nobody wants that. Why you can't acknowledge this point is beyond me.
The specific case of Iran is frustrating but it's not over with yet. A new President may be able to make a breakthrough with them or with the UN. In any case I'm surprised you used Iran to make your point -- they don't have the bomb yet and even without interference from the West are at least several years away from having it. I would have used North Korea as my example of a failure of our non-proliferation framework, though I'd be more apt to point the finger at Dubya ('Axis of Evil') for encouraging them to seek the bomb.
Remember, if we are bringing up World War II analogies, it was the economic collapse caused by a wave of protectionist trade legislation that ultimately put the Nazis in Germany into power.
I always thought it had something to do with the humiliation of Versailles and the economic burden imposed on Germany by the reparations included therein. In any case I don't see how that helps your isolationist argument, seeing as how it was the policies of isolationism and appeasement that allowed Nazi Germany to grow it's military to the point that it could threaten it's neighbors.
Incidentally, your guy, Obama, calls for rethinking free trade. If backing out of military alliances is so disastrous for the world, just imagine what would happen if the USA started backing out of all of its real trade commitments.
Where did Obama advocate for backing out of trade commitments? He advocated for rethinking them to include labor and environmental standards -- but he didn't advocate withdrawing from any free trade agreement that I'm aware of. Hell, he spent a full chapter of 'Audacity' arguing in favor of free trade.
Actually, all that you need to be Christian is a belief in Jesus Christ as your lord and savior and an attempt to follow his teachings. Now, because of that, they subdivide the idea into denominations which is where the differences between pentecostal and catholic come into play. Mormonism would be another denominations just as the freak show in Texas would be a denomination.
Something tells me that following Jesus' teachings is incompatible with a lifestyle that forces underage girls into marriage and sexual relations with 40-50 year old men. That seems like the kind of thing that he would have spoken out against.
just what the hell were our interests in China prior to World War II?
Well, like now there were a lot of commercial interests there. There was also a lot of outrage over Japanese actions in China and prior Japanese acts towards the United States. The Japanese also believed (wrongly, as it turned out) that they couldn't go after the colonial empires of Europe without involving the United States. The combination of all of these things led to a deterioration of relations and the fateful Japanese decision to try and destroy the our Pacific Fleet at the outset. The rest is history.
5 years after World War II ended, we were fighting the Chinese in Korea
And 5 years after WWII we were mortal enemies with the USSR and risked a general war with them to prevent Berlin (a city full of people who were our enemies only five years prior) from starving to death. Mere decades after WW2 one of our most important trading partners and allies was the same country that sneak attacked our naval forces on the date that would live in infamy. I don't really see any point to any of this other then history is full of irony. I certainly don't see how your point proves that isolationism would be successful.
No, we just opportunistically jump into them.
We 'opportunistically' jumped into WW1? I thought it had something to do with German actions that killed American citizens and German plans that were directed against the United States.
WW2 is a tougher one to argue since FDR went out of his way to assist the UK (and later the USSR) -- clearly we weren't "neutral" in any meaningful sense of the word. What you would call "opportunistically jumping into" I would call "taking a stand in defense of freedom", so I suspect we'll never see eye to eye on this one. I'd still like to hear you defend a policy of isolationism though when a strict policy of it during WW2 would likely have resulted in an Axis victory, as it's doubtful that either the UK or USSR would have survived without lend-lease. Would you really want to live in that World?
f North Korea invades South Korea, what exactly is the real threat to the United States?
The threat is to geopolitical stability and the collapse of the nuclear non-proliferation framework that we've worked so hard to implement over the last few decades. Do you think the United States would be better off if the World had a few dozen nuclear powers instead of eight? Do you think the World would be? Because I assure you that would be the outcome of an American withdrawal from the Far East -- regardless of whether or not North Korea invaded the South.
Isolationism was a bad idea in the 30s and it's a bad idea today. Hell, it's a worse idea today -- back in the 30s they didn't have to worry about proliferation.
721 seeders to 5,211 leechers on the 32bit version at the moment. 426 seeders to 2,564 leechers on the 64 bit version. I'm seeding both of them -- would have thought the 64 bit version would be more popular but there you go.....
The alternative is to keep a low profile, disengage ourselves from various trouble spots in the world, invest in ourselves, and, if they nuke each other, its really their problem, not ours.
Except that history tells us that wars involving "them" have a nasty habit of sucking us in sooner or later. If we withdrew from the World and adopted your attitude then sooner or later some aggressor country would threaten our interests (ala Japanese actions in China before Pearl Harbor) somewhere and force us to get involved. Even if they didn't directly threaten our interests would you really want the United States sitting idly by if a Democratic nation was threatened? If Germany was threatened? The UK? Japan?
Iraq has shown that we do not have the strength of fight a long term projected war
"...of occupation", there, fixed that for you. Iraq (like Vietnam) has taught us that it's impossible for a Democracy to forcibly occupy a nation for a long period of time. Public opinion just won't support it. I don't see how you take that lesson and come up with the 'sky is falling' attitude and claim that we can't meet our treaty commitments. I want us out of Iraq ASAP but I don't want to see the end of our role in NATO, of the UKUSA community or our alliances with Japan, South Korea, the Philippines or Australia. I just don't see any benefit to ending those alliances -- lots could go wrong and you don't seem to have even considered that possibility.
right now our alliances demand we may have to fight several of them
So your solution is to withdraw from those alliances and abandon our treaty commitments to our Allies? I'm still looking for some rationalization for why that wouldn't blow up in our face like it has every other time we've withdrawn from the global community.
Your isolationist philosophy has been tried before. It failed miserably. Let me just pick one of your statements:
don't even like the idea of having US troops stationed as tripwires designed to bring America into some local war. Like, why do I care, about South Korean independence at this point
Why do you care about South Korean independence? Maybe you don't. But you do care (or should) about nuclear proliferation. If we were to withdraw from the Western Pacific then Japan would likely feel compelled to obtain her own nuclear deterrent. There's a good chance that South Korea and maybe even Taiwan would as well. Do you think that the Chinese would be all that happy to see Japan obtain nuclear weapons? The country that invaded them 60 years ago and killed millions of their people?
Our staying in South Korea was regional benefits that go far beyond protecting the Independence of South Korea. The United States would gain nothing from an Asian arms race that would destabilize an important part of the World. You could make the same case for our presence in Europe and the ongoing expansion of NATO.
I'm not the biggest fan of an interventionist foreign policy but I think it's foolhardy to argue that the United States should become an isolationist nation again.
I'm getting about 2.5MBits (213kBps) on my DSL at home. Once I got it there I'm gonna transfer it to my T-1 at work and seed it at both locations. Will be tossing 1.5MBits + 768KBits at it for the foreseeable future.
Isolation may have been the Bush administration's mantra for stopping "evil", but I rather think embrace and extend works a lot better.
Again, I never advocated that we 'isolate' China. You are either a Chinese nationalist shrill or someone who is too dense to read my posts before you reply to them.
I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree here. Personally I won't be watching the Olympics. Personally I won't buy products from those companies that choose to sponsor them. You do as you wish -- I clearly have no influence over you.
What right did the protesters have to burn the families and businesses of Han Chinese?
What right did those Han Chinese have to move into the homeland of the Tibetan people while aiming to make them a minority in their own country? Following your logic the Palestinians in the West Bank have no right to attack Jewish settlers and the Israeli occupation thereof is only to 'protect' their citizens.
WTF? Privilege? I don't even know anyone who has a landline. I haven't had one since the early 90's. Even my mom does not have a landline. Only some offices have landlines.
Mind telling me how your rant about the death of landlines is relevant to my point that the people who call you shouldn't have to pay extra because you have a wireless instead of wireline phone? That's actually what the discussion was about.
Nothing, but don't pretend they have to throttle p2p to 'survive'. Lot's of ISPs (both here in the states and elsewhere) have managed to survive without throttling p2p. Verizon doesn't throttle. They seem to be doing just fine the last time I checked.
Slashdot Mirror
Sweet! Does that mean that none of his users can forward chain e-mails?
How did marriage come up in a conversation about BitTorrent???
You mean because we wouldn't return your fleeing slaves to you?
or keeping up their end of the bargainYou mean like the cynical Southern attempts to involve the European powers?
and were actively engaged in policies to undermine the South economicallyWhile the South was actively engaged in the policies of trying to spread the abhorrent institution known as slavery? They weren't even content to just keep it going in their own states -- they had to spread it to the frontier.
The Southern States, being soveriegn entities and agreived parties, therefore, removed themselves from the deal. This is not rebellion.It was after they fired on a Federal fort. Up until that point even Lincoln (the 'little bitch' as you say) wasn't prepared to try and end the dispute with violence. Go read his first inaugural address. He did everything that he could do to preserve the Union without violence. When that failed his choice was to let it be torn apart or fight to save it. Do you really think he made the wrong decision?
I grew up most of my life in Virginia, but was born in New York and had family on both sidesI was born in New York and spent some of my teenage years in North Carolina. I met way too many people that buy into the "Lost Cause" and try to whitewash over what the Confederacy was really about. The whole fucking war was about slavery from the Southern perspective -- their own Constitution said as much. How anybody can defend that is beyond me. There was no romantic lost cause -- their cause was clear for anyone to see.
I don't think the cost of the extra DVDs is a big consideration.... how much does it cost to have a DVD pressed? I think that "orders of magnitude" was a bit of an exaggeration but I don't find it hard to believe that the margins on TV releases are much higher then those on a movie. Consider:
1) How much does a typical TV season cost vs the typical Hollywood blockbuster?
2) Didn't the TV season (assuming a successful show) already pay for itself with advertising? Aren't the DVD sales just gravy?
3) Older TV shows that are currently being resold are pure profit for the studios/networks involved.
And that's a bad thing?
Sounds like an argument for why we don't want proliferation to me. Of course that won't happen if we withdraw from the global community as you suggest.
If you pull the GIs out of that equation, what happens is that, North Korea nukes South Korea, and Americans at that point, -may- be upset about it.So your basically willing to abandon a democratic ally and important trading partner in favor of pursing your isolationist foreign policy? Where do you draw the line? Do you also abandon Japan? The Philippines? The United Kingdom? Canada? Your entire argument is based on this idea that we should just stand by and allow other nations (democratic nations at that!) to be conquered and/or destroyed. I personally find that both reprehensible and hopelessly naive. Reprehensible for obvious reasons. Naive because you are completely dense to the fact that sooner or later we'd wind up getting involved anyway.
Telling them to pursue their own nuclear deterrent isn't any better either. Do you really want to live in a World where dozens of nations have nuclear weapons? Do you think it's more or less likely for stateless actors (aka: terrorists) to get their hands on a bomb if eight countries have them or if a few dozen do? Do you really want nations on the 'firing line' to have to decide between surrender and the wholesale use of nuclear weapons?
Labor and environmental standards are euphemisms for protectionism and we both know it.Sorry, I completely disagree.
Come on, just look at how fast he ran from NAFTA in OhioIf by 'ran from NAFTA' you mean 'purposed changes to NAFTA' then I'd agree. And FWIW, I also think it was stupid pandering on both sides to run away from free trade for the sake of a few votes. Obama has been at his best when he tells the truth and doesn't pander -- look at the gasoline tax issue for further proof. In any case, our politicians do represent us and you'd have to be blind to say that free trade has benefited regions like Ohio or Pennsylvania. Protectionism isn't the answer but ignoring those regions and allowing them to rot (as GWB has done) isn't acceptable either.
There's only been two free traders in the Democratic party, generally. The first was FDR, who invented this systemFunny that you should mention FDR, because he saw the dangers of America remaining isolationist quite clearly.
We are getting off topic. We started discussing isolationism. Somehow we wound up talking about free trade. I still don't think you've made a compelling argument for isolationism but I digress. It's been a fun argument!
Yes, and that 'judgment' was based on the Administration telling us that it would be a cakewalk ("I doubt it'll last six months"), that it would pay for itself and that we'd be greeted as liberators. I didn't even mention the WMDs -- I'll give the Administration the benefit of the doubt on them, because our Allies thought he had them too.
At best the Administration was incompetent. At worse they outright lied to us. Either way, don't tell me it was the 'judgment' of the American people to go to war when the American people were never given all the facts or told the truth about the sacrifices in blood and treasure that would be required.
As for Al Gore, hasn't his inability to manage even his own environmental initiatives-- without making personal attacks on his critics, summarily dismissing evidence that threatens his positionsThat's funny, if you replace 'Al Gore' with 'George W. Bush' and 'environmental initatives' with just about anything else (the war, social security reform, disaster recovery, the economy, education policy, etc, etc.) that statement still makes sense.
engaging in elitist hypocrisyAs opposed to the non-elitist hypocrisy of the GWB Administration?
or stubbornly sticking to unreasonable strategiesAre you sure your talking about Al Gore? Once again it sounds more like you are describing GWB.
Like I said, get the fuck over it. If the Chinese people can't handle a little bit of criticism on the World stage then they should go back to a policy of isolationism and abandon free trade and the free flow of ideas.
I've heard no end of people criticizing my country for various reasons and I'm not stirring up nationalist sentiment as a result. I'm not whining about being treated "like a dog". I'm not empathizing every single negative bit of our history with other nations while whitewashing/ignoring the positive parts of that history.
Admit it, if an American was whining about other nations criticizing us for human rights violations they'd be modded troll and ignored in short order. Why the hell is Chinese whining about criticisms of their own human rights record any more legitimate then an American doing so?
Like I said, we can debate the wisdom and legality of Gitmo all day long. Personally I want to see it closed down ASAP and those within given every bit of due process that I'm entitled to as an American citizen.
None of that changes the fact that the GP was a blatant troll designed to stir up a flamefest though.
They need to get the fuck over it. How are we treating them like a 'stupid dog'? By giving them nearly unlimited access to our markets? By allowing them to manipulate their currency to undercut our own exports while promoting their imports without taking any steps to stop them? By giving them the World stage to host the Olympics in spite of concerns (well justified as it turns out) about their suppression of human rights?
This isn't the 19th or even 20th century any longer. The opium wars ended a long time ago.
Mentioning Gitmo might be a valid rebuttal and not an offtopic troll, however:
The United States are the only country where if you disagree with the government they will give you a beautiful orange suit and send you for a life vacation in Guantanamo Bay, without right of court, a lawyer or a bail...-1, factually incorrect. People aren't being rounded up and sent to Gitmo because they disagree with American policy. They are being sent there because they were captured as illegal combatants and/or provided support to a terrorist orginization. We can debate the wisdom and legality of that all day if you'd like -- but the fact remains that the GP made blatantly incorrect statements that appear designed to incite anger -- not a productive conversation.
I'll be marking this moderation as 'fair' on the off chance I see it in meta-mod. I would encourage everybody else to do the same.
Al Gore wouldn't have launched an unprovoked invasion of a hostile Arab country while flipping off the entire World (including major allies) in the process. Al Gore wouldn't have squandered our post 9/11 goodwill with the World for the sake of invading a country that was no threat to us. Anyone with a brain who paid attention to the people giving Governor Bush advice (starting with the selection of Dick Cheney as running mate) had a good idea of what was coming. I guess it was more important to vote for the guy you'd like to have a beer with -- ironically enough (by all accounts) Bush was quite the violent drunk in his young and impulsive days.
Having to choose between either of those two and George W. Bush is liking asking which of two men you'd rather have kick you in the nutsI'll never understand that point of view as long as I live. What the hell was so wrong with Al Gore that would make choosing between him and Bush 'picking the man who will kick you in the nuts'? And Kerry? Kerry was a douchebag who couldn't give a speech to save his life but I'd really like to know why Bush looked better standing next to him.
I've never had an issue with it but I'm probably the wrong one to ask -- I primarily use it as a server so I'm not overly worried about graphic/sound cards and other devices. As long as the console and network cards work I'm happy.
But if you have an alliance with the United States and the protection of the American nuclear umbrella then you don't need nuclear weapons. You brought up Iran but conveniently ignored my main point -- an American withdrawal from the Far East would end with Japan (and possibly South Korea and maybe even Taiwan) building nuclear weapons. We don't want that. China doesn't want that. Russia doesn't want that. Nobody wants that. Why you can't acknowledge this point is beyond me.
The specific case of Iran is frustrating but it's not over with yet. A new President may be able to make a breakthrough with them or with the UN. In any case I'm surprised you used Iran to make your point -- they don't have the bomb yet and even without interference from the West are at least several years away from having it. I would have used North Korea as my example of a failure of our non-proliferation framework, though I'd be more apt to point the finger at Dubya ('Axis of Evil') for encouraging them to seek the bomb.
Remember, if we are bringing up World War II analogies, it was the economic collapse caused by a wave of protectionist trade legislation that ultimately put the Nazis in Germany into power.I always thought it had something to do with the humiliation of Versailles and the economic burden imposed on Germany by the reparations included therein. In any case I don't see how that helps your isolationist argument, seeing as how it was the policies of isolationism and appeasement that allowed Nazi Germany to grow it's military to the point that it could threaten it's neighbors.
Incidentally, your guy, Obama, calls for rethinking free trade. If backing out of military alliances is so disastrous for the world, just imagine what would happen if the USA started backing out of all of its real trade commitments.Where did Obama advocate for backing out of trade commitments? He advocated for rethinking them to include labor and environmental standards -- but he didn't advocate withdrawing from any free trade agreement that I'm aware of. Hell, he spent a full chapter of 'Audacity' arguing in favor of free trade.
Something tells me that following Jesus' teachings is incompatible with a lifestyle that forces underage girls into marriage and sexual relations with 40-50 year old men. That seems like the kind of thing that he would have spoken out against.
Well, like now there were a lot of commercial interests there. There was also a lot of outrage over Japanese actions in China and prior Japanese acts towards the United States. The Japanese also believed (wrongly, as it turned out) that they couldn't go after the colonial empires of Europe without involving the United States. The combination of all of these things led to a deterioration of relations and the fateful Japanese decision to try and destroy the our Pacific Fleet at the outset. The rest is history.
5 years after World War II ended, we were fighting the Chinese in KoreaAnd 5 years after WWII we were mortal enemies with the USSR and risked a general war with them to prevent Berlin (a city full of people who were our enemies only five years prior) from starving to death. Mere decades after WW2 one of our most important trading partners and allies was the same country that sneak attacked our naval forces on the date that would live in infamy. I don't really see any point to any of this other then history is full of irony. I certainly don't see how your point proves that isolationism would be successful.
No, we just opportunistically jump into them.We 'opportunistically' jumped into WW1? I thought it had something to do with German actions that killed American citizens and German plans that were directed against the United States.
WW2 is a tougher one to argue since FDR went out of his way to assist the UK (and later the USSR) -- clearly we weren't "neutral" in any meaningful sense of the word. What you would call "opportunistically jumping into" I would call "taking a stand in defense of freedom", so I suspect we'll never see eye to eye on this one. I'd still like to hear you defend a policy of isolationism though when a strict policy of it during WW2 would likely have resulted in an Axis victory, as it's doubtful that either the UK or USSR would have survived without lend-lease. Would you really want to live in that World?
f North Korea invades South Korea, what exactly is the real threat to the United States?The threat is to geopolitical stability and the collapse of the nuclear non-proliferation framework that we've worked so hard to implement over the last few decades. Do you think the United States would be better off if the World had a few dozen nuclear powers instead of eight? Do you think the World would be? Because I assure you that would be the outcome of an American withdrawal from the Far East -- regardless of whether or not North Korea invaded the South.
Isolationism was a bad idea in the 30s and it's a bad idea today. Hell, it's a worse idea today -- back in the 30s they didn't have to worry about proliferation.
721 seeders to 5,211 leechers on the 32bit version at the moment. 426 seeders to 2,564 leechers on the 64 bit version. I'm seeding both of them -- would have thought the 64 bit version would be more popular but there you go.....
Except that history tells us that wars involving "them" have a nasty habit of sucking us in sooner or later. If we withdrew from the World and adopted your attitude then sooner or later some aggressor country would threaten our interests (ala Japanese actions in China before Pearl Harbor) somewhere and force us to get involved. Even if they didn't directly threaten our interests would you really want the United States sitting idly by if a Democratic nation was threatened? If Germany was threatened? The UK? Japan?
Iraq has shown that we do not have the strength of fight a long term projected war"...of occupation", there, fixed that for you. Iraq (like Vietnam) has taught us that it's impossible for a Democracy to forcibly occupy a nation for a long period of time. Public opinion just won't support it. I don't see how you take that lesson and come up with the 'sky is falling' attitude and claim that we can't meet our treaty commitments. I want us out of Iraq ASAP but I don't want to see the end of our role in NATO, of the UKUSA community or our alliances with Japan, South Korea, the Philippines or Australia. I just don't see any benefit to ending those alliances -- lots could go wrong and you don't seem to have even considered that possibility.
right now our alliances demand we may have to fight several of themSo your solution is to withdraw from those alliances and abandon our treaty commitments to our Allies? I'm still looking for some rationalization for why that wouldn't blow up in our face like it has every other time we've withdrawn from the global community.
Your isolationist philosophy has been tried before. It failed miserably. Let me just pick one of your statements:
don't even like the idea of having US troops stationed as tripwires designed to bring America into some local war. Like, why do I care, about South Korean independence at this pointWhy do you care about South Korean independence? Maybe you don't. But you do care (or should) about nuclear proliferation. If we were to withdraw from the Western Pacific then Japan would likely feel compelled to obtain her own nuclear deterrent. There's a good chance that South Korea and maybe even Taiwan would as well. Do you think that the Chinese would be all that happy to see Japan obtain nuclear weapons? The country that invaded them 60 years ago and killed millions of their people?
Our staying in South Korea was regional benefits that go far beyond protecting the Independence of South Korea. The United States would gain nothing from an Asian arms race that would destabilize an important part of the World. You could make the same case for our presence in Europe and the ongoing expansion of NATO.
I'm not the biggest fan of an interventionist foreign policy but I think it's foolhardy to argue that the United States should become an isolationist nation again.
I'm getting about 2.5MBits (213kBps) on my DSL at home. Once I got it there I'm gonna transfer it to my T-1 at work and seed it at both locations. Will be tossing 1.5MBits + 768KBits at it for the foreseeable future.
So this guy == this guy in your World view?
Interesting that you criticize Bush while adopting his black and white view of the world. All dissidents are bad, huh?
Again, I never advocated that we 'isolate' China. You are either a Chinese nationalist shrill or someone who is too dense to read my posts before you reply to them.
I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree here. Personally I won't be watching the Olympics. Personally I won't buy products from those companies that choose to sponsor them. You do as you wish -- I clearly have no influence over you.
What right did those Han Chinese have to move into the homeland of the Tibetan people while aiming to make them a minority in their own country? Following your logic the Palestinians in the West Bank have no right to attack Jewish settlers and the Israeli occupation thereof is only to 'protect' their citizens.
Mind telling me how your rant about the death of landlines is relevant to my point that the people who call you shouldn't have to pay extra because you have a wireless instead of wireline phone? That's actually what the discussion was about.
Nothing, but don't pretend they have to throttle p2p to 'survive'. Lot's of ISPs (both here in the states and elsewhere) have managed to survive without throttling p2p. Verizon doesn't throttle. They seem to be doing just fine the last time I checked.