What do you want America to do?

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Words taken right out of my mouth.

 

Jesus replied 2000 years before you asked:

[John 8:32]

 

You know Chev, just because you quoted the bible, it doesn't somehow become magically on-topic, or not-spam - or heck, even clever.

 

Well Grey,

in that other thread you, so it appeared to me, took it as totally natural that America intervenes in, what again was it, Sudan, because of human rights and/ or oil. I mean, in the end it is a sovereign foreign country on the other side of the world that only happens to have something you want. Reason enough? Like a junkie who robs a drugstore to feed his addiction?

Should America have the right to intervene on economic reasons wherever there are US economic interests? One might think that for example the US companies would be much more careful in their approach to these countries if they couldn't count on US Marines to intervene when the countries start to dislike being exploited.

Or should America go out and attack every perceived evil, and what that is is of course to be determined in the US, and invade and regime change the world based on superior morality?

Or is it maybe time to put "defense" back into US defense policy?

So, answering to your initial question, I would ask America the question some famous America constitution father (forgot the name) asked one of his friends:

If the answer is profit, fine with me, but then please stop the sanctimonious praying of spreading liberty and democracy - at gunpoint. The French may be cynics and unscrupulous but they at least spare us the sickening "we are blesseth upon the nations" prayer part we get from that other country in heavy doses.

When the answer is freedom and liberty, even better, then just stick to principle and simply do not deal with repressive governments, keen enemies of liberty, because they have oil or something else you want. That may be hard considering how much Americans are gas junkies, but there's tag for every choice.
If America then decides on crusading - fine, but don't count on us for support for your follies.

America has to sit down and think hard about it's options and choices, and its place in the world.

[ July 16, 2004, 15:52: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

 

I'd make everyone care more for all others than for themselves. Most all else would come from that.

Unfortunately, I feel that others would soon take advantage of that to the detriment of the US. Perhaps if this could be a worldwide power....

 

how is bringing it up moot? you said that it was different but as youve just agreed, it was exactly the same.

[ July 12, 2004, 19:15: Message edited by: Shoshino ]

 

We seem to be talking past each other Shoshino. Read my posts again please.

 

?

i said that the british empire tried to make the world better based on their morals, and it caused more peoblems.

you said no britain did just as america does now, which kinda reenforced my point from above.

then you said that they were more brutal about it, which i disputed by pointing out the tragedies in iraq.

then you said that the comparison was a moot point..
its not a moot point, im pointing out that the british empire tried to help the world and caused more problems for itself, the US tries to help the world and causes more problems for itself, and the british empire was not more brutal, both the british and the americans committed atrocities to bring about their image of a perfect world.

very clear comparison if you ask me.

 

This one is easy. I would have the US write off all debt to any foreign nations, just ignore it as if it did not exist. (It's been done to us, so we should be allowed a freebie too, no?)

Then, I would increase taxes by quite a bit, pull out of all foreign countries (this includes Israel), lift the trade embargo on Cuba and Korea (I think we have one there, but I am not sure). The tax increases would fall, as much as is logically possible, on the upper 10% of Americans, get rid of all those silly tax cuts Bush did, and so on.

I would remove immigration quotas for individual areas, and only give a numerical quota for the US overall for number of immigrants allowed in per year, and give marginally more difficult tests to applicants for entry, ones that focused on laws, and other such important things.

I would use the increased tax revenue to pour money into education, social security, and try to make free health care a reality rather than a dream. I would try to provide clean water to all of the US, make as bold steps as I am capable of in the direction of ending poverty and homelessness, and so on.

I would give the legal system a total revamp, get rid of lawyers arguing in their client's interest, and have a neutral appointed officer to say what might or might not have happened, and, rather than a jury, have a triumvirate, or maybe five (not sure of the proper word for that) judges make the decision, in a criminal case. I would attempt to stop cases against companies for lack of warnings, removing any monetary settlement, and having the company attach a warning label, and have the free healthcare cover any injuries.

I would remove all sexual and racial barriers, which are mostly de facto now. This, of course, includes the draft (meaning that women are eligible to be drafted as wel as men.)

I would make military training a mandatory portion of all school curriculums - probably a few months to a year after high school, throw a little discipline into the rascals, and all that.

I would also merge the police forces with those of the military, having martial law an instant response to any widespread disturbance, rather than SWAT teams and the like. Corruption in government and military will be treated as treason, and will be punishable as such.

Money will be poured into space-based missile defense programs, and land-based - all we can get to remove any threat of nuclear war. This technology will never be shared.

After this, no military intervention in the affairs of other countries will be forthcoming - only in the event of a direct attack on the US, all of the forces of which will be on American soil, will the US take part in any war. This includes UN Peacekeeping forces, and all those things. No military help will be forthcoming, even if the country begs for it - it's not our business to interfere.

That's about it, I suppose.

 

I'm voting for Slith as a write-in, come November.

 

Slith - you say you would ignore all foreign debt as if it did not exist.

Currently, the USA is racking up debt like no other time in history and is certainly not paying any of it off. So you are ALREADY ignoring foreign debt as it did not exist so your policy would not free up much extra cash anyway.

Plus, if you don't even pretend to pay your foreign creditors, not even by just printing extra currency, then they would probably stop selling you things. Given that the USA imports most of its luxury consumer goods (like the PCs you enjoy so much) you won't be able to get any more of these. Unless you want to build them all yourselves, in which case the prices will skyrocket.

 

And I said that the British empire was a lot more brutal and blatant in its exploiting of foreign areas than the US ever can be and that pointing out Americas misteps of today to show them as worse than GB is extremely moot seeing as the US and GB is walking hand in hand in the endevours of the USA.

The US has to put atleat a sheen of being the benign power and do its best to not waste a couple of thousand darkskinned people every day and call it a great military victory as the population of the US is atleast somewhat educated and their government have no control of what is reported to its citizenry. In GB of the 19th century the crown could just say "for the glory of the Empire" and the bigoted, stupid, undeducated massed would celebrate their monarch in the streets after a British force had slaughtered an African tribe armed with spears with their machine guns (note that this was the sentiment in all of the western world of the time so Great Britain was not alone but seeing as it is what we are discussing...). But dont delude yourself into thinking that Great Britain ever tried to improve the world, it was all about power, power and money, as it always is.

Either way you are still missing my point Shoshino and badly. It is not about whether who is worst but about possibilities. Europe had its chance of creating a peaceful world but blew it by internal strife and short term interests. The US now has a chance uniting the world again and without the lethal competetion which plagued Europe. The USA is unchallenged today and there is no one to threathen their *real* security (by this I mean being conquered or annihilated by a foreign power, terrorist nutjobs are no real threath even if they get a hold of a nuke and blow of Seattle the US would still stand just as strong) if they used that power for the betterment and safety of all. But alas the politics of power and fear still seems to hold Washington by its throath even if there is nothing to fear since the break up of the USSR.

Oh and Slith, I thought you had a very interesting and insightful post but your thoughts about space based nuclear safety scared me. What if a true evil tyrant came to power in the US and there was no nuclear deterrant whatsover for him to launch his missiles elsewhere? MAD is and should very much still be in effect in this world. We can never know which will be the next evil empire and for any one power gain the ability to be impervious to a nuclear assault as long as there are nuclear weapons to threathen our world is a very uncomfortable thought.

 

Harbourboy - why ever would they do that? They might be offended by our actions, but we're the biggest consumer nation in the world. They would lose an enormous amount of business if they stopped selling to us. And, anyway, most governments don't control private corporate sales, and many corporations that produce such things as PCs are owned and operated by American businessmen.

Oh, and one of the ways I was planning on reducing homelessness was insourcing as much work as possible to the US, away from China and other such places. Lowering the minimum wage was also a plan, but some of this I forgot, as it was rather a long post, after all. So the shipment in of consumer goods will be less impacted by the resulting embargoes, if any.

 

@Arte: You know as well as I do that I could spit out 20 in-topic paragraphed pages with quotes and links if I wanted. I can go on for hours about double standards, flat out lies, blatant brainwash, behind the stage kind of politics and so on, but to what end? Seek the truth and it'll make you free. That's all. See? I haven't really said anything in this post that previous one wouldn't contain.

 

where did i say they were worse?

and i still dont think you know enough about history to make such an accusation.

in that period, the british werent brutal at all, they were pretty friendly compared to most other nations of the time.

also, i dont believe the british ever killed 250000 innocent people in 1 attack.

"The US has to put atleat a sheen of being the benign power and do its best to not waste a couple of thousand darkskinned people every day and call it a great military victory as the population of the US is atleast somewhat educated and their government have no control of what is reported to its citizenry."
britain outlawed slavery - darkskinned soldiers were paid. unlike the black slaves which were used by the americans in the war of independence.

"But dont delude yourself into thinking that Great Britain ever tried to improve the world, it was all about power, power and money, as it always is."
who's deluding themself?
the US believes its way is better and so in its invading other countries it brings its way to another people and 'betters' them, they stamp out all resistence along the way and make friends and trade with those who side with them or offer something worthwhile.
the british believeing they were better moved around the world bringing their way to other countries and so in their eyes 'bettering' them, they wiped out all resistence and traded with friendly natives and tribes.

i think you may have the british mixed up with the spanish when you talk of slaughtering all the natives.
and also, when did europe have a chance of unitng the world? only recently the EU has come about - give them a chance.

 

What about the Boer War and the invasion of Tibet ? Haven't made it among the nicest ways wars were fought top list, as far as I know.

 

This is off topic but I can't resist to temptation so...

Well if my memory serves me well these friendly and non brutal brits are the ones, who introduced the death camps for the first time in history during the boers' wars.

British empire outlawed slavery but it compensated the slave owners and not the slaves.

 

dont know much about the boer war i see, well let me enlighten you:

the war began between dutch settlers and british forces in 1899, the dutch the settlers or 'boer' republics transvaal and the orange republic demanding the removal of british forces from the afrikan territories.
the first 'slaughter'as you like to call them was suffered by the british at the hands of the boer armies. In the course of one week (10-15 December 1899) the Boers defeated the British in a number of major engagements and besieged the key towns of Ladysmith, Mafeking, and Kimberley; but large numbers of British reinforcements were being landed, and slowly the fortunes of war turned.
the british then used that overwhelming force to recapture all of the besieged towns, by feburary 1900 all of the towns weere recaptured.
for 15 months the boer commandos then raided british bases and settlements, harried armies and cut off trade lines and communications.
the war ended in 1902.
the war was the largest and most costly war (outside of the WW's and the napoleonic war) ever fought by britain.
the boer did not conform to the 'gentlemanly' way of war targeting leaders, washer women and employed hit and run tactics the british could not defend against, causing the british over 120,201 British and Imperial casualties and 22.829 men wounded to its 488.229 field force- most of the wounded did not survive to see britain.
the boer who were well armed with moder rapid fire rifles and the advantage of home soil suffered an unknown death toll to its forces- thought to be around the 80000 mark.
i have never seen or found any mention of death camps, all prisoners were executed.

"British empire outlawed slavery but it compensated the slave owners and not the slaves. "
why would it compensate the slaves?

 

Slith - you say that most of the payments made to foreign countries for imports are private companies. That may be so, but where do those companies, like say Wal-Mart get their cash from?

Probably from consumers? OK, where do those domestic consumers get their cash from? From wages and, increasingly, from borrowings.

OK, the wages are fine because that's internal and sustainable. But where does the borrowed money come from? It's from credit cards, and, indirectly, household mortgages - so from banks.

Where do the banks get their money from? From depositors (leave them aside because that's domestic), from other banks, and from borrowing from the government.

And where does the US government get it's cash from? Either taxes, by printing more currency, or from foreign borrowings. So, ultimately, it doesn't matter who is physically paying the foreign debts because if the system as a whole is spending more than it is earning than it must be borrowing and in the end, the balance has to be made up somewhere.

 

I think it's unreasonable to expect the US to solve the world's problems. Sure, they have a duty to use their immense economic, military and legal power responsibly, but the real question is what "responsibly" means. I get sick to death of people abusing the US administration for acting purely for the benefit of the US. Okay, there is a difference between this and selfishness, which is what Michael Moore depicts. I've heard it said that there will be no peace until everyone has clean water and enough to eat. The cost of this would be high (in logistical terms), but certainly a better goal than forced compliance to a governmental system in areas where it has no cultural relevance. I'm not American, so I guess people can tell me exactly where to stick it, but I feel that the current mentality (which extends back well beyond the current administration) is far too invasive and reeks of imperialism by stealth. A nation has the right to defend itself, but pre-emptive strikes (military or surgical) are only justified if there is an inevitable, imminent threat (such as Israel's actions in the Seven-Day War).

Consider what the CIA has done in South America. The aid given to Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq War. The Iran Contra episode. The overthrow of a democratically-elected communist state and its replacement by a CIA-backed military junta in Chile. Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden (the first time, when the US funnelled money and weapons to him to fight the Soviets). Meddling in the domestic affairs of other nations is hardly likely to engender a spirit of trust and friendliness. Where it leads to an attack or threat, do something. It's hypocritical to attem to justify the invasion of Iraq when Saudi Arabia is a more fertile ground for potential terrorists and has a corrupt, selfish government. Oh, I forgot - they give us oil, and we turn a blind eye. Saddam posed no threat, and bin Laden wanted nothing to do with him and his secular state, so why should there have been a difference. If we wanted to depose him through military action, unilateral US action was certainly NOT the way to go. For all of its failures, the UN has at least shown that for once, it is not the instrument of the US.

Sorry about the long-winded rant... (catches breath)