my personal observations for $15 an hour minimum

[Utilitarian]

The US "liberated" Cuba then proceeded to support a series of brutal dictators each worse than the last until THE PEOPLE decided it was through. Not the US, not the Soviet Union, the people of Cuba.

What part of this is not sinking in?

A factoid no "conservative" will admit.
It was not bombs and soldiers that bought down the Soviet Union.
It was Big Macs, Levis, and Walkmans.
Our embargoes have not worked ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD
You want to destroy the CCP? Capitalism
You want to bring down Cuba's govt? Capitalism

Not bombs, not spies, capitalism.
Give the Cuban people cars, iphones, and Taco Bell.

Castro did have public support, but he was also a pawn of the Soviets. This is no different from how his predecessor was a pawn of ours. That should "sink in" for you.

The embargo against South Africa was actually quite successful in ending apartheid. It's just one of many successful ones.

But again, I already mentioned in a previous post that our embargo with Cuba isn't very useful. I'm glad that you seem to agree with me on this now. You should also now understand why I mentioned that it had little to no effect on Cuba's economy in the long run. What has truly held them back is the corruption of their government, which, by the way, was the same thing holding back the Soviets.

You could say that capitalism did effectively expedite the fall of the USSR, but the fall itself was coming anyway. Their system was not sustainable and was extremely corrupt. Unfortunately, Russia's current system suffers from the same corruption despite being capitalistic, but it is able to survive due to the fact that capitalism is more resilient than socialism.

In China, something similar happened. When we opened trade with China in 1970, that allowed them to rapidly advance economically, but it did not change the fact that the CCP ran things. Even today, all foreign companies that operate in China have CCP councils that wield some power over the decisions of these companies.

As for Cuba, us trading with them may have some effects of weakening the current regime, but like in China and Russia, there isn't much evidence to suggest that it would reduce their corruption.

End Apartheid
Overthrow government

Perhaps you fail to understand the difference?

Is there a difference? Ending apartheid did overthrow the South African government for all intensive purposes.

We've both pushed for the end of governments that oppress the majority through minorities (like Syria) and supported said regimes (like Iraq). In fact, in Iraq's case, we did both.

Our rivals have also been guilty of this, like Russia and China.

But again, it's all interventionism to one degree or another. You can try to justify it for one reason or another, but it's all subjective. Was apartheid any worse than what China is doing to Uyghurs now? At first, we didn't do much about apartheid in South Africa, but eventually, we decided to push for the end of that regime. In China, we've failed to really do anything significant to them about their ethnic cleansing, but it's just like how we did little to nothing about Tibet or Hong Kong.

Morality doesn't really seem to enter the picture. It's more about whether or not we believe we can push around the country in question. South Africa was weak enough that we could force them to change. China is too powerful to be affected much, so that's probably a lot of why we don't seem to care. Profit is probably the other reason, given how much American corporations do business in China.

Ending apartheid WAS the intent. Whatever happened next was...

Now stay with me on this...

"THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE"

Not the will of the US, or Clinton, or Bush or...JUST THE PEOPLE.

You want me to defend the last 80 years of American imperialism and hegemony?
Sorry, you're on the wrong side of that argument.

Whatever the method the interference in the right of a people to choose who and how they will be governed should be abhorrent to every true American.
The use of economic pressure to get China to change a policy is perfectly within reason.
The use of economic pressure to get North Korea to overthrow their government is not.

I do not judge the morality of other countries. I judge the morality of ours. We are lacking.

...except for the fact that various regimes don't actually represent the will of the people. North Korea is a dictatorship that keeps their populace oppressed and ignorant. Some of those people probably support their government since they don't know better, but others just have to play along or possibly get killed.

China is another example. They don't have an actual democracy. A lot of the world's governments aren't really about the will of the people. Even ours is questionable in that regard.

So, again, you're using a rationale that isn't particularly relevant a lot of the time. And to say that we didn't intend for regime change in South Africa is very naive. We knew what would happen. It wasn't exactly hard to predict.

All I'm saying is that interventionism, whether economic or military, is never about morals. We just dress it up that way to sell it to the masses.

It's like how BLM isn't really about civil rights or police brutality.

But I agree that our morality is lacking. That's largely the fault of progressivism and corporate greed.

And just who appointed you the arbiter of who does and does not represent the will of the people? seems you're suffering from White Man's Burden.

White Man's Burden would be a matter of me advocating we overthrow said regimes. I'm not advocating that. North Korea is a mess that China will likely end up having to clean up eventually, while China itself isn't likely to move on from a dictatorship as long as big business in the West continues to line their pockets.

I'm not the arbiter of determining who represents the will of the people. I'm just employing common sense. You should try it some time.

A dictatorship is not a system that represents the will of the people. That's all I'm saying. I actually prefer for us to stay out of most conflicts.

In the case of South Africa, for example, pushing for the end of apartheid might have seemed like a noble cause, but it resulted in South Africa developing an even more corrupt system than before. They were actually better off with apartheid, in hindsight.

It's similar to what became of Rhodesia/Zimbabwe.

Why don't you talk that over with Mr. Jefferson.
After all, the declaration was speaking of and directed toward a king.
AND there is little or no difference between a king and a dictator.

Any issues with Russia's leader?
How about Trump who wants to be just like Russia's leader?

Or is it just countries with Brown people whose dictators bother you.

Yep. White Man's Burden. The ultimate racist's view.

Jefferson owned slaves, so his view on blacks wasn't the most flattering by today's standards. Then again, if we look at how a lot of Africa has fared over the last millennium, it's not inaccurate to view many of their cultures as rather primitive.

I don't care about skin color, but culture is very important. Some cultures are simply better than others, and sometimes, the less desirable cultures tend to be among those of darker complexion. That being said, Indians often assimilate well into the West. They're often rather ambitious and industrious, and so, it is not so simple as to suggest that "brown" people are the problem.

A dictatorship only bothers me when it affects the interests of this nation. The CCP is very much a threat to the world and to America more specifically, so their dictatorship concerns me. The Syrian dictatorship, however, does not affect me or the world overall.

As far as Putin is concerned, we should keep an eye on Russia, but they're easier to negotiate with than the CCP. Russia has far less power than China, and so we have the ability to leverage their help on certain things. They helped us somewhat during the War on Terror, for example.

Since this discussion touched on Zimbabwe, they also have a dictatorship, but I don't think it is in our interests to topple it. South Africa has something similar to a dictatorship as well, but again, it's not in our interests to topple it.

At this point, Trump is no longer in office and isn't likely to enter office again because of how old he will be by 2024. He's just a campaign fundraiser by now.

Do you actually read and comprehend what you type?
I tell you your attitudes reflect the racist "White Man's Burdern"
and in denial you proceed to describe how Africans and Orientals NEED White men to keep them safe.

You should reflect on the source of these ideas.

You keep using that phrase, but I don't think you know what it actually means. The "white man's burden" was a doctrine that believed that we should intervene in the affairs of various nations throughout the world to "civilize" them.

I have not advocated that idea at all. I actually tend to favor us staying out of foreign affairs. So again, I have no idea what you're basing your accusations on.

Funny thing about that "White Man's Burden." Like all racists the followers never believe they're recommitting 500 years of crimes.

If that's your argument, do you agree with me that we should stay out of most foreign conflicts?

This should be federal doctrine whenever right wingers may fantasize that we have a general warfare clause and a common offense clause.

In consideration of the monstrous sacrifice of life and property that each war demands of the people, personal enrichment due to a war must be regarded as a crime against the nation. Therefore, we demand ruthless confiscation of all war profits.

I agree, but it's not typically right wingers that want us to get more involved. Neocons are the ones on the right that are warmongers. Traditional conservatives, libertarian conservatives, and conservative populists tend to be less supportive of interventionism.

By the same token, there are neocons on the left, which make up a significant portion of the Democratic establishment. This is because "neoconservative" is somewhat of a misnomer. Neoconservatism is more focused on foreign policy than any actual conservative stances in economics or social issues. It would be more properly referred to as "globalism."

It's kind of like how there are neoliberals among the left and right as well.

 

[Utilitarian]

The US "liberated" Cuba then proceeded to support a series of brutal dictators each worse than the last until THE PEOPLE decided it was through. Not the US, not the Soviet Union, the people of Cuba.

What part of this is not sinking in?

A factoid no "conservative" will admit.
It was not bombs and soldiers that bought down the Soviet Union.
It was Big Macs, Levis, and Walkmans.
Our embargoes have not worked ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD
You want to destroy the CCP? Capitalism
You want to bring down Cuba's govt? Capitalism

Not bombs, not spies, capitalism.
Give the Cuban people cars, iphones, and Taco Bell.

Castro did have public support, but he was also a pawn of the Soviets. This is no different from how his predecessor was a pawn of ours. That should "sink in" for you.

The embargo against South Africa was actually quite successful in ending apartheid. It's just one of many successful ones.

But again, I already mentioned in a previous post that our embargo with Cuba isn't very useful. I'm glad that you seem to agree with me on this now. You should also now understand why I mentioned that it had little to no effect on Cuba's economy in the long run. What has truly held them back is the corruption of their government, which, by the way, was the same thing holding back the Soviets.

You could say that capitalism did effectively expedite the fall of the USSR, but the fall itself was coming anyway. Their system was not sustainable and was extremely corrupt. Unfortunately, Russia's current system suffers from the same corruption despite being capitalistic, but it is able to survive due to the fact that capitalism is more resilient than socialism.

In China, something similar happened. When we opened trade with China in 1970, that allowed them to rapidly advance economically, but it did not change the fact that the CCP ran things. Even today, all foreign companies that operate in China have CCP councils that wield some power over the decisions of these companies.

As for Cuba, us trading with them may have some effects of weakening the current regime, but like in China and Russia, there isn't much evidence to suggest that it would reduce their corruption.

End Apartheid
Overthrow government

Perhaps you fail to understand the difference?

Is there a difference? Ending apartheid did overthrow the South African government for all intensive purposes.

We've both pushed for the end of governments that oppress the majority through minorities (like Syria) and supported said regimes (like Iraq). In fact, in Iraq's case, we did both.

Our rivals have also been guilty of this, like Russia and China.

But again, it's all interventionism to one degree or another. You can try to justify it for one reason or another, but it's all subjective. Was apartheid any worse than what China is doing to Uyghurs now? At first, we didn't do much about apartheid in South Africa, but eventually, we decided to push for the end of that regime. In China, we've failed to really do anything significant to them about their ethnic cleansing, but it's just like how we did little to nothing about Tibet or Hong Kong.

Morality doesn't really seem to enter the picture. It's more about whether or not we believe we can push around the country in question. South Africa was weak enough that we could force them to change. China is too powerful to be affected much, so that's probably a lot of why we don't seem to care. Profit is probably the other reason, given how much American corporations do business in China.

Ending apartheid WAS the intent. Whatever happened next was...

Now stay with me on this...

"THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE"

Not the will of the US, or Clinton, or Bush or...JUST THE PEOPLE.

You want me to defend the last 80 years of American imperialism and hegemony?
Sorry, you're on the wrong side of that argument.

Whatever the method the interference in the right of a people to choose who and how they will be governed should be abhorrent to every true American.
The use of economic pressure to get China to change a policy is perfectly within reason.
The use of economic pressure to get North Korea to overthrow their government is not.

I do not judge the morality of other countries. I judge the morality of ours. We are lacking.

...except for the fact that various regimes don't actually represent the will of the people. North Korea is a dictatorship that keeps their populace oppressed and ignorant. Some of those people probably support their government since they don't know better, but others just have to play along or possibly get killed.

China is another example. They don't have an actual democracy. A lot of the world's governments aren't really about the will of the people. Even ours is questionable in that regard.

So, again, you're using a rationale that isn't particularly relevant a lot of the time. And to say that we didn't intend for regime change in South Africa is very naive. We knew what would happen. It wasn't exactly hard to predict.

All I'm saying is that interventionism, whether economic or military, is never about morals. We just dress it up that way to sell it to the masses.

It's like how BLM isn't really about civil rights or police brutality.

But I agree that our morality is lacking. That's largely the fault of progressivism and corporate greed.

And just who appointed you the arbiter of who does and does not represent the will of the people? seems you're suffering from White Man's Burden.

White Man's Burden would be a matter of me advocating we overthrow said regimes. I'm not advocating that. North Korea is a mess that China will likely end up having to clean up eventually, while China itself isn't likely to move on from a dictatorship as long as big business in the West continues to line their pockets.

I'm not the arbiter of determining who represents the will of the people. I'm just employing common sense. You should try it some time.

A dictatorship is not a system that represents the will of the people. That's all I'm saying. I actually prefer for us to stay out of most conflicts.

In the case of South Africa, for example, pushing for the end of apartheid might have seemed like a noble cause, but it resulted in South Africa developing an even more corrupt system than before. They were actually better off with apartheid, in hindsight.

It's similar to what became of Rhodesia/Zimbabwe.

Why don't you talk that over with Mr. Jefferson.
After all, the declaration was speaking of and directed toward a king.
AND there is little or no difference between a king and a dictator.

Any issues with Russia's leader?
How about Trump who wants to be just like Russia's leader?

Or is it just countries with Brown people whose dictators bother you.

Yep. White Man's Burden. The ultimate racist's view.

Jefferson owned slaves, so his view on blacks wasn't the most flattering by today's standards. Then again, if we look at how a lot of Africa has fared over the last millennium, it's not inaccurate to view many of their cultures as rather primitive.

I don't care about skin color, but culture is very important. Some cultures are simply better than others, and sometimes, the less desirable cultures tend to be among those of darker complexion. That being said, Indians often assimilate well into the West. They're often rather ambitious and industrious, and so, it is not so simple as to suggest that "brown" people are the problem.

A dictatorship only bothers me when it affects the interests of this nation. The CCP is very much a threat to the world and to America more specifically, so their dictatorship concerns me. The Syrian dictatorship, however, does not affect me or the world overall.

As far as Putin is concerned, we should keep an eye on Russia, but they're easier to negotiate with than the CCP. Russia has far less power than China, and so we have the ability to leverage their help on certain things. They helped us somewhat during the War on Terror, for example.

Since this discussion touched on Zimbabwe, they also have a dictatorship, but I don't think it is in our interests to topple it. South Africa has something similar to a dictatorship as well, but again, it's not in our interests to topple it.

At this point, Trump is no longer in office and isn't likely to enter office again because of how old he will be by 2024. He's just a campaign fundraiser by now.

Do you actually read and comprehend what you type?
I tell you your attitudes reflect the racist "White Man's Burdern"
and in denial you proceed to describe how Africans and Orientals NEED White men to keep them safe.

You should reflect on the source of these ideas.

You keep using that phrase, but I don't think you know what it actually means. The "white man's burden" was a doctrine that believed that we should intervene in the affairs of various nations throughout the world to "civilize" them.

I have not advocated that idea at all. I actually tend to favor us staying out of foreign affairs. So again, I have no idea what you're basing your accusations on.

Funny thing about that "White Man's Burden." Like all racists the followers never believe they're recommitting 500 years of crimes.

If that's your argument, do you agree with me that we should stay out of most foreign conflicts?

Better question:
Is the US involved militarily in any part of the world in any operation that actually serves US long term interests?

I know, a complicated way to ask what should be a simple question but how do we draw lines?

Is Palestine/Israel OK to intervene? On whose side?
How about North Korea? Been sanctioning them since before the last time I voted Republican. What's the long term plan?

Are we involved anywhere using economic or military threat or force in an effort to change the government of a sovereign nation where the outcome is clearly in the US' long term interests?
My answer to this is no.
Use of military threat is unacceptable except to save a population from extinction.
Use of economic threat should be exclusively to influence decisions of a foreign nation not destroy its economy.

Both sides, Democratic and Republican have been far to willing to use the threat of economic or military war to achieve short term gains and, in the end, only create more and worse enemies.

I agree with you for the most part. I think we've been involved in some wars for good reasons, like the first Gulf War. That was to protect Kuwait. So defending an ally seems like a reasonable rationale for involvement, but most of the time, we're getting involved in conflicts that either don't involve an ally or don't really serve our long term interests.

 

[Utilitarian]

The US "liberated" Cuba then proceeded to support a series of brutal dictators each worse than the last until THE PEOPLE decided it was through. Not the US, not the Soviet Union, the people of Cuba.

What part of this is not sinking in?

A factoid no "conservative" will admit.
It was not bombs and soldiers that bought down the Soviet Union.
It was Big Macs, Levis, and Walkmans.
Our embargoes have not worked ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD
You want to destroy the CCP? Capitalism
You want to bring down Cuba's govt? Capitalism

Not bombs, not spies, capitalism.
Give the Cuban people cars, iphones, and Taco Bell.

Castro did have public support, but he was also a pawn of the Soviets. This is no different from how his predecessor was a pawn of ours. That should "sink in" for you.

The embargo against South Africa was actually quite successful in ending apartheid. It's just one of many successful ones.

But again, I already mentioned in a previous post that our embargo with Cuba isn't very useful. I'm glad that you seem to agree with me on this now. You should also now understand why I mentioned that it had little to no effect on Cuba's economy in the long run. What has truly held them back is the corruption of their government, which, by the way, was the same thing holding back the Soviets.

You could say that capitalism did effectively expedite the fall of the USSR, but the fall itself was coming anyway. Their system was not sustainable and was extremely corrupt. Unfortunately, Russia's current system suffers from the same corruption despite being capitalistic, but it is able to survive due to the fact that capitalism is more resilient than socialism.

In China, something similar happened. When we opened trade with China in 1970, that allowed them to rapidly advance economically, but it did not change the fact that the CCP ran things. Even today, all foreign companies that operate in China have CCP councils that wield some power over the decisions of these companies.

As for Cuba, us trading with them may have some effects of weakening the current regime, but like in China and Russia, there isn't much evidence to suggest that it would reduce their corruption.

End Apartheid
Overthrow government

Perhaps you fail to understand the difference?

Is there a difference? Ending apartheid did overthrow the South African government for all intensive purposes.

We've both pushed for the end of governments that oppress the majority through minorities (like Syria) and supported said regimes (like Iraq). In fact, in Iraq's case, we did both.

Our rivals have also been guilty of this, like Russia and China.

But again, it's all interventionism to one degree or another. You can try to justify it for one reason or another, but it's all subjective. Was apartheid any worse than what China is doing to Uyghurs now? At first, we didn't do much about apartheid in South Africa, but eventually, we decided to push for the end of that regime. In China, we've failed to really do anything significant to them about their ethnic cleansing, but it's just like how we did little to nothing about Tibet or Hong Kong.

Morality doesn't really seem to enter the picture. It's more about whether or not we believe we can push around the country in question. South Africa was weak enough that we could force them to change. China is too powerful to be affected much, so that's probably a lot of why we don't seem to care. Profit is probably the other reason, given how much American corporations do business in China.

Ending apartheid WAS the intent. Whatever happened next was...

Now stay with me on this...

"THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE"

Not the will of the US, or Clinton, or Bush or...JUST THE PEOPLE.

You want me to defend the last 80 years of American imperialism and hegemony?
Sorry, you're on the wrong side of that argument.

Whatever the method the interference in the right of a people to choose who and how they will be governed should be abhorrent to every true American.
The use of economic pressure to get China to change a policy is perfectly within reason.
The use of economic pressure to get North Korea to overthrow their government is not.

I do not judge the morality of other countries. I judge the morality of ours. We are lacking.

...except for the fact that various regimes don't actually represent the will of the people. North Korea is a dictatorship that keeps their populace oppressed and ignorant. Some of those people probably support their government since they don't know better, but others just have to play along or possibly get killed.

China is another example. They don't have an actual democracy. A lot of the world's governments aren't really about the will of the people. Even ours is questionable in that regard.

So, again, you're using a rationale that isn't particularly relevant a lot of the time. And to say that we didn't intend for regime change in South Africa is very naive. We knew what would happen. It wasn't exactly hard to predict.

All I'm saying is that interventionism, whether economic or military, is never about morals. We just dress it up that way to sell it to the masses.

It's like how BLM isn't really about civil rights or police brutality.

But I agree that our morality is lacking. That's largely the fault of progressivism and corporate greed.

And just who appointed you the arbiter of who does and does not represent the will of the people? seems you're suffering from White Man's Burden.

White Man's Burden would be a matter of me advocating we overthrow said regimes. I'm not advocating that. North Korea is a mess that China will likely end up having to clean up eventually, while China itself isn't likely to move on from a dictatorship as long as big business in the West continues to line their pockets.

I'm not the arbiter of determining who represents the will of the people. I'm just employing common sense. You should try it some time.

A dictatorship is not a system that represents the will of the people. That's all I'm saying. I actually prefer for us to stay out of most conflicts.

In the case of South Africa, for example, pushing for the end of apartheid might have seemed like a noble cause, but it resulted in South Africa developing an even more corrupt system than before. They were actually better off with apartheid, in hindsight.

It's similar to what became of Rhodesia/Zimbabwe.

Why don't you talk that over with Mr. Jefferson.
After all, the declaration was speaking of and directed toward a king.
AND there is little or no difference between a king and a dictator.

Any issues with Russia's leader?
How about Trump who wants to be just like Russia's leader?

Or is it just countries with Brown people whose dictators bother you.

Yep. White Man's Burden. The ultimate racist's view.

Jefferson owned slaves, so his view on blacks wasn't the most flattering by today's standards. Then again, if we look at how a lot of Africa has fared over the last millennium, it's not inaccurate to view many of their cultures as rather primitive.

I don't care about skin color, but culture is very important. Some cultures are simply better than others, and sometimes, the less desirable cultures tend to be among those of darker complexion. That being said, Indians often assimilate well into the West. They're often rather ambitious and industrious, and so, it is not so simple as to suggest that "brown" people are the problem.

A dictatorship only bothers me when it affects the interests of this nation. The CCP is very much a threat to the world and to America more specifically, so their dictatorship concerns me. The Syrian dictatorship, however, does not affect me or the world overall.

As far as Putin is concerned, we should keep an eye on Russia, but they're easier to negotiate with than the CCP. Russia has far less power than China, and so we have the ability to leverage their help on certain things. They helped us somewhat during the War on Terror, for example.

Since this discussion touched on Zimbabwe, they also have a dictatorship, but I don't think it is in our interests to topple it. South Africa has something similar to a dictatorship as well, but again, it's not in our interests to topple it.

At this point, Trump is no longer in office and isn't likely to enter office again because of how old he will be by 2024. He's just a campaign fundraiser by now.

Do you actually read and comprehend what you type?
I tell you your attitudes reflect the racist "White Man's Burdern"
and in denial you proceed to describe how Africans and Orientals NEED White men to keep them safe.

You should reflect on the source of these ideas.

You keep using that phrase, but I don't think you know what it actually means. The "white man's burden" was a doctrine that believed that we should intervene in the affairs of various nations throughout the world to "civilize" them.

I have not advocated that idea at all. I actually tend to favor us staying out of foreign affairs. So again, I have no idea what you're basing your accusations on.

Funny thing about that "White Man's Burden." Like all racists the followers never believe they're recommitting 500 years of crimes.

If that's your argument, do you agree with me that we should stay out of most foreign conflicts?

This should be federal doctrine whenever right wingers may fantasize that we have a general warfare clause and a common offense clause.

In consideration of the monstrous sacrifice of life and property that each war demands of the people, personal enrichment due to a war must be regarded as a crime against the nation. Therefore, we demand ruthless confiscation of all war profits.

And we are back to the core of the problem.
as Ike warned, it is the Military Industrial Complex.

We, economically, as a nation, are so heavily invested in war that when we can't find one overseas, we invent them at home. THIS is the addiction we need to break and, to be honest, I've no idea how to do it without destroying the global economy.

Be honest, did your life really change when Poland established independence? Al long as those economies are working does it matter which ruling class is in charge?
So Putin takes back all the Baltic states and he rest of the nations behind the "Iron Curtain." Duh Duh Duh!!!!! (music, not an insult)
As long as the economies are working and the people are having their needs met, who cares who's running the place?

Wish i had an answer....

As far as the Cold War goes, containment had logical aspects. The Korean War ended up being effective. We managed to turn half of Korea into a powerful ally. Without our involvement, the whole peninsula would be starving and oppressed.

The Vietnam War was quite different. Hindsight is 20/20, but there were signs early on that supporting the South Vietnamese wouldn't work out for us in the long run.

As far as the USSR goes, we've simply maintained alliances with many former Soviet republics, and many of them have been beneficial to us and the world overall. Estonia has a vibrant economy, for example.

There are other former Soviet republics that seem to be hopelessly corrupt, like Ukraine. While Ukraine has been somewhat of an ally for us, there's a good reason we didn't do much about Russia's occupation of Crimea. There wasn't much to be gained by getting involved, and the locals are more loyal to Russia anyway.

 

[Utilitarian]

1. Show me where I defended troops in western Europe and we can discuss.
2. The Bible? REALLY? Well the Bible tells me the Jews murdered Jesus. The Bible tells me 2 of every animal got on a boat and floated around for 40 days, need I go on? Millions have died through the centuries using that pornography as justification. Clear enough.
3. Have you ever read the Declaration of Independence? Give it a try and we'll discuss the part that says "That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the USA!" BTW, the sanctions are killing people every day.
4. We should threaten war in China AND offer a solution. We cannot do what we did with the Jews after WW-2.

Just a side note here on #2. Jesus was a Jew himself, but his enemies represented corrupt Jews. While it is true that many have interpreted the story to mean Jews are innately bad, that's clearly not the intention of the story. It's more about how power corrupts.

As for #3, if you're against sanctions toward any country, that's consistent. I've just noticed that a lot of people are selective about when sanctions are good or not.

Sanctions against China would be preferable over going to war with them. Pushing them to end their genocide of Uyghurs is a noble endeavor, but going to war with China would be cataclysmic. It could go nuclear very quickly.

 

[Dadoalex]

The US "liberated" Cuba then proceeded to support a series of brutal dictators each worse than the last until THE PEOPLE decided it was through. Not the US, not the Soviet Union, the people of Cuba.

What part of this is not sinking in?

A factoid no "conservative" will admit.
It was not bombs and soldiers that bought down the Soviet Union.
It was Big Macs, Levis, and Walkmans.
Our embargoes have not worked ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD
You want to destroy the CCP? Capitalism
You want to bring down Cuba's govt? Capitalism

Not bombs, not spies, capitalism.
Give the Cuban people cars, iphones, and Taco Bell.

Castro did have public support, but he was also a pawn of the Soviets. This is no different from how his predecessor was a pawn of ours. That should "sink in" for you.

The embargo against South Africa was actually quite successful in ending apartheid. It's just one of many successful ones.

But again, I already mentioned in a previous post that our embargo with Cuba isn't very useful. I'm glad that you seem to agree with me on this now. You should also now understand why I mentioned that it had little to no effect on Cuba's economy in the long run. What has truly held them back is the corruption of their government, which, by the way, was the same thing holding back the Soviets.

You could say that capitalism did effectively expedite the fall of the USSR, but the fall itself was coming anyway. Their system was not sustainable and was extremely corrupt. Unfortunately, Russia's current system suffers from the same corruption despite being capitalistic, but it is able to survive due to the fact that capitalism is more resilient than socialism.

In China, something similar happened. When we opened trade with China in 1970, that allowed them to rapidly advance economically, but it did not change the fact that the CCP ran things. Even today, all foreign companies that operate in China have CCP councils that wield some power over the decisions of these companies.

As for Cuba, us trading with them may have some effects of weakening the current regime, but like in China and Russia, there isn't much evidence to suggest that it would reduce their corruption.

End Apartheid
Overthrow government

Perhaps you fail to understand the difference?

Is there a difference? Ending apartheid did overthrow the South African government for all intensive purposes.

We've both pushed for the end of governments that oppress the majority through minorities (like Syria) and supported said regimes (like Iraq). In fact, in Iraq's case, we did both.

Our rivals have also been guilty of this, like Russia and China.

But again, it's all interventionism to one degree or another. You can try to justify it for one reason or another, but it's all subjective. Was apartheid any worse than what China is doing to Uyghurs now? At first, we didn't do much about apartheid in South Africa, but eventually, we decided to push for the end of that regime. In China, we've failed to really do anything significant to them about their ethnic cleansing, but it's just like how we did little to nothing about Tibet or Hong Kong.

Morality doesn't really seem to enter the picture. It's more about whether or not we believe we can push around the country in question. South Africa was weak enough that we could force them to change. China is too powerful to be affected much, so that's probably a lot of why we don't seem to care. Profit is probably the other reason, given how much American corporations do business in China.

Ending apartheid WAS the intent. Whatever happened next was...

Now stay with me on this...

"THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE"

Not the will of the US, or Clinton, or Bush or...JUST THE PEOPLE.

You want me to defend the last 80 years of American imperialism and hegemony?
Sorry, you're on the wrong side of that argument.

Whatever the method the interference in the right of a people to choose who and how they will be governed should be abhorrent to every true American.
The use of economic pressure to get China to change a policy is perfectly within reason.
The use of economic pressure to get North Korea to overthrow their government is not.

I do not judge the morality of other countries. I judge the morality of ours. We are lacking.

...except for the fact that various regimes don't actually represent the will of the people. North Korea is a dictatorship that keeps their populace oppressed and ignorant. Some of those people probably support their government since they don't know better, but others just have to play along or possibly get killed.

China is another example. They don't have an actual democracy. A lot of the world's governments aren't really about the will of the people. Even ours is questionable in that regard.

So, again, you're using a rationale that isn't particularly relevant a lot of the time. And to say that we didn't intend for regime change in South Africa is very naive. We knew what would happen. It wasn't exactly hard to predict.

All I'm saying is that interventionism, whether economic or military, is never about morals. We just dress it up that way to sell it to the masses.

It's like how BLM isn't really about civil rights or police brutality.

But I agree that our morality is lacking. That's largely the fault of progressivism and corporate greed.

And just who appointed you the arbiter of who does and does not represent the will of the people? seems you're suffering from White Man's Burden.

White Man's Burden would be a matter of me advocating we overthrow said regimes. I'm not advocating that. North Korea is a mess that China will likely end up having to clean up eventually, while China itself isn't likely to move on from a dictatorship as long as big business in the West continues to line their pockets.

I'm not the arbiter of determining who represents the will of the people. I'm just employing common sense. You should try it some time.

A dictatorship is not a system that represents the will of the people. That's all I'm saying. I actually prefer for us to stay out of most conflicts.

In the case of South Africa, for example, pushing for the end of apartheid might have seemed like a noble cause, but it resulted in South Africa developing an even more corrupt system than before. They were actually better off with apartheid, in hindsight.

It's similar to what became of Rhodesia/Zimbabwe.

Why don't you talk that over with Mr. Jefferson.
After all, the declaration was speaking of and directed toward a king.
AND there is little or no difference between a king and a dictator.

Any issues with Russia's leader?
How about Trump who wants to be just like Russia's leader?

Or is it just countries with Brown people whose dictators bother you.

Yep. White Man's Burden. The ultimate racist's view.

Jefferson owned slaves, so his view on blacks wasn't the most flattering by today's standards. Then again, if we look at how a lot of Africa has fared over the last millennium, it's not inaccurate to view many of their cultures as rather primitive.

I don't care about skin color, but culture is very important. Some cultures are simply better than others, and sometimes, the less desirable cultures tend to be among those of darker complexion. That being said, Indians often assimilate well into the West. They're often rather ambitious and industrious, and so, it is not so simple as to suggest that "brown" people are the problem.

A dictatorship only bothers me when it affects the interests of this nation. The CCP is very much a threat to the world and to America more specifically, so their dictatorship concerns me. The Syrian dictatorship, however, does not affect me or the world overall.

As far as Putin is concerned, we should keep an eye on Russia, but they're easier to negotiate with than the CCP. Russia has far less power than China, and so we have the ability to leverage their help on certain things. They helped us somewhat during the War on Terror, for example.

Since this discussion touched on Zimbabwe, they also have a dictatorship, but I don't think it is in our interests to topple it. South Africa has something similar to a dictatorship as well, but again, it's not in our interests to topple it.

At this point, Trump is no longer in office and isn't likely to enter office again because of how old he will be by 2024. He's just a campaign fundraiser by now.

Do you actually read and comprehend what you type?
I tell you your attitudes reflect the racist "White Man's Burdern"
and in denial you proceed to describe how Africans and Orientals NEED White men to keep them safe.

You should reflect on the source of these ideas.

You keep using that phrase, but I don't think you know what it actually means. The "white man's burden" was a doctrine that believed that we should intervene in the affairs of various nations throughout the world to "civilize" them.

I have not advocated that idea at all. I actually tend to favor us staying out of foreign affairs. So again, I have no idea what you're basing your accusations on.

Funny thing about that "White Man's Burden." Like all racists the followers never believe they're recommitting 500 years of crimes.

If that's your argument, do you agree with me that we should stay out of most foreign conflicts?

This should be federal doctrine whenever right wingers may fantasize that we have a general warfare clause and a common offense clause.

In consideration of the monstrous sacrifice of life and property that each war demands of the people, personal enrichment due to a war must be regarded as a crime against the nation. Therefore, we demand ruthless confiscation of all war profits.

I agree, but it's not typically right wingers that want us to get more involved. Neocons are the ones on the right that are warmongers. Traditional conservatives, libertarian conservatives, and conservative populists tend to be less supportive of interventionism.

By the same token, there are neocons on the left, which make up a significant portion of the Democratic establishment. This is because "neoconservative" is somewhat of a misnomer. Neoconservatism is more focused on foreign policy than any actual conservative stances in economics or social issues. It would be more properly referred to as "globalism."

It's kind of like how there are neoliberals among the left and right as well.

You say right/left conservative/liberal as if they had meaning in this context.

The Military/Industrial complex doesn't recognize ideology
Easily 25% of our economy is dedicated to war.
And you can't have that much war capacity without the occasional war to build interest.

Behind every decision that could lead to armed conflict is a herd of DoD contractors and Generals screaming loudly about the end of the US if we don't invade/bomb/blockade somebody somewhere on a regular basis.

My biggest disappointment in Obama was his expanded use of drone warfare. Making it appear cleaner, less risky to US military, whatever doesn't justify the murder of innocents and killing 50 people on the off chance of getting one bad guy is at least 49 murders.

We are addicted to murder.

 

[Dadoalex]

The US "liberated" Cuba then proceeded to support a series of brutal dictators each worse than the last until THE PEOPLE decided it was through. Not the US, not the Soviet Union, the people of Cuba.

What part of this is not sinking in?

A factoid no "conservative" will admit.
It was not bombs and soldiers that bought down the Soviet Union.
It was Big Macs, Levis, and Walkmans.
Our embargoes have not worked ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD
You want to destroy the CCP? Capitalism
You want to bring down Cuba's govt? Capitalism

Not bombs, not spies, capitalism.
Give the Cuban people cars, iphones, and Taco Bell.

Castro did have public support, but he was also a pawn of the Soviets. This is no different from how his predecessor was a pawn of ours. That should "sink in" for you.

The embargo against South Africa was actually quite successful in ending apartheid. It's just one of many successful ones.

But again, I already mentioned in a previous post that our embargo with Cuba isn't very useful. I'm glad that you seem to agree with me on this now. You should also now understand why I mentioned that it had little to no effect on Cuba's economy in the long run. What has truly held them back is the corruption of their government, which, by the way, was the same thing holding back the Soviets.

You could say that capitalism did effectively expedite the fall of the USSR, but the fall itself was coming anyway. Their system was not sustainable and was extremely corrupt. Unfortunately, Russia's current system suffers from the same corruption despite being capitalistic, but it is able to survive due to the fact that capitalism is more resilient than socialism.

In China, something similar happened. When we opened trade with China in 1970, that allowed them to rapidly advance economically, but it did not change the fact that the CCP ran things. Even today, all foreign companies that operate in China have CCP councils that wield some power over the decisions of these companies.

As for Cuba, us trading with them may have some effects of weakening the current regime, but like in China and Russia, there isn't much evidence to suggest that it would reduce their corruption.

End Apartheid
Overthrow government

Perhaps you fail to understand the difference?

Is there a difference? Ending apartheid did overthrow the South African government for all intensive purposes.

We've both pushed for the end of governments that oppress the majority through minorities (like Syria) and supported said regimes (like Iraq). In fact, in Iraq's case, we did both.

Our rivals have also been guilty of this, like Russia and China.

But again, it's all interventionism to one degree or another. You can try to justify it for one reason or another, but it's all subjective. Was apartheid any worse than what China is doing to Uyghurs now? At first, we didn't do much about apartheid in South Africa, but eventually, we decided to push for the end of that regime. In China, we've failed to really do anything significant to them about their ethnic cleansing, but it's just like how we did little to nothing about Tibet or Hong Kong.

Morality doesn't really seem to enter the picture. It's more about whether or not we believe we can push around the country in question. South Africa was weak enough that we could force them to change. China is too powerful to be affected much, so that's probably a lot of why we don't seem to care. Profit is probably the other reason, given how much American corporations do business in China.

Ending apartheid WAS the intent. Whatever happened next was...

Now stay with me on this...

"THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE"

Not the will of the US, or Clinton, or Bush or...JUST THE PEOPLE.

You want me to defend the last 80 years of American imperialism and hegemony?
Sorry, you're on the wrong side of that argument.

Whatever the method the interference in the right of a people to choose who and how they will be governed should be abhorrent to every true American.
The use of economic pressure to get China to change a policy is perfectly within reason.
The use of economic pressure to get North Korea to overthrow their government is not.

I do not judge the morality of other countries. I judge the morality of ours. We are lacking.

...except for the fact that various regimes don't actually represent the will of the people. North Korea is a dictatorship that keeps their populace oppressed and ignorant. Some of those people probably support their government since they don't know better, but others just have to play along or possibly get killed.

China is another example. They don't have an actual democracy. A lot of the world's governments aren't really about the will of the people. Even ours is questionable in that regard.

So, again, you're using a rationale that isn't particularly relevant a lot of the time. And to say that we didn't intend for regime change in South Africa is very naive. We knew what would happen. It wasn't exactly hard to predict.

All I'm saying is that interventionism, whether economic or military, is never about morals. We just dress it up that way to sell it to the masses.

It's like how BLM isn't really about civil rights or police brutality.

But I agree that our morality is lacking. That's largely the fault of progressivism and corporate greed.

And just who appointed you the arbiter of who does and does not represent the will of the people? seems you're suffering from White Man's Burden.

White Man's Burden would be a matter of me advocating we overthrow said regimes. I'm not advocating that. North Korea is a mess that China will likely end up having to clean up eventually, while China itself isn't likely to move on from a dictatorship as long as big business in the West continues to line their pockets.

I'm not the arbiter of determining who represents the will of the people. I'm just employing common sense. You should try it some time.

A dictatorship is not a system that represents the will of the people. That's all I'm saying. I actually prefer for us to stay out of most conflicts.

In the case of South Africa, for example, pushing for the end of apartheid might have seemed like a noble cause, but it resulted in South Africa developing an even more corrupt system than before. They were actually better off with apartheid, in hindsight.

It's similar to what became of Rhodesia/Zimbabwe.

Why don't you talk that over with Mr. Jefferson.
After all, the declaration was speaking of and directed toward a king.
AND there is little or no difference between a king and a dictator.

Any issues with Russia's leader?
How about Trump who wants to be just like Russia's leader?

Or is it just countries with Brown people whose dictators bother you.

Yep. White Man's Burden. The ultimate racist's view.

Jefferson owned slaves, so his view on blacks wasn't the most flattering by today's standards. Then again, if we look at how a lot of Africa has fared over the last millennium, it's not inaccurate to view many of their cultures as rather primitive.

I don't care about skin color, but culture is very important. Some cultures are simply better than others, and sometimes, the less desirable cultures tend to be among those of darker complexion. That being said, Indians often assimilate well into the West. They're often rather ambitious and industrious, and so, it is not so simple as to suggest that "brown" people are the problem.

A dictatorship only bothers me when it affects the interests of this nation. The CCP is very much a threat to the world and to America more specifically, so their dictatorship concerns me. The Syrian dictatorship, however, does not affect me or the world overall.

As far as Putin is concerned, we should keep an eye on Russia, but they're easier to negotiate with than the CCP. Russia has far less power than China, and so we have the ability to leverage their help on certain things. They helped us somewhat during the War on Terror, for example.

Since this discussion touched on Zimbabwe, they also have a dictatorship, but I don't think it is in our interests to topple it. South Africa has something similar to a dictatorship as well, but again, it's not in our interests to topple it.

At this point, Trump is no longer in office and isn't likely to enter office again because of how old he will be by 2024. He's just a campaign fundraiser by now.

Do you actually read and comprehend what you type?
I tell you your attitudes reflect the racist "White Man's Burdern"
and in denial you proceed to describe how Africans and Orientals NEED White men to keep them safe.

You should reflect on the source of these ideas.

You keep using that phrase, but I don't think you know what it actually means. The "white man's burden" was a doctrine that believed that we should intervene in the affairs of various nations throughout the world to "civilize" them.

I have not advocated that idea at all. I actually tend to favor us staying out of foreign affairs. So again, I have no idea what you're basing your accusations on.

Funny thing about that "White Man's Burden." Like all racists the followers never believe they're recommitting 500 years of crimes.

If that's your argument, do you agree with me that we should stay out of most foreign conflicts?

Better question:
Is the US involved militarily in any part of the world in any operation that actually serves US long term interests?

I know, a complicated way to ask what should be a simple question but how do we draw lines?

Is Palestine/Israel OK to intervene? On whose side?
How about North Korea? Been sanctioning them since before the last time I voted Republican. What's the long term plan?

Are we involved anywhere using economic or military threat or force in an effort to change the government of a sovereign nation where the outcome is clearly in the US' long term interests?
My answer to this is no.
Use of military threat is unacceptable except to save a population from extinction.
Use of economic threat should be exclusively to influence decisions of a foreign nation not destroy its economy.

Both sides, Democratic and Republican have been far to willing to use the threat of economic or military war to achieve short term gains and, in the end, only create more and worse enemies.

I agree with you for the most part. I think we've been involved in some wars for good reasons, like the first Gulf War. That was to protect Kuwait. So defending an ally seems like a reasonable rationale for involvement, but most of the time, we're getting involved in conflicts that either don't involve an ally or don't really serve our long term interests.

Sorry.
The first gulf war was to contain Iraq under the fear that Hussein would continue into Saudi Arabia and the rest of the peninsula. There was concern for having the entire ME oil supply fall under the control of a single dictator. EVEN THOUGH just a few years earlier he was OUR dictator.

SERIOUSLY

Let's say Hussein had accomplished what they feared.
They didn't have much terrorism in Iraq in 1991. If it happened the actors, their families, and their home towns were killed. If he had taken the Arabian the ME would not be a hot bed of terrorists.
Oil Prices? As we've learned over the last 30 years the market controls oil prices not OPEC.

Think of the events that spawned off of our intervention there.
I'm not arguing against the action. At the moment it seemed the right thing.
I'm using my perfect hindsight to "look back" and see a different present.

 

[Dadoalex]

1. Show me where I defended troops in western Europe and we can discuss.
2. The Bible? REALLY? Well the Bible tells me the Jews murdered Jesus. The Bible tells me 2 of every animal got on a boat and floated around for 40 days, need I go on? Millions have died through the centuries using that pornography as justification. Clear enough.
3. Have you ever read the Declaration of Independence? Give it a try and we'll discuss the part that says "That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the USA!" BTW, the sanctions are killing people every day.
4. We should threaten war in China AND offer a solution. We cannot do what we did with the Jews after WW-2.

Just a side note here on #2. Jesus was a Jew himself, but his enemies represented corrupt Jews. While it is true that many have interpreted the story to mean Jews are innately bad, that's clearly not the intention of the story. It's more about how power corrupts.

As for #3, if you're against sanctions toward any country, that's consistent. I've just noticed that a lot of people are selective about when sanctions are good or not.

Sanctions against China would be preferable over going to war with them. Pushing them to end their genocide of Uyghurs is a noble endeavor, but going to war with China would be cataclysmic. It could go nuclear very quickly.

Any sanction intent on replacing the current government is wrong.

Uyghurs

How about a possible deal...
Deal: Give them their own autonomous state under Chinese dominion. sort of like Tibet and Mongolia.
China Carrot: 5 year reductions in numerous tariffs
US to fund political and economic infrastructure to support autonomy.
Uyghur Carrot: US to fund political and economic infrastructure to support autonomy.
freedom to create Uyghur society within Chinese law
China Stick: Ongoing revolt
US Will covertly arm and fund rebels.
Uyghur Stick: Independence without political and economic infrastructure exposes them to Russian hegemony
Ongoing revolt will destroy economy and kill many thousnds.

 

[Utilitarian]

Sorry.
The first gulf war was to contain Iraq under the fear that Hussein would continue into Saudi Arabia and the rest of the peninsula. There was concern for having the entire ME oil supply fall under the control of a single dictator. EVEN THOUGH just a few years earlier he was OUR dictator.

SERIOUSLY

Let's say Hussein had accomplished what they feared.
They didn't have much terrorism in Iraq in 1991. If it happened the actors, their families, and their home towns were killed. If he had taken the Arabian the ME would not be a hot bed of terrorists.
Oil Prices? As we've learned over the last 30 years the market controls oil prices not OPEC.

Think of the events that spawned off of our intervention there.
I'm not arguing against the action. At the moment it seemed the right thing.
I'm using my perfect hindsight to "look back" and see a different present.

Fair points. I suppose you now see why I hinted that dictators in certain areas aren't necessarily the worst possibility in many cases.

A dictator that suppresses terrorists is better than a weak democracy that allows terrorism to flourish.

 

[Utilitarian]

1. Show me where I defended troops in western Europe and we can discuss.
2. The Bible? REALLY? Well the Bible tells me the Jews murdered Jesus. The Bible tells me 2 of every animal got on a boat and floated around for 40 days, need I go on? Millions have died through the centuries using that pornography as justification. Clear enough.
3. Have you ever read the Declaration of Independence? Give it a try and we'll discuss the part that says "That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the USA!" BTW, the sanctions are killing people every day.
4. We should threaten war in China AND offer a solution. We cannot do what we did with the Jews after WW-2.

Just a side note here on #2. Jesus was a Jew himself, but his enemies represented corrupt Jews. While it is true that many have interpreted the story to mean Jews are innately bad, that's clearly not the intention of the story. It's more about how power corrupts.

As for #3, if you're against sanctions toward any country, that's consistent. I've just noticed that a lot of people are selective about when sanctions are good or not.

Sanctions against China would be preferable over going to war with them. Pushing them to end their genocide of Uyghurs is a noble endeavor, but going to war with China would be cataclysmic. It could go nuclear very quickly.

Any sanction intent on replacing the current government is wrong.

Uyghurs

How about a possible deal...
Deal: Give them their own autonomous state under Chinese dominion. sort of like Tibet and Mongolia.
China Carrot: 5 year reductions in numerous tariffs
US to fund political and economic infrastructure to support autonomy.
Uyghur Carrot: US to fund political and economic infrastructure to support autonomy.
freedom to create Uyghur society within Chinese law
China Stick: Ongoing revolt
US Will covertly arm and fund rebels.
Uyghur Stick: Independence without political and economic infrastructure exposes them to Russian hegemony
Ongoing revolt will destroy economy and kill many thousnds.

That might work, but I'm not sure why you believe that sanctions are so wrong.

 

[danielpalos]

The US "liberated" Cuba then proceeded to support a series of brutal dictators each worse than the last until THE PEOPLE decided it was through. Not the US, not the Soviet Union, the people of Cuba.

What part of this is not sinking in?

A factoid no "conservative" will admit.
It was not bombs and soldiers that bought down the Soviet Union.
It was Big Macs, Levis, and Walkmans.
Our embargoes have not worked ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD
You want to destroy the CCP? Capitalism
You want to bring down Cuba's govt? Capitalism

Not bombs, not spies, capitalism.
Give the Cuban people cars, iphones, and Taco Bell.

Castro did have public support, but he was also a pawn of the Soviets. This is no different from how his predecessor was a pawn of ours. That should "sink in" for you.

The embargo against South Africa was actually quite successful in ending apartheid. It's just one of many successful ones.

But again, I already mentioned in a previous post that our embargo with Cuba isn't very useful. I'm glad that you seem to agree with me on this now. You should also now understand why I mentioned that it had little to no effect on Cuba's economy in the long run. What has truly held them back is the corruption of their government, which, by the way, was the same thing holding back the Soviets.

You could say that capitalism did effectively expedite the fall of the USSR, but the fall itself was coming anyway. Their system was not sustainable and was extremely corrupt. Unfortunately, Russia's current system suffers from the same corruption despite being capitalistic, but it is able to survive due to the fact that capitalism is more resilient than socialism.

In China, something similar happened. When we opened trade with China in 1970, that allowed them to rapidly advance economically, but it did not change the fact that the CCP ran things. Even today, all foreign companies that operate in China have CCP councils that wield some power over the decisions of these companies.

As for Cuba, us trading with them may have some effects of weakening the current regime, but like in China and Russia, there isn't much evidence to suggest that it would reduce their corruption.

End Apartheid
Overthrow government

Perhaps you fail to understand the difference?

Is there a difference? Ending apartheid did overthrow the South African government for all intensive purposes.

We've both pushed for the end of governments that oppress the majority through minorities (like Syria) and supported said regimes (like Iraq). In fact, in Iraq's case, we did both.

Our rivals have also been guilty of this, like Russia and China.

But again, it's all interventionism to one degree or another. You can try to justify it for one reason or another, but it's all subjective. Was apartheid any worse than what China is doing to Uyghurs now? At first, we didn't do much about apartheid in South Africa, but eventually, we decided to push for the end of that regime. In China, we've failed to really do anything significant to them about their ethnic cleansing, but it's just like how we did little to nothing about Tibet or Hong Kong.

Morality doesn't really seem to enter the picture. It's more about whether or not we believe we can push around the country in question. South Africa was weak enough that we could force them to change. China is too powerful to be affected much, so that's probably a lot of why we don't seem to care. Profit is probably the other reason, given how much American corporations do business in China.

Ending apartheid WAS the intent. Whatever happened next was...

Now stay with me on this...

"THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE"

Not the will of the US, or Clinton, or Bush or...JUST THE PEOPLE.

You want me to defend the last 80 years of American imperialism and hegemony?
Sorry, you're on the wrong side of that argument.

Whatever the method the interference in the right of a people to choose who and how they will be governed should be abhorrent to every true American.
The use of economic pressure to get China to change a policy is perfectly within reason.
The use of economic pressure to get North Korea to overthrow their government is not.

I do not judge the morality of other countries. I judge the morality of ours. We are lacking.

...except for the fact that various regimes don't actually represent the will of the people. North Korea is a dictatorship that keeps their populace oppressed and ignorant. Some of those people probably support their government since they don't know better, but others just have to play along or possibly get killed.

China is another example. They don't have an actual democracy. A lot of the world's governments aren't really about the will of the people. Even ours is questionable in that regard.

So, again, you're using a rationale that isn't particularly relevant a lot of the time. And to say that we didn't intend for regime change in South Africa is very naive. We knew what would happen. It wasn't exactly hard to predict.

All I'm saying is that interventionism, whether economic or military, is never about morals. We just dress it up that way to sell it to the masses.

It's like how BLM isn't really about civil rights or police brutality.

But I agree that our morality is lacking. That's largely the fault of progressivism and corporate greed.

And just who appointed you the arbiter of who does and does not represent the will of the people? seems you're suffering from White Man's Burden.

White Man's Burden would be a matter of me advocating we overthrow said regimes. I'm not advocating that. North Korea is a mess that China will likely end up having to clean up eventually, while China itself isn't likely to move on from a dictatorship as long as big business in the West continues to line their pockets.

I'm not the arbiter of determining who represents the will of the people. I'm just employing common sense. You should try it some time.

A dictatorship is not a system that represents the will of the people. That's all I'm saying. I actually prefer for us to stay out of most conflicts.

In the case of South Africa, for example, pushing for the end of apartheid might have seemed like a noble cause, but it resulted in South Africa developing an even more corrupt system than before. They were actually better off with apartheid, in hindsight.

It's similar to what became of Rhodesia/Zimbabwe.

Why don't you talk that over with Mr. Jefferson.
After all, the declaration was speaking of and directed toward a king.
AND there is little or no difference between a king and a dictator.

Any issues with Russia's leader?
How about Trump who wants to be just like Russia's leader?

Or is it just countries with Brown people whose dictators bother you.

Yep. White Man's Burden. The ultimate racist's view.

Jefferson owned slaves, so his view on blacks wasn't the most flattering by today's standards. Then again, if we look at how a lot of Africa has fared over the last millennium, it's not inaccurate to view many of their cultures as rather primitive.

I don't care about skin color, but culture is very important. Some cultures are simply better than others, and sometimes, the less desirable cultures tend to be among those of darker complexion. That being said, Indians often assimilate well into the West. They're often rather ambitious and industrious, and so, it is not so simple as to suggest that "brown" people are the problem.

A dictatorship only bothers me when it affects the interests of this nation. The CCP is very much a threat to the world and to America more specifically, so their dictatorship concerns me. The Syrian dictatorship, however, does not affect me or the world overall.

As far as Putin is concerned, we should keep an eye on Russia, but they're easier to negotiate with than the CCP. Russia has far less power than China, and so we have the ability to leverage their help on certain things. They helped us somewhat during the War on Terror, for example.

Since this discussion touched on Zimbabwe, they also have a dictatorship, but I don't think it is in our interests to topple it. South Africa has something similar to a dictatorship as well, but again, it's not in our interests to topple it.

At this point, Trump is no longer in office and isn't likely to enter office again because of how old he will be by 2024. He's just a campaign fundraiser by now.

Do you actually read and comprehend what you type?
I tell you your attitudes reflect the racist "White Man's Burdern"
and in denial you proceed to describe how Africans and Orientals NEED White men to keep them safe.

You should reflect on the source of these ideas.

You keep using that phrase, but I don't think you know what it actually means. The "white man's burden" was a doctrine that believed that we should intervene in the affairs of various nations throughout the world to "civilize" them.

I have not advocated that idea at all. I actually tend to favor us staying out of foreign affairs. So again, I have no idea what you're basing your accusations on.

Funny thing about that "White Man's Burden." Like all racists the followers never believe they're recommitting 500 years of crimes.

If that's your argument, do you agree with me that we should stay out of most foreign conflicts?

This should be federal doctrine whenever right wingers may fantasize that we have a general warfare clause and a common offense clause.

In consideration of the monstrous sacrifice of life and property that each war demands of the people, personal enrichment due to a war must be regarded as a crime against the nation. Therefore, we demand ruthless confiscation of all war profits.

And we are back to the core of the problem.
as Ike warned, it is the Military Industrial Complex.

We, economically, as a nation, are so heavily invested in war that when we can't find one overseas, we invent them at home. THIS is the addiction we need to break and, to be honest, I've no idea how to do it without destroying the global economy.

Be honest, did your life really change when Poland established independence? Al long as those economies are working does it matter which ruling class is in charge?
So Putin takes back all the Baltic states and he rest of the nations behind the "Iron Curtain." Duh Duh Duh!!!!! (music, not an insult)
As long as the economies are working and the people are having their needs met, who cares who's running the place?

Wish i had an answer....

I agree with you because we have a general welfare clause not a general warfare clause in our federal Constitution. Upgrading infrastructure is more cost effective and beneficial to our economy.

 

[Dadoalex]

Sorry.
The first gulf war was to contain Iraq under the fear that Hussein would continue into Saudi Arabia and the rest of the peninsula. There was concern for having the entire ME oil supply fall under the control of a single dictator. EVEN THOUGH just a few years earlier he was OUR dictator.

SERIOUSLY

Let's say Hussein had accomplished what they feared.
They didn't have much terrorism in Iraq in 1991. If it happened the actors, their families, and their home towns were killed. If he had taken the Arabian the ME would not be a hot bed of terrorists.
Oil Prices? As we've learned over the last 30 years the market controls oil prices not OPEC.

Think of the events that spawned off of our intervention there.
I'm not arguing against the action. At the moment it seemed the right thing.
I'm using my perfect hindsight to "look back" and see a different present.

Fair points. I suppose you now see why I hinted that dictators in certain areas aren't necessarily the worst possibility in many cases.

A dictator that suppresses terrorists is better than a weak democracy that allows terrorism to flourish.

Terrorism is most always a people beaten down by those in power using the tools available.

OR
Your "terrorist" is my "freedom fighter."

My preference is to let countries govern themselves in the way they see fit.
This "democracy" thing may not be for everyone and in many cases, not now.
Because our policy should be to influence with carrots rather than threaten with sticks.
When we threaten the victim seeks ways to strike back
But
When we influence our enemies become our friends and we can influence our friends.

But, of course, I'm wrong.
We have all those weapons and we have a shitload of Generals and Admirals just dying to kill lots of people.
Medals and all you know.
And we have weak politicians on both sides too scared to to too the military-industrial complex to fluck off.

I am sorry to say that I doubt Biden will be any different than trump/Obama/Bush/Clinton/Bush/Reagan/Carter/Ford... and so forth.
Afraid to appear weak so we have enough nukes to destroy every living thing on the planet sever times over.
I read the dick Cheney was "shocked and terrified" to learn we had 500 nukes aimed at Moscow.
Any bets on that number today?

There are days when I long for Kucinich.

 

[Dadoalex]

1. Show me where I defended troops in western Europe and we can discuss.
2. The Bible? REALLY? Well the Bible tells me the Jews murdered Jesus. The Bible tells me 2 of every animal got on a boat and floated around for 40 days, need I go on? Millions have died through the centuries using that pornography as justification. Clear enough.
3. Have you ever read the Declaration of Independence? Give it a try and we'll discuss the part that says "That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the USA!" BTW, the sanctions are killing people every day.
4. We should threaten war in China AND offer a solution. We cannot do what we did with the Jews after WW-2.

Just a side note here on #2. Jesus was a Jew himself, but his enemies represented corrupt Jews. While it is true that many have interpreted the story to mean Jews are innately bad, that's clearly not the intention of the story. It's more about how power corrupts.

As for #3, if you're against sanctions toward any country, that's consistent. I've just noticed that a lot of people are selective about when sanctions are good or not.

Sanctions against China would be preferable over going to war with them. Pushing them to end their genocide of Uyghurs is a noble endeavor, but going to war with China would be cataclysmic. It could go nuclear very quickly.

Any sanction intent on replacing the current government is wrong.

Uyghurs

How about a possible deal...
Deal: Give them their own autonomous state under Chinese dominion. sort of like Tibet and Mongolia.
China Carrot: 5 year reductions in numerous tariffs
US to fund political and economic infrastructure to support autonomy.
Uyghur Carrot: US to fund political and economic infrastructure to support autonomy.
freedom to create Uyghur society within Chinese law
China Stick: Ongoing revolt
US Will covertly arm and fund rebels.
Uyghur Stick: Independence without political and economic infrastructure exposes them to Russian hegemony
Ongoing revolt will destroy economy and kill many thousnds.

That might work, but I'm not sure why you believe that sanctions are so wrong.

We sanction them, they sanction us, in the end only the people get hurt.
Carrots on the other hand?
Give our new friends a healthy way out of a bad situation AND
help build a good working relationship instead of an adversarial one.

Unfortunately I doubt Biden has the nutsack to pursue anything other than an adversarial agenda.

 

[Wyatt earp]

The US "liberated" Cuba then proceeded to support a series of brutal dictators each worse than the last until THE PEOPLE decided it was through. Not the US, not the Soviet Union, the people of Cuba.

What part of this is not sinking in?

A factoid no "conservative" will admit.
It was not bombs and soldiers that bought down the Soviet Union.
It was Big Macs, Levis, and Walkmans.
Our embargoes have not worked ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD
You want to destroy the CCP? Capitalism
You want to bring down Cuba's govt? Capitalism

Not bombs, not spies, capitalism.
Give the Cuban people cars, iphones, and Taco Bell.

Castro did have public support, but he was also a pawn of the Soviets. This is no different from how his predecessor was a pawn of ours. That should "sink in" for you.

The embargo against South Africa was actually quite successful in ending apartheid. It's just one of many successful ones.

But again, I already mentioned in a previous post that our embargo with Cuba isn't very useful. I'm glad that you seem to agree with me on this now. You should also now understand why I mentioned that it had little to no effect on Cuba's economy in the long run. What has truly held them back is the corruption of their government, which, by the way, was the same thing holding back the Soviets.

You could say that capitalism did effectively expedite the fall of the USSR, but the fall itself was coming anyway. Their system was not sustainable and was extremely corrupt. Unfortunately, Russia's current system suffers from the same corruption despite being capitalistic, but it is able to survive due to the fact that capitalism is more resilient than socialism.

In China, something similar happened. When we opened trade with China in 1970, that allowed them to rapidly advance economically, but it did not change the fact that the CCP ran things. Even today, all foreign companies that operate in China have CCP councils that wield some power over the decisions of these companies.

As for Cuba, us trading with them may have some effects of weakening the current regime, but like in China and Russia, there isn't much evidence to suggest that it would reduce their corruption.

End Apartheid
Overthrow government

Perhaps you fail to understand the difference?

Is there a difference? Ending apartheid did overthrow the South African government for all intensive purposes.

We've both pushed for the end of governments that oppress the majority through minorities (like Syria) and supported said regimes (like Iraq). In fact, in Iraq's case, we did both.

Our rivals have also been guilty of this, like Russia and China.

But again, it's all interventionism to one degree or another. You can try to justify it for one reason or another, but it's all subjective. Was apartheid any worse than what China is doing to Uyghurs now? At first, we didn't do much about apartheid in South Africa, but eventually, we decided to push for the end of that regime. In China, we've failed to really do anything significant to them about their ethnic cleansing, but it's just like how we did little to nothing about Tibet or Hong Kong.

Morality doesn't really seem to enter the picture. It's more about whether or not we believe we can push around the country in question. South Africa was weak enough that we could force them to change. China is too powerful to be affected much, so that's probably a lot of why we don't seem to care. Profit is probably the other reason, given how much American corporations do business in China.

Ending apartheid WAS the intent. Whatever happened next was...

Now stay with me on this...

"THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE"

Not the will of the US, or Clinton, or Bush or...JUST THE PEOPLE.

You want me to defend the last 80 years of American imperialism and hegemony?
Sorry, you're on the wrong side of that argument.

Whatever the method the interference in the right of a people to choose who and how they will be governed should be abhorrent to every true American.
The use of economic pressure to get China to change a policy is perfectly within reason.
The use of economic pressure to get North Korea to overthrow their government is not.

I do not judge the morality of other countries. I judge the morality of ours. We are lacking.

...except for the fact that various regimes don't actually represent the will of the people. North Korea is a dictatorship that keeps their populace oppressed and ignorant. Some of those people probably support their government since they don't know better, but others just have to play along or possibly get killed.

China is another example. They don't have an actual democracy. A lot of the world's governments aren't really about the will of the people. Even ours is questionable in that regard.

So, again, you're using a rationale that isn't particularly relevant a lot of the time. And to say that we didn't intend for regime change in South Africa is very naive. We knew what would happen. It wasn't exactly hard to predict.

All I'm saying is that interventionism, whether economic or military, is never about morals. We just dress it up that way to sell it to the masses.

It's like how BLM isn't really about civil rights or police brutality.

But I agree that our morality is lacking. That's largely the fault of progressivism and corporate greed.

And just who appointed you the arbiter of who does and does not represent the will of the people? seems you're suffering from White Man's Burden.

White Man's Burden would be a matter of me advocating we overthrow said regimes. I'm not advocating that. North Korea is a mess that China will likely end up having to clean up eventually, while China itself isn't likely to move on from a dictatorship as long as big business in the West continues to line their pockets.

I'm not the arbiter of determining who represents the will of the people. I'm just employing common sense. You should try it some time.

A dictatorship is not a system that represents the will of the people. That's all I'm saying. I actually prefer for us to stay out of most conflicts.

In the case of South Africa, for example, pushing for the end of apartheid might have seemed like a noble cause, but it resulted in South Africa developing an even more corrupt system than before. They were actually better off with apartheid, in hindsight.

It's similar to what became of Rhodesia/Zimbabwe.

Why don't you talk that over with Mr. Jefferson.
After all, the declaration was speaking of and directed toward a king.
AND there is little or no difference between a king and a dictator.

Any issues with Russia's leader?
How about Trump who wants to be just like Russia's leader?

Or is it just countries with Brown people whose dictators bother you.

Yep. White Man's Burden. The ultimate racist's view.

Jefferson owned slaves, so his view on blacks wasn't the most flattering by today's standards. Then again, if we look at how a lot of Africa has fared over the last millennium, it's not inaccurate to view many of their cultures as rather primitive.

I don't care about skin color, but culture is very important. Some cultures are simply better than others, and sometimes, the less desirable cultures tend to be among those of darker complexion. That being said, Indians often assimilate well into the West. They're often rather ambitious and industrious, and so, it is not so simple as to suggest that "brown" people are the problem.

A dictatorship only bothers me when it affects the interests of this nation. The CCP is very much a threat to the world and to America more specifically, so their dictatorship concerns me. The Syrian dictatorship, however, does not affect me or the world overall.

As far as Putin is concerned, we should keep an eye on Russia, but they're easier to negotiate with than the CCP. Russia has far less power than China, and so we have the ability to leverage their help on certain things. They helped us somewhat during the War on Terror, for example.

Since this discussion touched on Zimbabwe, they also have a dictatorship, but I don't think it is in our interests to topple it. South Africa has something similar to a dictatorship as well, but again, it's not in our interests to topple it.

At this point, Trump is no longer in office and isn't likely to enter office again because of how old he will be by 2024. He's just a campaign fundraiser by now.

Do you actually read and comprehend what you type?
I tell you your attitudes reflect the racist "White Man's Burdern"
and in denial you proceed to describe how Africans and Orientals NEED White men to keep them safe.

You should reflect on the source of these ideas.

You keep using that phrase, but I don't think you know what it actually means. The "white man's burden" was a doctrine that believed that we should intervene in the affairs of various nations throughout the world to "civilize" them.

I have not advocated that idea at all. I actually tend to favor us staying out of foreign affairs. So again, I have no idea what you're basing your accusations on.

Funny thing about that "White Man's Burden." Like all racists the followers never believe they're recommitting 500 years of crimes.

If that's your argument, do you agree with me that we should stay out of most foreign conflicts?

This should be federal doctrine whenever right wingers may fantasize that we have a general warfare clause and a common offense clause.

In consideration of the monstrous sacrifice of life and property that each war demands of the people, personal enrichment due to a war must be regarded as a crime against the nation. Therefore, we demand ruthless confiscation of all war profits.

I agree, but it's not typically right wingers that want us to get more involved. Neocons are the ones on the right that are warmongers. Traditional conservatives, libertarian conservatives, and conservative populists tend to be less supportive of interventionism.

By the same token, there are neocons on the left, which make up a significant portion of the Democratic establishment. This is because "neoconservative" is somewhat of a misnomer. Neoconservatism is more focused on foreign policy than any actual conservative stances in economics or social issues. It would be more properly referred to as "globalism."

It's kind of like how there are neoliberals among the left and right as well.

You say right/left conservative/liberal as if they had meaning in this context.

The Military/Industrial complex doesn't recognize ideology
Easily 25% of our economy is dedicated to war.
And you can't have that much war capacity without the occasional war to build interest.

Behind every decision that could lead to armed conflict is a herd of DoD contractors and Generals screaming loudly about the end of the US if we don't invade/bomb/blockade somebody somewhere on a regular basis.

My biggest disappointment in Obama was his expanded use of drone warfare. Making it appear cleaner, less risky to US military, whatever doesn't justify the murder of innocents and killing 50 people on the off chance of getting one bad guy is at least 49 murders.

We are addicted to murder.

What the fuck fag breath does this have to do with minimum wage?

 

[Dadoalex]

The US "liberated" Cuba then proceeded to support a series of brutal dictators each worse than the last until THE PEOPLE decided it was through. Not the US, not the Soviet Union, the people of Cuba.

What part of this is not sinking in?

A factoid no "conservative" will admit.
It was not bombs and soldiers that bought down the Soviet Union.
It was Big Macs, Levis, and Walkmans.
Our embargoes have not worked ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD
You want to destroy the CCP? Capitalism
You want to bring down Cuba's govt? Capitalism

Not bombs, not spies, capitalism.
Give the Cuban people cars, iphones, and Taco Bell.

Castro did have public support, but he was also a pawn of the Soviets. This is no different from how his predecessor was a pawn of ours. That should "sink in" for you.

The embargo against South Africa was actually quite successful in ending apartheid. It's just one of many successful ones.

But again, I already mentioned in a previous post that our embargo with Cuba isn't very useful. I'm glad that you seem to agree with me on this now. You should also now understand why I mentioned that it had little to no effect on Cuba's economy in the long run. What has truly held them back is the corruption of their government, which, by the way, was the same thing holding back the Soviets.

You could say that capitalism did effectively expedite the fall of the USSR, but the fall itself was coming anyway. Their system was not sustainable and was extremely corrupt. Unfortunately, Russia's current system suffers from the same corruption despite being capitalistic, but it is able to survive due to the fact that capitalism is more resilient than socialism.

In China, something similar happened. When we opened trade with China in 1970, that allowed them to rapidly advance economically, but it did not change the fact that the CCP ran things. Even today, all foreign companies that operate in China have CCP councils that wield some power over the decisions of these companies.

As for Cuba, us trading with them may have some effects of weakening the current regime, but like in China and Russia, there isn't much evidence to suggest that it would reduce their corruption.

End Apartheid
Overthrow government

Perhaps you fail to understand the difference?

Is there a difference? Ending apartheid did overthrow the South African government for all intensive purposes.

We've both pushed for the end of governments that oppress the majority through minorities (like Syria) and supported said regimes (like Iraq). In fact, in Iraq's case, we did both.

Our rivals have also been guilty of this, like Russia and China.

But again, it's all interventionism to one degree or another. You can try to justify it for one reason or another, but it's all subjective. Was apartheid any worse than what China is doing to Uyghurs now? At first, we didn't do much about apartheid in South Africa, but eventually, we decided to push for the end of that regime. In China, we've failed to really do anything significant to them about their ethnic cleansing, but it's just like how we did little to nothing about Tibet or Hong Kong.

Morality doesn't really seem to enter the picture. It's more about whether or not we believe we can push around the country in question. South Africa was weak enough that we could force them to change. China is too powerful to be affected much, so that's probably a lot of why we don't seem to care. Profit is probably the other reason, given how much American corporations do business in China.

Ending apartheid WAS the intent. Whatever happened next was...

Now stay with me on this...

"THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE"

Not the will of the US, or Clinton, or Bush or...JUST THE PEOPLE.

You want me to defend the last 80 years of American imperialism and hegemony?
Sorry, you're on the wrong side of that argument.

Whatever the method the interference in the right of a people to choose who and how they will be governed should be abhorrent to every true American.
The use of economic pressure to get China to change a policy is perfectly within reason.
The use of economic pressure to get North Korea to overthrow their government is not.

I do not judge the morality of other countries. I judge the morality of ours. We are lacking.

...except for the fact that various regimes don't actually represent the will of the people. North Korea is a dictatorship that keeps their populace oppressed and ignorant. Some of those people probably support their government since they don't know better, but others just have to play along or possibly get killed.

China is another example. They don't have an actual democracy. A lot of the world's governments aren't really about the will of the people. Even ours is questionable in that regard.

So, again, you're using a rationale that isn't particularly relevant a lot of the time. And to say that we didn't intend for regime change in South Africa is very naive. We knew what would happen. It wasn't exactly hard to predict.

All I'm saying is that interventionism, whether economic or military, is never about morals. We just dress it up that way to sell it to the masses.

It's like how BLM isn't really about civil rights or police brutality.

But I agree that our morality is lacking. That's largely the fault of progressivism and corporate greed.

And just who appointed you the arbiter of who does and does not represent the will of the people? seems you're suffering from White Man's Burden.

White Man's Burden would be a matter of me advocating we overthrow said regimes. I'm not advocating that. North Korea is a mess that China will likely end up having to clean up eventually, while China itself isn't likely to move on from a dictatorship as long as big business in the West continues to line their pockets.

I'm not the arbiter of determining who represents the will of the people. I'm just employing common sense. You should try it some time.

A dictatorship is not a system that represents the will of the people. That's all I'm saying. I actually prefer for us to stay out of most conflicts.

In the case of South Africa, for example, pushing for the end of apartheid might have seemed like a noble cause, but it resulted in South Africa developing an even more corrupt system than before. They were actually better off with apartheid, in hindsight.

It's similar to what became of Rhodesia/Zimbabwe.

Why don't you talk that over with Mr. Jefferson.
After all, the declaration was speaking of and directed toward a king.
AND there is little or no difference between a king and a dictator.

Any issues with Russia's leader?
How about Trump who wants to be just like Russia's leader?

Or is it just countries with Brown people whose dictators bother you.

Yep. White Man's Burden. The ultimate racist's view.

Jefferson owned slaves, so his view on blacks wasn't the most flattering by today's standards. Then again, if we look at how a lot of Africa has fared over the last millennium, it's not inaccurate to view many of their cultures as rather primitive.

I don't care about skin color, but culture is very important. Some cultures are simply better than others, and sometimes, the less desirable cultures tend to be among those of darker complexion. That being said, Indians often assimilate well into the West. They're often rather ambitious and industrious, and so, it is not so simple as to suggest that "brown" people are the problem.

A dictatorship only bothers me when it affects the interests of this nation. The CCP is very much a threat to the world and to America more specifically, so their dictatorship concerns me. The Syrian dictatorship, however, does not affect me or the world overall.

As far as Putin is concerned, we should keep an eye on Russia, but they're easier to negotiate with than the CCP. Russia has far less power than China, and so we have the ability to leverage their help on certain things. They helped us somewhat during the War on Terror, for example.

Since this discussion touched on Zimbabwe, they also have a dictatorship, but I don't think it is in our interests to topple it. South Africa has something similar to a dictatorship as well, but again, it's not in our interests to topple it.

At this point, Trump is no longer in office and isn't likely to enter office again because of how old he will be by 2024. He's just a campaign fundraiser by now.

Do you actually read and comprehend what you type?
I tell you your attitudes reflect the racist "White Man's Burdern"
and in denial you proceed to describe how Africans and Orientals NEED White men to keep them safe.

You should reflect on the source of these ideas.

You keep using that phrase, but I don't think you know what it actually means. The "white man's burden" was a doctrine that believed that we should intervene in the affairs of various nations throughout the world to "civilize" them.

I have not advocated that idea at all. I actually tend to favor us staying out of foreign affairs. So again, I have no idea what you're basing your accusations on.

Funny thing about that "White Man's Burden." Like all racists the followers never believe they're recommitting 500 years of crimes.

If that's your argument, do you agree with me that we should stay out of most foreign conflicts?

This should be federal doctrine whenever right wingers may fantasize that we have a general warfare clause and a common offense clause.

In consideration of the monstrous sacrifice of life and property that each war demands of the people, personal enrichment due to a war must be regarded as a crime against the nation. Therefore, we demand ruthless confiscation of all war profits.

And we are back to the core of the problem.
as Ike warned, it is the Military Industrial Complex.

We, economically, as a nation, are so heavily invested in war that when we can't find one overseas, we invent them at home. THIS is the addiction we need to break and, to be honest, I've no idea how to do it without destroying the global economy.

Be honest, did your life really change when Poland established independence? Al long as those economies are working does it matter which ruling class is in charge?
So Putin takes back all the Baltic states and he rest of the nations behind the "Iron Curtain." Duh Duh Duh!!!!! (music, not an insult)
As long as the economies are working and the people are having their needs met, who cares who's running the place?

Wish i had an answer....

I agree with you because we have a general welfare clause not a general warfare clause in our federal Constitution. Upgrading infrastructure is more cost effective and beneficial to our economy.

Imagine if we poured half the defense budget along with the people and expertise into continuously building and improving the infrastructure?

Man would that be cool!

 

[Utilitarian]

Sorry.
The first gulf war was to contain Iraq under the fear that Hussein would continue into Saudi Arabia and the rest of the peninsula. There was concern for having the entire ME oil supply fall under the control of a single dictator. EVEN THOUGH just a few years earlier he was OUR dictator.

SERIOUSLY

Let's say Hussein had accomplished what they feared.
They didn't have much terrorism in Iraq in 1991. If it happened the actors, their families, and their home towns were killed. If he had taken the Arabian the ME would not be a hot bed of terrorists.
Oil Prices? As we've learned over the last 30 years the market controls oil prices not OPEC.

Think of the events that spawned off of our intervention there.
I'm not arguing against the action. At the moment it seemed the right thing.
I'm using my perfect hindsight to "look back" and see a different present.

Fair points. I suppose you now see why I hinted that dictators in certain areas aren't necessarily the worst possibility in many cases.

A dictator that suppresses terrorists is better than a weak democracy that allows terrorism to flourish.

Terrorism is most always a people beaten down by those in power using the tools available.

OR
Your "terrorist" is my "freedom fighter."

My preference is to let countries govern themselves in the way they see fit.
This "democracy" thing may not be for everyone and in many cases, not now.
Because our policy should be to influence with carrots rather than threaten with sticks.
When we threaten the victim seeks ways to strike back
But
When we influence our enemies become our friends and we can influence our friends.

But, of course, I'm wrong.
We have all those weapons and we have a shitload of Generals and Admirals just dying to kill lots of people.
Medals and all you know.
And we have weak politicians on both sides too scared to to too the military-industrial complex to fluck off.

I am sorry to say that I doubt Biden will be any different than trump/Obama/Bush/Clinton/Bush/Reagan/Carter/Ford... and so forth.
Afraid to appear weak so we have enough nukes to destroy every living thing on the planet sever times over.
I read the dick Cheney was "shocked and terrified" to learn we had 500 nukes aimed at Moscow.
Any bets on that number today?

There are days when I long for Kucinich.

I can agree in one respect -- I think our own government is in need of some "freedom fighters." The feds don't serve the people.

 

[Utilitarian]

1. Show me where I defended troops in western Europe and we can discuss.
2. The Bible? REALLY? Well the Bible tells me the Jews murdered Jesus. The Bible tells me 2 of every animal got on a boat and floated around for 40 days, need I go on? Millions have died through the centuries using that pornography as justification. Clear enough.
3. Have you ever read the Declaration of Independence? Give it a try and we'll discuss the part that says "That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the USA!" BTW, the sanctions are killing people every day.
4. We should threaten war in China AND offer a solution. We cannot do what we did with the Jews after WW-2.

Just a side note here on #2. Jesus was a Jew himself, but his enemies represented corrupt Jews. While it is true that many have interpreted the story to mean Jews are innately bad, that's clearly not the intention of the story. It's more about how power corrupts.

As for #3, if you're against sanctions toward any country, that's consistent. I've just noticed that a lot of people are selective about when sanctions are good or not.

Sanctions against China would be preferable over going to war with them. Pushing them to end their genocide of Uyghurs is a noble endeavor, but going to war with China would be cataclysmic. It could go nuclear very quickly.

Any sanction intent on replacing the current government is wrong.

Uyghurs

How about a possible deal...
Deal: Give them their own autonomous state under Chinese dominion. sort of like Tibet and Mongolia.
China Carrot: 5 year reductions in numerous tariffs
US to fund political and economic infrastructure to support autonomy.
Uyghur Carrot: US to fund political and economic infrastructure to support autonomy.
freedom to create Uyghur society within Chinese law
China Stick: Ongoing revolt
US Will covertly arm and fund rebels.
Uyghur Stick: Independence without political and economic infrastructure exposes them to Russian hegemony
Ongoing revolt will destroy economy and kill many thousnds.

That might work, but I'm not sure why you believe that sanctions are so wrong.

We sanction them, they sanction us, in the end only the people get hurt.
Carrots on the other hand?
Give our new friends a healthy way out of a bad situation AND
help build a good working relationship instead of an adversarial one.

Unfortunately I doubt Biden has the nutsack to pursue anything other than an adversarial agenda.

Carrots don't mean much if there isn't much in place to ensure the other country fulfills their end of the deal -- see the Iran Peace Deal for an example.

 

[Wyatt earp]

The US "liberated" Cuba then proceeded to support a series of brutal dictators each worse than the last until THE PEOPLE decided it was through. Not the US, not the Soviet Union, the people of Cuba.

What part of this is not sinking in?

A factoid no "conservative" will admit.
It was not bombs and soldiers that bought down the Soviet Union.
It was Big Macs, Levis, and Walkmans.
Our embargoes have not worked ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD
You want to destroy the CCP? Capitalism
You want to bring down Cuba's govt? Capitalism

Not bombs, not spies, capitalism.
Give the Cuban people cars, iphones, and Taco Bell.

Castro did have public support, but he was also a pawn of the Soviets. This is no different from how his predecessor was a pawn of ours. That should "sink in" for you.

The embargo against South Africa was actually quite successful in ending apartheid. It's just one of many successful ones.

But again, I already mentioned in a previous post that our embargo with Cuba isn't very useful. I'm glad that you seem to agree with me on this now. You should also now understand why I mentioned that it had little to no effect on Cuba's economy in the long run. What has truly held them back is the corruption of their government, which, by the way, was the same thing holding back the Soviets.

You could say that capitalism did effectively expedite the fall of the USSR, but the fall itself was coming anyway. Their system was not sustainable and was extremely corrupt. Unfortunately, Russia's current system suffers from the same corruption despite being capitalistic, but it is able to survive due to the fact that capitalism is more resilient than socialism.

In China, something similar happened. When we opened trade with China in 1970, that allowed them to rapidly advance economically, but it did not change the fact that the CCP ran things. Even today, all foreign companies that operate in China have CCP councils that wield some power over the decisions of these companies.

As for Cuba, us trading with them may have some effects of weakening the current regime, but like in China and Russia, there isn't much evidence to suggest that it would reduce their corruption.

End Apartheid
Overthrow government

Perhaps you fail to understand the difference?

Is there a difference? Ending apartheid did overthrow the South African government for all intensive purposes.

We've both pushed for the end of governments that oppress the majority through minorities (like Syria) and supported said regimes (like Iraq). In fact, in Iraq's case, we did both.

Our rivals have also been guilty of this, like Russia and China.

But again, it's all interventionism to one degree or another. You can try to justify it for one reason or another, but it's all subjective. Was apartheid any worse than what China is doing to Uyghurs now? At first, we didn't do much about apartheid in South Africa, but eventually, we decided to push for the end of that regime. In China, we've failed to really do anything significant to them about their ethnic cleansing, but it's just like how we did little to nothing about Tibet or Hong Kong.

Morality doesn't really seem to enter the picture. It's more about whether or not we believe we can push around the country in question. South Africa was weak enough that we could force them to change. China is too powerful to be affected much, so that's probably a lot of why we don't seem to care. Profit is probably the other reason, given how much American corporations do business in China.

Ending apartheid WAS the intent. Whatever happened next was...

Now stay with me on this...

"THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE"

Not the will of the US, or Clinton, or Bush or...JUST THE PEOPLE.

You want me to defend the last 80 years of American imperialism and hegemony?
Sorry, you're on the wrong side of that argument.

Whatever the method the interference in the right of a people to choose who and how they will be governed should be abhorrent to every true American.
The use of economic pressure to get China to change a policy is perfectly within reason.
The use of economic pressure to get North Korea to overthrow their government is not.

I do not judge the morality of other countries. I judge the morality of ours. We are lacking.

...except for the fact that various regimes don't actually represent the will of the people. North Korea is a dictatorship that keeps their populace oppressed and ignorant. Some of those people probably support their government since they don't know better, but others just have to play along or possibly get killed.

China is another example. They don't have an actual democracy. A lot of the world's governments aren't really about the will of the people. Even ours is questionable in that regard.

So, again, you're using a rationale that isn't particularly relevant a lot of the time. And to say that we didn't intend for regime change in South Africa is very naive. We knew what would happen. It wasn't exactly hard to predict.

All I'm saying is that interventionism, whether economic or military, is never about morals. We just dress it up that way to sell it to the masses.

It's like how BLM isn't really about civil rights or police brutality.

But I agree that our morality is lacking. That's largely the fault of progressivism and corporate greed.

And just who appointed you the arbiter of who does and does not represent the will of the people? seems you're suffering from White Man's Burden.

White Man's Burden would be a matter of me advocating we overthrow said regimes. I'm not advocating that. North Korea is a mess that China will likely end up having to clean up eventually, while China itself isn't likely to move on from a dictatorship as long as big business in the West continues to line their pockets.

I'm not the arbiter of determining who represents the will of the people. I'm just employing common sense. You should try it some time.

A dictatorship is not a system that represents the will of the people. That's all I'm saying. I actually prefer for us to stay out of most conflicts.

In the case of South Africa, for example, pushing for the end of apartheid might have seemed like a noble cause, but it resulted in South Africa developing an even more corrupt system than before. They were actually better off with apartheid, in hindsight.

It's similar to what became of Rhodesia/Zimbabwe.

Why don't you talk that over with Mr. Jefferson.
After all, the declaration was speaking of and directed toward a king.
AND there is little or no difference between a king and a dictator.

Any issues with Russia's leader?
How about Trump who wants to be just like Russia's leader?

Or is it just countries with Brown people whose dictators bother you.

Yep. White Man's Burden. The ultimate racist's view.

Jefferson owned slaves, so his view on blacks wasn't the most flattering by today's standards. Then again, if we look at how a lot of Africa has fared over the last millennium, it's not inaccurate to view many of their cultures as rather primitive.

I don't care about skin color, but culture is very important. Some cultures are simply better than others, and sometimes, the less desirable cultures tend to be among those of darker complexion. That being said, Indians often assimilate well into the West. They're often rather ambitious and industrious, and so, it is not so simple as to suggest that "brown" people are the problem.

A dictatorship only bothers me when it affects the interests of this nation. The CCP is very much a threat to the world and to America more specifically, so their dictatorship concerns me. The Syrian dictatorship, however, does not affect me or the world overall.

As far as Putin is concerned, we should keep an eye on Russia, but they're easier to negotiate with than the CCP. Russia has far less power than China, and so we have the ability to leverage their help on certain things. They helped us somewhat during the War on Terror, for example.

Since this discussion touched on Zimbabwe, they also have a dictatorship, but I don't think it is in our interests to topple it. South Africa has something similar to a dictatorship as well, but again, it's not in our interests to topple it.

At this point, Trump is no longer in office and isn't likely to enter office again because of how old he will be by 2024. He's just a campaign fundraiser by now.

Do you actually read and comprehend what you type?
I tell you your attitudes reflect the racist "White Man's Burdern"
and in denial you proceed to describe how Africans and Orientals NEED White men to keep them safe.

You should reflect on the source of these ideas.

You keep using that phrase, but I don't think you know what it actually means. The "white man's burden" was a doctrine that believed that we should intervene in the affairs of various nations throughout the world to "civilize" them.

I have not advocated that idea at all. I actually tend to favor us staying out of foreign affairs. So again, I have no idea what you're basing your accusations on.

Funny thing about that "White Man's Burden." Like all racists the followers never believe they're recommitting 500 years of crimes.

If that's your argument, do you agree with me that we should stay out of most foreign conflicts?

This should be federal doctrine whenever right wingers may fantasize that we have a general warfare clause and a common offense clause.

In consideration of the monstrous sacrifice of life and property that each war demands of the people, personal enrichment due to a war must be regarded as a crime against the nation. Therefore, we demand ruthless confiscation of all war profits.

And we are back to the core of the problem.
as Ike warned, it is the Military Industrial Complex.

We, economically, as a nation, are so heavily invested in war that when we can't find one overseas, we invent them at home. THIS is the addiction we need to break and, to be honest, I've no idea how to do it without destroying the global economy.

Be honest, did your life really change when Poland established independence? Al long as those economies are working does it matter which ruling class is in charge?
So Putin takes back all the Baltic states and he rest of the nations behind the "Iron Curtain." Duh Duh Duh!!!!! (music, not an insult)
As long as the economies are working and the people are having their needs met, who cares who's running the place?

Wish i had an answer....

I agree with you because we have a general welfare clause not a general warfare clause in our federal Constitution. Upgrading infrastructure is more cost effective and beneficial to our economy.

Imagine if we poured half the defense budget along with the people and expertise into continuously building and improving the infrastructure?

Man would that be cool!

Why are you against union blue color jobs, why are you against protection?

 

[Dadoalex]

1. Show me where I defended troops in western Europe and we can discuss.
2. The Bible? REALLY? Well the Bible tells me the Jews murdered Jesus. The Bible tells me 2 of every animal got on a boat and floated around for 40 days, need I go on? Millions have died through the centuries using that pornography as justification. Clear enough.
3. Have you ever read the Declaration of Independence? Give it a try and we'll discuss the part that says "That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the USA!" BTW, the sanctions are killing people every day.
4. We should threaten war in China AND offer a solution. We cannot do what we did with the Jews after WW-2.

Just a side note here on #2. Jesus was a Jew himself, but his enemies represented corrupt Jews. While it is true that many have interpreted the story to mean Jews are innately bad, that's clearly not the intention of the story. It's more about how power corrupts.

As for #3, if you're against sanctions toward any country, that's consistent. I've just noticed that a lot of people are selective about when sanctions are good or not.

Sanctions against China would be preferable over going to war with them. Pushing them to end their genocide of Uyghurs is a noble endeavor, but going to war with China would be cataclysmic. It could go nuclear very quickly.

Any sanction intent on replacing the current government is wrong.

Uyghurs

How about a possible deal...
Deal: Give them their own autonomous state under Chinese dominion. sort of like Tibet and Mongolia.
China Carrot: 5 year reductions in numerous tariffs
US to fund political and economic infrastructure to support autonomy.
Uyghur Carrot: US to fund political and economic infrastructure to support autonomy.
freedom to create Uyghur society within Chinese law
China Stick: Ongoing revolt
US Will covertly arm and fund rebels.
Uyghur Stick: Independence without political and economic infrastructure exposes them to Russian hegemony
Ongoing revolt will destroy economy and kill many thousnds.

That might work, but I'm not sure why you believe that sanctions are so wrong.

We sanction them, they sanction us, in the end only the people get hurt.
Carrots on the other hand?
Give our new friends a healthy way out of a bad situation AND
help build a good working relationship instead of an adversarial one.

Unfortunately I doubt Biden has the nutsack to pursue anything other than an adversarial agenda.

Carrots don't mean much if there isn't much in place to ensure the other country fulfills their end of the deal -- see the Iran Peace Deal for an example.

Like in 2002, Iran like Iraq was complying with the inspection process.
But, like in 2002 some republican wanted war more than he wanted peace so WE violated the treaty.
WE abandoned the treaty.
WE abandoned our allies.

For what?

So trump could pander.

We lost years of diplomatic efforts and FAILED to stop Iran's nuclear development.

 

[Dadoalex]

The US "liberated" Cuba then proceeded to support a series of brutal dictators each worse than the last until THE PEOPLE decided it was through. Not the US, not the Soviet Union, the people of Cuba.

What part of this is not sinking in?

A factoid no "conservative" will admit.
It was not bombs and soldiers that bought down the Soviet Union.
It was Big Macs, Levis, and Walkmans.
Our embargoes have not worked ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD
You want to destroy the CCP? Capitalism
You want to bring down Cuba's govt? Capitalism

Not bombs, not spies, capitalism.
Give the Cuban people cars, iphones, and Taco Bell.

Castro did have public support, but he was also a pawn of the Soviets. This is no different from how his predecessor was a pawn of ours. That should "sink in" for you.

The embargo against South Africa was actually quite successful in ending apartheid. It's just one of many successful ones.

But again, I already mentioned in a previous post that our embargo with Cuba isn't very useful. I'm glad that you seem to agree with me on this now. You should also now understand why I mentioned that it had little to no effect on Cuba's economy in the long run. What has truly held them back is the corruption of their government, which, by the way, was the same thing holding back the Soviets.

You could say that capitalism did effectively expedite the fall of the USSR, but the fall itself was coming anyway. Their system was not sustainable and was extremely corrupt. Unfortunately, Russia's current system suffers from the same corruption despite being capitalistic, but it is able to survive due to the fact that capitalism is more resilient than socialism.

In China, something similar happened. When we opened trade with China in 1970, that allowed them to rapidly advance economically, but it did not change the fact that the CCP ran things. Even today, all foreign companies that operate in China have CCP councils that wield some power over the decisions of these companies.

As for Cuba, us trading with them may have some effects of weakening the current regime, but like in China and Russia, there isn't much evidence to suggest that it would reduce their corruption.

End Apartheid
Overthrow government

Perhaps you fail to understand the difference?

Is there a difference? Ending apartheid did overthrow the South African government for all intensive purposes.

We've both pushed for the end of governments that oppress the majority through minorities (like Syria) and supported said regimes (like Iraq). In fact, in Iraq's case, we did both.

Our rivals have also been guilty of this, like Russia and China.

But again, it's all interventionism to one degree or another. You can try to justify it for one reason or another, but it's all subjective. Was apartheid any worse than what China is doing to Uyghurs now? At first, we didn't do much about apartheid in South Africa, but eventually, we decided to push for the end of that regime. In China, we've failed to really do anything significant to them about their ethnic cleansing, but it's just like how we did little to nothing about Tibet or Hong Kong.

Morality doesn't really seem to enter the picture. It's more about whether or not we believe we can push around the country in question. South Africa was weak enough that we could force them to change. China is too powerful to be affected much, so that's probably a lot of why we don't seem to care. Profit is probably the other reason, given how much American corporations do business in China.

Ending apartheid WAS the intent. Whatever happened next was...

Now stay with me on this...

"THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE"

Not the will of the US, or Clinton, or Bush or...JUST THE PEOPLE.

You want me to defend the last 80 years of American imperialism and hegemony?
Sorry, you're on the wrong side of that argument.

Whatever the method the interference in the right of a people to choose who and how they will be governed should be abhorrent to every true American.
The use of economic pressure to get China to change a policy is perfectly within reason.
The use of economic pressure to get North Korea to overthrow their government is not.

I do not judge the morality of other countries. I judge the morality of ours. We are lacking.

...except for the fact that various regimes don't actually represent the will of the people. North Korea is a dictatorship that keeps their populace oppressed and ignorant. Some of those people probably support their government since they don't know better, but others just have to play along or possibly get killed.

China is another example. They don't have an actual democracy. A lot of the world's governments aren't really about the will of the people. Even ours is questionable in that regard.

So, again, you're using a rationale that isn't particularly relevant a lot of the time. And to say that we didn't intend for regime change in South Africa is very naive. We knew what would happen. It wasn't exactly hard to predict.

All I'm saying is that interventionism, whether economic or military, is never about morals. We just dress it up that way to sell it to the masses.

It's like how BLM isn't really about civil rights or police brutality.

But I agree that our morality is lacking. That's largely the fault of progressivism and corporate greed.

And just who appointed you the arbiter of who does and does not represent the will of the people? seems you're suffering from White Man's Burden.

White Man's Burden would be a matter of me advocating we overthrow said regimes. I'm not advocating that. North Korea is a mess that China will likely end up having to clean up eventually, while China itself isn't likely to move on from a dictatorship as long as big business in the West continues to line their pockets.

I'm not the arbiter of determining who represents the will of the people. I'm just employing common sense. You should try it some time.

A dictatorship is not a system that represents the will of the people. That's all I'm saying. I actually prefer for us to stay out of most conflicts.

In the case of South Africa, for example, pushing for the end of apartheid might have seemed like a noble cause, but it resulted in South Africa developing an even more corrupt system than before. They were actually better off with apartheid, in hindsight.

It's similar to what became of Rhodesia/Zimbabwe.

Why don't you talk that over with Mr. Jefferson.
After all, the declaration was speaking of and directed toward a king.
AND there is little or no difference between a king and a dictator.

Any issues with Russia's leader?
How about Trump who wants to be just like Russia's leader?

Or is it just countries with Brown people whose dictators bother you.

Yep. White Man's Burden. The ultimate racist's view.

Jefferson owned slaves, so his view on blacks wasn't the most flattering by today's standards. Then again, if we look at how a lot of Africa has fared over the last millennium, it's not inaccurate to view many of their cultures as rather primitive.

I don't care about skin color, but culture is very important. Some cultures are simply better than others, and sometimes, the less desirable cultures tend to be among those of darker complexion. That being said, Indians often assimilate well into the West. They're often rather ambitious and industrious, and so, it is not so simple as to suggest that "brown" people are the problem.

A dictatorship only bothers me when it affects the interests of this nation. The CCP is very much a threat to the world and to America more specifically, so their dictatorship concerns me. The Syrian dictatorship, however, does not affect me or the world overall.

As far as Putin is concerned, we should keep an eye on Russia, but they're easier to negotiate with than the CCP. Russia has far less power than China, and so we have the ability to leverage their help on certain things. They helped us somewhat during the War on Terror, for example.

Since this discussion touched on Zimbabwe, they also have a dictatorship, but I don't think it is in our interests to topple it. South Africa has something similar to a dictatorship as well, but again, it's not in our interests to topple it.

At this point, Trump is no longer in office and isn't likely to enter office again because of how old he will be by 2024. He's just a campaign fundraiser by now.

Do you actually read and comprehend what you type?
I tell you your attitudes reflect the racist "White Man's Burdern"
and in denial you proceed to describe how Africans and Orientals NEED White men to keep them safe.

You should reflect on the source of these ideas.

You keep using that phrase, but I don't think you know what it actually means. The "white man's burden" was a doctrine that believed that we should intervene in the affairs of various nations throughout the world to "civilize" them.

I have not advocated that idea at all. I actually tend to favor us staying out of foreign affairs. So again, I have no idea what you're basing your accusations on.

Funny thing about that "White Man's Burden." Like all racists the followers never believe they're recommitting 500 years of crimes.

If that's your argument, do you agree with me that we should stay out of most foreign conflicts?

This should be federal doctrine whenever right wingers may fantasize that we have a general warfare clause and a common offense clause.

In consideration of the monstrous sacrifice of life and property that each war demands of the people, personal enrichment due to a war must be regarded as a crime against the nation. Therefore, we demand ruthless confiscation of all war profits.

And we are back to the core of the problem.
as Ike warned, it is the Military Industrial Complex.

We, economically, as a nation, are so heavily invested in war that when we can't find one overseas, we invent them at home. THIS is the addiction we need to break and, to be honest, I've no idea how to do it without destroying the global economy.

Be honest, did your life really change when Poland established independence? Al long as those economies are working does it matter which ruling class is in charge?
So Putin takes back all the Baltic states and he rest of the nations behind the "Iron Curtain." Duh Duh Duh!!!!! (music, not an insult)
As long as the economies are working and the people are having their needs met, who cares who's running the place?

Wish i had an answer....

I agree with you because we have a general welfare clause not a general warfare clause in our federal Constitution. Upgrading infrastructure is more cost effective and beneficial to our economy.

Imagine if we poured half the defense budget along with the people and expertise into continuously building and improving the infrastructure?

Man would that be cool!

Why are you against union blue color jobs, why are you against protection?

Why is your IQ in single digits?

To say that I oppose unions or union jobs is simply stupid and ignorant.

Care to try for moronic?

 

[Wyatt earp]

The US "liberated" Cuba then proceeded to support a series of brutal dictators each worse than the last until THE PEOPLE decided it was through. Not the US, not the Soviet Union, the people of Cuba.

What part of this is not sinking in?

A factoid no "conservative" will admit.
It was not bombs and soldiers that bought down the Soviet Union.
It was Big Macs, Levis, and Walkmans.
Our embargoes have not worked ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD
You want to destroy the CCP? Capitalism
You want to bring down Cuba's govt? Capitalism

Not bombs, not spies, capitalism.
Give the Cuban people cars, iphones, and Taco Bell.

Castro did have public support, but he was also a pawn of the Soviets. This is no different from how his predecessor was a pawn of ours. That should "sink in" for you.

The embargo against South Africa was actually quite successful in ending apartheid. It's just one of many successful ones.

But again, I already mentioned in a previous post that our embargo with Cuba isn't very useful. I'm glad that you seem to agree with me on this now. You should also now understand why I mentioned that it had little to no effect on Cuba's economy in the long run. What has truly held them back is the corruption of their government, which, by the way, was the same thing holding back the Soviets.

You could say that capitalism did effectively expedite the fall of the USSR, but the fall itself was coming anyway. Their system was not sustainable and was extremely corrupt. Unfortunately, Russia's current system suffers from the same corruption despite being capitalistic, but it is able to survive due to the fact that capitalism is more resilient than socialism.

In China, something similar happened. When we opened trade with China in 1970, that allowed them to rapidly advance economically, but it did not change the fact that the CCP ran things. Even today, all foreign companies that operate in China have CCP councils that wield some power over the decisions of these companies.

As for Cuba, us trading with them may have some effects of weakening the current regime, but like in China and Russia, there isn't much evidence to suggest that it would reduce their corruption.

End Apartheid
Overthrow government

Perhaps you fail to understand the difference?

Is there a difference? Ending apartheid did overthrow the South African government for all intensive purposes.

We've both pushed for the end of governments that oppress the majority through minorities (like Syria) and supported said regimes (like Iraq). In fact, in Iraq's case, we did both.

Our rivals have also been guilty of this, like Russia and China.

But again, it's all interventionism to one degree or another. You can try to justify it for one reason or another, but it's all subjective. Was apartheid any worse than what China is doing to Uyghurs now? At first, we didn't do much about apartheid in South Africa, but eventually, we decided to push for the end of that regime. In China, we've failed to really do anything significant to them about their ethnic cleansing, but it's just like how we did little to nothing about Tibet or Hong Kong.

Morality doesn't really seem to enter the picture. It's more about whether or not we believe we can push around the country in question. South Africa was weak enough that we could force them to change. China is too powerful to be affected much, so that's probably a lot of why we don't seem to care. Profit is probably the other reason, given how much American corporations do business in China.

Ending apartheid WAS the intent. Whatever happened next was...

Now stay with me on this...

"THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE"

Not the will of the US, or Clinton, or Bush or...JUST THE PEOPLE.

You want me to defend the last 80 years of American imperialism and hegemony?
Sorry, you're on the wrong side of that argument.

Whatever the method the interference in the right of a people to choose who and how they will be governed should be abhorrent to every true American.
The use of economic pressure to get China to change a policy is perfectly within reason.
The use of economic pressure to get North Korea to overthrow their government is not.

I do not judge the morality of other countries. I judge the morality of ours. We are lacking.

...except for the fact that various regimes don't actually represent the will of the people. North Korea is a dictatorship that keeps their populace oppressed and ignorant. Some of those people probably support their government since they don't know better, but others just have to play along or possibly get killed.

China is another example. They don't have an actual democracy. A lot of the world's governments aren't really about the will of the people. Even ours is questionable in that regard.

So, again, you're using a rationale that isn't particularly relevant a lot of the time. And to say that we didn't intend for regime change in South Africa is very naive. We knew what would happen. It wasn't exactly hard to predict.

All I'm saying is that interventionism, whether economic or military, is never about morals. We just dress it up that way to sell it to the masses.

It's like how BLM isn't really about civil rights or police brutality.

But I agree that our morality is lacking. That's largely the fault of progressivism and corporate greed.

And just who appointed you the arbiter of who does and does not represent the will of the people? seems you're suffering from White Man's Burden.

White Man's Burden would be a matter of me advocating we overthrow said regimes. I'm not advocating that. North Korea is a mess that China will likely end up having to clean up eventually, while China itself isn't likely to move on from a dictatorship as long as big business in the West continues to line their pockets.

I'm not the arbiter of determining who represents the will of the people. I'm just employing common sense. You should try it some time.

A dictatorship is not a system that represents the will of the people. That's all I'm saying. I actually prefer for us to stay out of most conflicts.

In the case of South Africa, for example, pushing for the end of apartheid might have seemed like a noble cause, but it resulted in South Africa developing an even more corrupt system than before. They were actually better off with apartheid, in hindsight.

It's similar to what became of Rhodesia/Zimbabwe.

Why don't you talk that over with Mr. Jefferson.
After all, the declaration was speaking of and directed toward a king.
AND there is little or no difference between a king and a dictator.

Any issues with Russia's leader?
How about Trump who wants to be just like Russia's leader?

Or is it just countries with Brown people whose dictators bother you.

Yep. White Man's Burden. The ultimate racist's view.

Jefferson owned slaves, so his view on blacks wasn't the most flattering by today's standards. Then again, if we look at how a lot of Africa has fared over the last millennium, it's not inaccurate to view many of their cultures as rather primitive.

I don't care about skin color, but culture is very important. Some cultures are simply better than others, and sometimes, the less desirable cultures tend to be among those of darker complexion. That being said, Indians often assimilate well into the West. They're often rather ambitious and industrious, and so, it is not so simple as to suggest that "brown" people are the problem.

A dictatorship only bothers me when it affects the interests of this nation. The CCP is very much a threat to the world and to America more specifically, so their dictatorship concerns me. The Syrian dictatorship, however, does not affect me or the world overall.

As far as Putin is concerned, we should keep an eye on Russia, but they're easier to negotiate with than the CCP. Russia has far less power than China, and so we have the ability to leverage their help on certain things. They helped us somewhat during the War on Terror, for example.

Since this discussion touched on Zimbabwe, they also have a dictatorship, but I don't think it is in our interests to topple it. South Africa has something similar to a dictatorship as well, but again, it's not in our interests to topple it.

At this point, Trump is no longer in office and isn't likely to enter office again because of how old he will be by 2024. He's just a campaign fundraiser by now.

Do you actually read and comprehend what you type?
I tell you your attitudes reflect the racist "White Man's Burdern"
and in denial you proceed to describe how Africans and Orientals NEED White men to keep them safe.

You should reflect on the source of these ideas.

You keep using that phrase, but I don't think you know what it actually means. The "white man's burden" was a doctrine that believed that we should intervene in the affairs of various nations throughout the world to "civilize" them.

I have not advocated that idea at all. I actually tend to favor us staying out of foreign affairs. So again, I have no idea what you're basing your accusations on.

Funny thing about that "White Man's Burden." Like all racists the followers never believe they're recommitting 500 years of crimes.

If that's your argument, do you agree with me that we should stay out of most foreign conflicts?

This should be federal doctrine whenever right wingers may fantasize that we have a general warfare clause and a common offense clause.

In consideration of the monstrous sacrifice of life and property that each war demands of the people, personal enrichment due to a war must be regarded as a crime against the nation. Therefore, we demand ruthless confiscation of all war profits.

And we are back to the core of the problem.
as Ike warned, it is the Military Industrial Complex.

We, economically, as a nation, are so heavily invested in war that when we can't find one overseas, we invent them at home. THIS is the addiction we need to break and, to be honest, I've no idea how to do it without destroying the global economy.

Be honest, did your life really change when Poland established independence? Al long as those economies are working does it matter which ruling class is in charge?
So Putin takes back all the Baltic states and he rest of the nations behind the "Iron Curtain." Duh Duh Duh!!!!! (music, not an insult)
As long as the economies are working and the people are having their needs met, who cares who's running the place?

Wish i had an answer....

I agree with you because we have a general welfare clause not a general warfare clause in our federal Constitution. Upgrading infrastructure is more cost effective and beneficial to our economy.

Imagine if we poured half the defense budget along with the people and expertise into continuously building and improving the infrastructure?

Man would that be cool!

Why are you against union blue color jobs, why are you against protection?

Why is your IQ in single digits?

To say that I oppose unions or union jobs is simply stupid and ignorant.

Care to try for moronic?

Your ignorance is astounding kid