Permanent Portfolio Forum
https://www.gyroscopicinvesting.com/forum/
https://www.gyroscopicinvesting.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4409
Yes, because we're always running around with our finger on the button, threatening to wipe other countries off the map.Pointedstick wrote: If we're going to start worrying about nuclear weapons then I think we should put an end to the American nuclear program. I mean, one nuke over Europe could destroy the whole continent. One nuke over India could indirectly cause the deaths of hundreds of millions of people.
Coffee wrote:Yes, because we're always running around with our finger on the button, threatening to wipe other countries off the map.Pointedstick wrote: If we're going to start worrying about nuclear weapons then I think we should put an end to the American nuclear program. I mean, one nuke over Europe could destroy the whole continent. One nuke over India could indirectly cause the deaths of hundreds of millions of people.
"Okay."
We HAVE wiped very significant parts of some countries off the map have we not? I know we always did it with the love of Jesus in our hearts, but still.Coffee wrote: Yes, because we're always running around with our finger on the button, threatening to wipe other countries off the map.
I don't join crowds so I wouldn't know anything about that. From what I've read I may have joined another group with the abbreviated title of "America First" long ago but I wasn't there and it has long since disbanded.Coffee wrote: The Blame-America-First Crowd
+10Coffee wrote: The Blame-America-First Crowd
By Michael Barone
"They always blame America first." That was Jeane Kirkpatrick, describing the "San Francisco Democrats" in 1984. But it could be said about a lot of Americans, especially highly educated Americans, today.
In their assessment of what is going on in the world, they seem to start off with a default assumption that we are in the wrong. The "we" can take different forms: the United States government, the vast mass of middle-class Americans, white people, affluent people, churchgoing people or the advanced English-speaking countries. Such people are seen as privileged and selfish, greedy and bigoted, rash and violent. If something bad happens, the default assumption is that it's their fault. They always blame America -- or the parts of America they don't like -- first.
Where does this default assumption come from? And why is it so prevalent among our affluent educated class (which, after all, would seem to overlap considerably with the people being complained about?). It comes, I think, from our schools and, especially, from our colleges and universities. The first are staffed by liberals long accustomed to see America as full of problems needing solving; the latter have been packed full of the people cultural critic Roger Kimball calls "tenured radicals," people who see this country and its people as the source of all evil in the world.
On campuses, students are bombarded with denunciations of dead white males and urged to engage in the deconstruction of all past learning and scholarship.
Not all of this takes, of course. Most students have enough good sense to see that the campus radicals' description of the world is wildly at odds with reality. But this battering away at ideas of truth and goodness does have some effect. Very many of our university graduates emerge with the default assumption thoroughly wired into their mental software. And, it seems, they carry it with them for most of their adult lives.
The default assumption predisposes them to believe that if there is slaughter in Darfur, it is our fault; if there are IEDs in Iraq, it is our fault; if peasants in Latin America are living in squalor, it is our fault; if there are climate changes that have any bad effect on anybody, it is our fault.
What they have been denied in their higher education is an accurate view of history and America's place in it. Many adults actively seek what they have been missing: witness the robust sales of books on the Founding Fathers. Witness, also, the robust sales of British historian Andrew Roberts's splendid "History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900."
Roberts points out almost all the advances of freedom in the 20th century have been made by the English-speaking peoples -- Americans especially, but British, as well, and also (here his account will be unfamiliar to most American readers) Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders. And he recalls what held and holds them together by quoting a speech Winston Churchill gave in 1943 at Harvard: "Law, language, literature -- these are considerable factors. Common conceptions of what is right and decent, a marked regard for fair play, especially to the weak and poor, a stern sentiment of impartial justice and above all a love of personal freedom ... these are the common conceptions on both sides of the ocean among the English-speaking peoples."
Churchill recorded these things in his four-volume history of the English-speaking peoples up to 1900: the development of the common law, guarantees of freedom, representative government, independent courts.
More recently, Adam Hochschild, in his excellent "Breaking the Chains," tells the story of the extraordinary English men and women, motivated by deep religious belief, who successfully persuaded Britain to abolish the slave trade and then slavery itself. Their example was followed in time, and after a bloody struggle, by likeminded Americans. The default assumption portrays American slavery as uniquely evil (which it wasn't) and ignores the fact the first campaign to abolish slavery was worded in English.
The default assumption gets this almost precisely upside down. Yes, there are faults in our past. But Americans and the English-speaking peoples have been far more often the lifters of oppression than the oppressors.
"There is something profoundly wrong when opposition to the war in Iraq seems to inspire greater passion than opposition to Islamist extremism," Sen. Joseph Lieberman said in a speech last week. What is profoundly wrong is that too many of us are operating off the default assumption and have lost sight of who our real enemies are.
I disagree. I believe it is our business when various terrorist states and crazies acquire nukes and then threaten us with them. I remember when Reagan's "Star Wars" initiative was ridiculed by the left as ridiculous and it now becomes more obvious every day just what a great President he was and how right he was about this.Pointedstick wrote:
Do I want Iran to have nukes? No. But I think it's none of our business who else has them, and it's especially hypocritical for us to go around telling other countries that they can't have them when we have more than 20,000 and have covertly given the technology to our allies. Threatening Iran with war if they develop a nuke just seems like international gun control to me.
Preach it Bro.Pointedstick wrote: Out of curiosity, if it's our business if Iran builds a nuke, is is France's business? Mexico's business? Mongolia's business?
And how do you define "terrorist state"? Who gets to determine what countries make the list? From the perspective of quite a lot of South American, African, and south Asian countries, the CIA's activities all throughout the 20th century make us a terrorist state. If they're wrong, why?
Don't get me wrong here. I'm as libertarian-leaning as they come. I love freedom, hate North Korea, and want everyone to live free to pursue their lives without government oppression. I think statism is a morally bankrupt ideology that leads to human bondage, impoverishment, slavery, and mass murder the more of it you pile it on.Coffee wrote: You don't think dropping the bomb on Japan was a good thing? LOL.
What would you have done if you were in the White House? (I can't wait to hear this, by the way.)
As to the rest of your post: I see all countries that are dominated by cultures that are overtly hostile to freedom and personal liberty... as our enemies. Especially those that seek to spread their brand of domination to other countries. I.E., The Islamists and the Communists. (And don't give me that, "What about the Christians in America?" nonsense. If you can't see the difference between Rick Warren and Khalid Sheik Mohammed... god help you.)
Do you think it's an accident that South Korea is a prosperous, booming nation filled with creative people who contribute to the good of the world while North Korea is a basket case where people can be summarily executed? Think the difference might have anything to do with a morally superior ideology?? Hmmm?
Don't you know it's hardwired into their brains? They can't help but perceive it as pinko. This isn't a slight, but a fact.Pointedstick wrote: This is one of the things that I find most puzzling about conservatives is how they just can't seem to wrap their minds around libertarian approaches to foreign policy. It's not even that they disagree, it's that they don't even get it and wildly mischaracterize it. Being a foreign policy non-interventionist doesn't make one some kind of radical America-hating loony leftist!
I think I agree up to a point. It is like the continuum between anarchy and libertarianism. I don't much care what other people do as long as they don't impose their beliefs on me, or do things that harm me e.g. chain smoke and sit near me all day long. But if you are a country with a crazy leader and are/can put nuclear weapons in orbit (lookup EMP if you aren't familiar with it) this is a significant problem.Pointedstick wrote:
I just don't see how it's any of our business what other countries do, any more than it's their business what we do.
It just seems incredibly naive to me. If Islamism and Communism were pacifist ideologies that just wanted to be left alone (or peacefully coexist) then maybe you'd have a point. But they are expansionist by nature. They are the borg. They are a cancer. If you wait too long, pretty soon the cancer takes over everything.Pointedstick wrote:Don't get me wrong here. I'm as libertarian-leaning as they come. I love freedom, hate North Korea, and want everyone to live free to pursue their lives without government oppression. I think statism is a morally bankrupt ideology that leads to human bondage, impoverishment, slavery, and mass murder the more of it you pile it on.Coffee wrote: You don't think dropping the bomb on Japan was a good thing? LOL.
What would you have done if you were in the White House? (I can't wait to hear this, by the way.)
As to the rest of your post: I see all countries that are dominated by cultures that are overtly hostile to freedom and personal liberty... as our enemies. Especially those that seek to spread their brand of domination to other countries. I.E., The Islamists and the Communists. (And don't give me that, "What about the Christians in America?" nonsense. If you can't see the difference between Rick Warren and Khalid Sheik Mohammed... god help you.)
Do you think it's an accident that South Korea is a prosperous, booming nation filled with creative people who contribute to the good of the world while North Korea is a basket case where people can be summarily executed? Think the difference might have anything to do with a morally superior ideology?? Hmmm?
I just don't see how it's any of our business what other countries do, any more than it's their business what we do. Most of the world is an unfree hellhole. Who cares? Why is it our business to try and reform them, especially if they don't want it?
I think you're reacting as if I was some kind of pinko Berkeley leftist, which I must assuredly am not. All I'm saying is that its none of our business what other nations do, any more than it's their business what we do--regardless of who has the morally superior ideology. I think that believing that one possesses a morally superior ideology does not entitle one to force it on others.
This is one of the things that I find most puzzling about conservatives is how they just can't seem to wrap their minds around libertarian approaches to foreign policy. It's not even that they disagree, it's that they don't even get it and wildly mischaracterize it. Being a foreign policy non-interventionist doesn't make one some kind of radical America-hating loony leftist!
No worries. By the time I'm done with you, you'll be ready to enlist.Pointedstick wrote: Being a foreign policy non-interventionist doesn't make one some kind of radical America-hating loony leftist!
Not at all.Have you listened to yourself and read what you're saying about them? Demonization is a two-way street. And like I said before, talk is cheap. I don't care about swagger and bluster, because we say horrible things about them too. You just did it right now, referring to them as "these animals." With that kind of rhetoric, shouldn't they be preparing for war with us? I mean, clearly we hate them and want to destroy them!Coffee wrote: My guess is that you're not convinced we're at war with these animals. But that just tells me that you haven't paid attention to what they're saying to their own people about us.
Simonjester wrote: the most insidious form of "spreading" any of these "evil" ideology's have isn't through military might, military might makes those who impose their will by way of it, become an automatic target of resistance and retaliation, Communism, Islam or any other that try to take by force get met with force and instantly loose the far bigger "war for peoples minds". the real enemy to America is generations of children and immigrants who no longer understand or become a part of the American culture, if an expansionist ideology destroys us, it will be slowly from within...
ditto.. to pointedsticks take on the strength of our military and the sleeping giant an armed population represents.
I was 12 years old at the time of the Cuban missile crisis and I remember stockpiling food in the basement. I wasn't fully aware of what was going on but I did notice my parents were unusually glued to the television. More recent revelations have shown that we actually came a lot closer to the unthinkable than we even realized at the time. I understand that Castro was actually urging the Russians to launch and given the failed Bay of Pigs invasion and CIA-sponsored assassination attempts on his life I don't doubt that was true.stone wrote: I think the best way to protect the world from communism would have been to have been supportive and friendly to Cuba. Cuba could then serve as a constant reminder to the world of how poorly communism performs as an economic system even with friendly trading partners behind it.
Dehumanization is a necessary first step towards any kind of war. It's just propaganda.Pointedstick wrote: Have you listened to yourself and read what you're saying about them? Demonization is a two-way street. And like I said before, talk is cheap. I don't care about swagger and bluster, because we say horrible things about them too. You just did it right now, referring to them as "these animals." With that kind of rhetoric, shouldn't they be preparing for war with us? I mean, clearly we hate them and want to destroy them!
Tell me about it. Were you ever in military boot camp?MachineGhost wrote: Dehumanization is a necessary first step towards any kind of war. It's just propaganda.
Sorry about the delay. Been researching backyard chickens.Pointedstick wrote: Okay, I think I understand you a bit better now, coffee. And I think there's real meat to what you're saying. It's true that communism in particular was expansionist, and modern-day radical islamism has managed to expand pretty well in the middle east even if it's failed to get a huge amount of traction elsewhere.
It's not spread by military assault like the Nazis did to Poland. You're completely uninformed (all due respect) of how Islamism is spread. It's spread through immigration and breeding and through our prison system (here in the U.S.).Pointedstick wrote: The reason I'm not really worried is that we have the most powerful military force and the best armed and trained population. If they tried to expand here, I really and truly do think that it would fail utterly, between our tenacity, quantity and quality of weaponry, and the sheer size of the country. I don't support dismantling the military like some pinko commie.
You're fighting the last war. Get over it. They're using a different tactic on us that involves using our own political correctness against us (among other tactics). It's asymetrical warfare, but it's warfare nonetheless.Pointedstick wrote: It sounds like you're saying we need to step up to the realism plate and be the world's policemen because if we don't fight our enemies abroad, we'd be fighting them here. But the last time that actually happened and a modern mechanized state-backed military (Japan) tried it, we absolutely annihilated them, developing and unleashing the most devastating tools of destruction the world had ever seen--incendiary and nuclear bombs. And the gulf between our military power and the entire rest of the world's has grown humongously since then. Maybe I have too much faith in the American military, but who couldn't we take on?
Think about it: What do you think happens when the Islamists take over Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and destroy the oil production in an effort to bring us back to the pre-industrial era so that we're on level footing with them? Do you like driving your car? Do you like using your computer? Cheap food and clothing? I'm sure you're familiar with the Peak Oil alarmists. Well, this would be a politically induced "peak oil" scenario. I could name about 100 other scenarios where allowing Islamists to grow and spread will result in one country after the next falling to barbarism. It is a cancer. [Please note: I do differentiate between mainstream Islam and Islamism.]Pointedstick wrote: So I guess my question is this: what are you afraid of? If we stopped fighting wars in the middle east or toppling unfriendly regimes or supporting horrible brutal dictators who give us access to their country's resources and land... what would happen to us that would be so terrible that we couldn't handle it?
Have you listened to yourself and read what you're saying about them? Demonization is a two-way street. And like I said before, talk is cheap. I don't care about swagger and bluster, because we say horrible things about them too. You just did it right now, referring to them as "these animals." With that kind of rhetoric, shouldn't they be preparing for war with us? I mean, clearly we hate them and want to destroy them!Coffee wrote: My guess is that you're not convinced we're at war with these animals. But that just tells me that you haven't paid attention to what they're saying to their own people about us.