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(05-08-2017, 11:45 AM)Cynic Hero Wrote: France has Just been subjected to globalist tyranny and Human Rights tyranny. A sad day for civilization.
I guess we have as strong a values clash as anyone on these boards. “Human Rights tyranny” to me seems almost an oxymoron, perhaps a paradox. People are being forced to treat each other decently? Would this be a problem if people treated each other decently? I for one am not in fear of being forced to respect other people’s human rights. I already respect people’s human rights.
I guess it’s Kinser’s tribal morality in play. Humans behave well towards members of one’s tribe, but are willing to oppress and disrespect anyone belonging to another tribe. Well, we use the word ‘tribe’, but it could be by world view, political affiliation, region of origin, religion, skin pigmentation or many another thing. I will recognize that many to most humans naturally think that way, all for ‘us’ with a blatant disregard for ‘them’.
But the point of human rights is to note that all human are ‘us’. There are no ‘them’. That’s the dream, anyway. It will not come lightly. ‘Us’ have been abusing ‘Them’ for a long long time. It will be a hard habit to break. Yes, it seems France is taking a few steps towards fighting the habit. I for one approve, though I don’t anticipate an easy road. There are too many people like you and Kinser.
“Globalist tyranny” is something else. I’m not at all pleased by how globalism is playing out. It has been implemented too much for the benefit of the capitalist ruling class, too little for the benefit of the general population. Still, one element of it is division of wealth. In this world, in may ways, too few have too much. It is 'us' oppressing 'them' again. If strife is to be avoided, the goal ought to be to spread the wealth around, to assure everyone has enough.
There is still a big divide between the former colonies and the former mother countries. One thing globalism is doing is putting industrial jobs in the poorer places. This is not being done well. The capitalist elites are not doing it out of charity. They are looking for regions with low wages and no labor unions. They are out to maximize profits for the most part, not to equalize wealth.
But an awful lot of what’s going on is the well off people resenting the less well off, trying to protect their privileged position. Many conservatives that are ahead of the norm economically are striving to stay that way. "I've got mine, up yours" is all too prevalent a meme, not just the base principle of Republican health care. I’ve no opposition to some people getting ahead. I will object to individuals being drastically and deliberately left behind.
I’m still with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 25.
HDHR 25 Wrote:(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
(2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.
Making these things happen is not tyranny.
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
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(05-08-2017, 12:46 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: (05-08-2017, 11:45 AM)Cynic Hero Wrote: France has Just been subjected to globalist tyranny and Human Rights tyranny. A sad day for civilization.
I guess we have as strong a values clash as anyone on these boards. “Human Rights tyranny” to me seems almost an oxymoron, perhaps a paradox. People are being forced to treat each other decently? Would this be a problem if people treated each other decently? I for one am not in fear of being forced to respect other people’s human rights. I already respect people’s human rights.
I guess it’s Kinser’s tribal morality in play. Humans behave well towards members of one’s tribe, but are willing to oppress and disrespect anyone belonging to another tribe. Well, we use the word ‘tribe’, but it could be by world view, political affiliation, region of origin, religion, skin pigmentation or many another thing. I will recognize that many to most humans naturally think that way, all for ‘us’ with a blatant disregard for ‘them’.
But the point of human rights is to note that all human are ‘us’. There are no ‘them’. That’s the dream, anyway. It will not come lightly. ‘Us’ have been abusing ‘Them’ for a long long time. It will be a hard habit to break. Yes, it seems France is taking a few steps towards fighting the habit. I for one approve, though I don’t anticipate an easy road. There are too many people like you and Kinser.
Excellent work on one sick screed. Tribalism is obsolete -- terribly obsolete -- in a time of supersonic missiles and aircraft for military use, atom bombs, the Internet, swift travel, low food costs, and other attributes of modernity that have the potential to make life extremely satisfying and precarious at the same time. The homogenization of living standards is well underway.
Quote:“Globalist tyranny” is something else. I’m not at all pleased by how globalism is playing out. It has been implemented too much for the benefit of the capitalist ruling class, too little for the benefit of the general population. Still, one element of it is division of wealth. In this world, in may ways, too few have too much. It is 'us' oppressing 'them' again. If strife is to be avoided, the goal ought to be to spread the wealth around, to assure everyone has enough.
Maybe the problem isn't so much with globalism as it is with the elite use of globalism to drive living conditions down in the First World for all but the few. Maybe it is the rise of an exploiter elite of executives, political hacks, and shyster professionals who unlike the nobles and capitalists of an earlier time can exploit people without owning the assets. A lobbyist who can get a political reward of $10 billion in easy money to a well-heeled special interest would need to own an incredible amount of land to make similar income the old-fashioned way -- whether that way means owning a gigantic plantation complete with slaves or leasing it to huge numbers of peasants and sharecroppers. What Milovan Djilas saw happening in 'socialist' Yugoslavia goes on effectively in America. with the big landowners and the plutocratic capitalists in full conclusion.
Should things go so badly in America that we have hunger as the result of severe exploitation despite our productive potential and our wondrous technology, then it will be easy to predict what people get sent to the 21st-century equivalent of the guillotine.
Our American institutions were made for a world of craftsmen, small farmers, and shopkeepers unable to get fantastically rich by inflicting great suffering upon others. It was not designed for shameless narcissists, let alone gangsters, rendering people helpless against them. In this Crisis we see either the full imposition of a new feudalism, perhaps complete with the infamous jus primae noctis, a pathological order in which the elites offer perverse entertainment perhaps more sophisticated than the Roman-style gladiatorial games and damnatio ad bestias (this time casting criminals and penniless debtors to crocodiles, sharks, or pythons instead of to bears, lions, and tigers in Roman times), the establishment of a social order as inequitable as the pre-Civil War South with the repression of Stalin's Soviet Union... the nightmare scenarios are all too obvious.
We can also have a system well fitting human nature in which practically everyone can do modestly well with modest talent and effort but few do spectacularly well. Experiences will matter more than possessions; just imagine what life would be like if status symbols have lost all meaning. As Mohandas Gandhi said, the world can meet all human need but it can never meet all human greed.
Quote:There is still a big divide between the former colonies and the former mother countries. One thing globalism is doing is putting industrial jobs in the poorer places. This is not being done well. The capitalist elites are not doing it out of charity. They are looking for regions with low wages and no labor unions. They are out to maximize profits for the most part, not to equalize wealth.
Switzerland never was a colonial power and has one of the highest standards of living in the world; Afghanistan was never colonized, but it is one of the world's poorest nations. Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Taiwan, and South Korea used to be colonies, and they seem to be doing very well. Industrialization in its earliest stages fosters economic strife that leads to either revolution or to the reduction of poverty. A democracy will have unions.
Quote:But an awful lot of what’s going on is the well off people resenting the less well off, trying to protect their privileged position. Many conservatives that are ahead of the norm economically are striving to stay that way. "I've got mine, up yours" is all too prevalent a meme, not just the base principle of Republican health care. I’ve no opposition to some people getting ahead. I will object to individuals being drastically and deliberately left behind.
I’m still with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 25.
HDHR 25 Wrote:(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
(2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.
Making these things happen is not tyranny.
We face the prospect of political and economic instability should plutocrats try to impose the living conditions of the early industrial era. That's how I understand "Make America Great Again" -- when life really was great for about 2% of the population and miserable for almost everyone else.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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(05-08-2017, 06:47 AM)Odin Wrote: (05-06-2017, 11:50 PM)Galen Wrote: (05-06-2017, 08:55 AM)Odin Wrote: Somebody who follows 17th century ideology attacking someone for 17th century science?
Libertarian thought does start with John Locke in the seventeenth century but it has evolved and still is evolving. Only you would have problems with people who base their political philosophy on the non-aggression principle. Still given how the peaceful the left have shown themselves to be this is to be expected.
The Non-Aggression Principle can simply be dismissed as naive nonsense, it's basically throwing up ones hands and going "why can't we all be nice to each other and sing kumbaya and everyone will be happy???", it's the domestic equivalent of naive pacifists carrying cute signs like "what if they ordered a war and nobody came?".
The non-aggression principle does allow for self-defense since it is the initiation of force that is disallowed. As usual you have failed to do even the most basic research.
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard. -- H.L. Mencken
If one rejects laissez faire on account of man's fallibility and moral weakness, one must for the same reason also reject every kind of government action. -- Ludwig von Mises
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(05-08-2017, 12:40 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: (05-08-2017, 11:45 AM)Cynic Hero Wrote: France has Just been subjected to globalist tyranny and Human Rights tyranny. A sad day for civilization.
And a great day for us boomers who want to impose human rights and globalism on the world! Yaaa Hooooo!
Go "Boomers" like Macron! ha ha
You do realize that Macron made his pile as a Rothschild banker? Which makes him one of the 1% that you despise so much.
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard. -- H.L. Mencken
If one rejects laissez faire on account of man's fallibility and moral weakness, one must for the same reason also reject every kind of government action. -- Ludwig von Mises
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(05-08-2017, 12:52 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: (05-08-2017, 11:45 AM)Cynic Hero Wrote: France has Just been subjected to globalist tyranny and Human Rights tyranny. A sad day for civilization.
No, France rejected one of Putin's bitches and stomped on an Ugly Little Green Toad.
Stomp!
Stomp!
Stomp .... I'm wearing my Docs today!
You suck Little Pepe!
There is a great meme going around on Reddit of people going "^This is why Macron won!" every time some Alt-Right troll makes a dumb post like that.
#MakeTheDemocratsGreatAgain
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(05-09-2017, 03:57 AM)Galen Wrote: (05-08-2017, 06:47 AM)Odin Wrote: (05-06-2017, 11:50 PM)Galen Wrote: (05-06-2017, 08:55 AM)Odin Wrote: Somebody who follows 17th century ideology attacking someone for 17th century science?
Libertarian thought does start with John Locke in the seventeenth century but it has evolved and still is evolving. Only you would have problems with people who base their political philosophy on the non-aggression principle. Still given how the peaceful the left have shown themselves to be this is to be expected.
The Non-Aggression Principle can simply be dismissed as naive nonsense, it's basically throwing up ones hands and going "why can't we all be nice to each other and sing kumbaya and everyone will be happy???", it's the domestic equivalent of naive pacifists carrying cute signs like "what if they ordered a war and nobody came?".
The non-aggression principle does allow for self-defense since it is the initiation of force that is disallowed. As usual you have failed to do even the most basic research.
Once again you missed the point since you think I was only talking about self-defense, I wasn't. There are a lot of situations where the initiation of force is necessary to stop a greater evil. Then again, IIRC you are one of those deranged Isolationists who think the US should have stayed out of WW2 and that Pearl Harbor was all FDR's fault, so I wouldn't expect you to understand that. 
#MakeTheDemocratsGreatAgain
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(05-09-2017, 03:57 AM)Galen Wrote: (05-08-2017, 06:47 AM)Odin Wrote: The Non-Aggression Principle can simply be dismissed as naive nonsense, it's basically throwing up ones hands and going "why can't we all be nice to each other and sing kumbaya and everyone will be happy???", it's the domestic equivalent of naive pacifists carrying cute signs like "what if they ordered a war and nobody came?".
The non-aggression principle does allow for self-defense since it is the initiation of force that is disallowed. As usual you have failed to do even the most basic research.
So you prefer private aggression rather than public aggression (as you see it at least). Unrestrained private acts tend to run to their logical conclusion: the strong prevail. Sorry, but that's no basis for a system of government (apologies to Monty Python).
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What Galen does not understand also is that regulations and social programs paid for by taxes are also self-defense against the aggression initiated by the bosses. Pollution, destruction of Nature, inadequate payments for service rendered, inadequate services for payments given, other rip-off schemes and actions--- these are also forms of aggression.
And the libertarian/conservative "everyone must work/no free lunch/I don't want to pay for those who don't work" memes are also out of date in a time when machines are doing the work. The machines do not belong to the owners and bosses; they belong to all of us. Otherwise they do not perform in the way that the inventors and developers of those machines intended. They are not labor-saving devices unless they save labor for all, not just the owners.
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05-09-2017, 10:47 AM
(This post was last modified: 05-09-2017, 10:49 AM by Eric the Green.)
(05-09-2017, 10:44 AM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: (05-09-2017, 10:05 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: What Galen does not understand also is that regulations and social programs paid for by taxes are also self-defense against the aggression initiated by the bosses. Pollution, destruction of Nature, inadequate payments for service rendered, inadequate services for payments given, other rip-off schemes and actions--- these are also forms of aggression.
And the libertarian/conservative "everyone must work/no free lunch/I don't want to pay for those who don't work" memes are also out of date in a time when machines are doing the work. The machines do not belong to the owners and bosses; they belong to all of us. Otherwise they do not perform in the way that the inventors and developers of those machines intended. They are not labor-saving devices unless they save labor for all, not just the owners.
There is also another aspect besides automation itself. Corporate entities are increasingly doing the following:
- Outsourcing activities .... to the customer or end user! They make you do what they used to do.
- Simply not doing certain things at all ... corporate sloth. This is justified under the rubric of "non value added activity" or "low ROI activity"
- Still doing things they used to do but doing them badly
All of these acts reduce head count. It looks great on the ledger sheet and the shareholders react with glee from their myopic frame of reference.
Yes indeed. I encounter this these days almost every time I try to buy anything.
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(05-09-2017, 04:04 AM)Galen Wrote: (05-08-2017, 12:40 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: (05-08-2017, 11:45 AM)Cynic Hero Wrote: France has Just been subjected to globalist tyranny and Human Rights tyranny. A sad day for civilization.
And a great day for us boomers who want to impose human rights and globalism on the world! Yaaa Hooooo!
Go "Boomers" like Macron! ha ha
You do realize that Macron made his pile as a Rothschild banker? Which makes him one of the 1% that you despise so much.
But he's a socialist! That makes him equal. He just happens to be more equal than others, unlike the rest of that evil 1%.
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(05-09-2017, 06:35 AM)Odin Wrote: (05-09-2017, 03:57 AM)Galen Wrote: (05-08-2017, 06:47 AM)Odin Wrote: (05-06-2017, 11:50 PM)Galen Wrote: (05-06-2017, 08:55 AM)Odin Wrote: Somebody who follows 17th century ideology attacking someone for 17th century science?
Libertarian thought does start with John Locke in the seventeenth century but it has evolved and still is evolving. Only you would have problems with people who base their political philosophy on the non-aggression principle. Still given how the peaceful the left have shown themselves to be this is to be expected.
The Non-Aggression Principle can simply be dismissed as naive nonsense, it's basically throwing up ones hands and going "why can't we all be nice to each other and sing kumbaya and everyone will be happy???", it's the domestic equivalent of naive pacifists carrying cute signs like "what if they ordered a war and nobody came?".
The non-aggression principle does allow for self-defense since it is the initiation of force that is disallowed. As usual you have failed to do even the most basic research.
Once again you missed the point since you think I was only talking about self-defense, I wasn't. There are a lot of situations where the initiation of force is necessary to stop a greater evil. Then again, IIRC you are one of those deranged Isolationists who think the US should have stayed out of WW2 and that Pearl Harbor was all FDR's fault, so I wouldn't expect you to understand that.
Considering the consequences of the embargo on Japan it is clear that Pearl Harbor was FDR's fault. I learned about all of this in a class on World War II history in the eighties and The Rising Sun by John Toland touched on the subject. His later book Infamy is devoted to just that subject.
I would have preferred that the US would have stayed out of the First World War which would most likely led to a more equitable peace and probably avoided World War II which was in many ways a continuation of World War I. It is worth noting that without US entry into that war both sides would have had to sue for peace and neither could have impose anything like the terms of the Treaty of Versailles since they were simply running out of men to throw into the trenches. It is also very likely that the German High Command would not felt compelled to send Lenin back to Russia and there might never have been a Soviet Union.
You might actually want to spend some time with actual history rather than the comic book version we all get from the public schools.
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard. -- H.L. Mencken
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I think firing Comey might fall under the category of Trump doing something right.
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(05-09-2017, 03:21 PM)Galen Wrote: Considering the consequences of the embargo on Japan it is clear that Pearl Harbor was FDR's fault. I learned about all of this in a class on World War II history in the eighties and The Rising Sun by John Toland touched on the subject. His later book Infamy is devoted to just that subject.
I would have preferred that the US would have stayed out of the First World War which would most likely led to a more equitable peace and probably avoided World War II which was in many ways a continuation of World War I. It is worth noting that without US entry into that war both sides would have had to sue for peace and neither could have impose anything like the terms of the Treaty of Versailles since they were simply running out of men to throw into the trenches. It is also very likely that the German High Command would not felt compelled to send Lenin back to Russia and there might never have been a Soviet Union.
You might actually want to spend some time with actual history rather than the comic book version we all get from the public schools.
Wrong about Japan. Japan could have avoided the embargo had it ceased its aggression against China. Japan at the time was an Evil Empire in its own right -- witness massacres by the Japanese Army, massacres so inexcusable that even Nazi Germany condemned them. by Pearl Harbor, thug Japan was already looking for easy conquests, and took over most of French Indochina (letting Thailand snip off pieces of what are now Cambodia and Laos after its own military intervention) from Vichy France. Japan treated the peoples of Indochina badly.
The unintended consequences were that the Japanese sought sources of petroleum for its war machine and rice for its soldiers (because the Japanese military machine had drafted so many farm laborers for its army and navy, it was running out of food) and found them, especially in British and Dutch possessions. The Philippines had little oil, but ti did have rice. Peoples of Southeast Asia and Indonesia would be starved to feed the Japanese armed forces.
FDR did not believe that the Japanese leadership would do something so stupid as to attack Britain and the USA. The Japanese leadership did the stupid and cruel thing. That's what irresponsible regimes do when there are resources to grab. Blaming FDR for the Japanese thrust into southeast Asia is like blaming a retail clerk for the armed robbery when a vicious criminal robs the store.
World War I was a mistake that everyone should have stayed out of. But seemingly everyone on the Continent except those countries that ended up in it was spoiling for a fight over territory or for the hurt feelings of near-absolute monarchs... it seems only a matter of time before war would erupt. Had it not been for the assassination of the Archduke there would have been some other pretext.
The USA was been better off evading the war, and it did its best to avoid it. It was only with the Zimmermann telegram that offered Mexico chunks of the American Southwest in return for waging war with the USA (Mexico was wise enough to reject the offer) that war became a certainty.
The problem with World War I was the vindictive settlement against Germany followed by
(1) rigorous enforcement of terms with the relatively-pacific Weimar Republic which never committed an act of military aggression, and
(2) lenient treatment of Hitler's vicious regime.
Let's see -- the cops go hard on juvenile offenders who do nearly-trivial offenses and then kiss up to mobsters. That's not how the cops would do things if I were the mayor. Maybe the analogy between the Axis Powers and mobsters isn't perfect... but mobsters and fascist tyrants seem to share the critical thread of sociopathic attitudes.
The US insisted upon treating liberated Germany and Japan with leniency after World War II. Seventy years later I have more faith in German and Japanese democracy than the gutted democracy that we Americans know. I expect to go to Canada soon after I get a passport; I expect to send back cards that read "Greetings from FREE Toronto"!
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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(05-09-2017, 06:35 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: (05-09-2017, 05:50 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I think firing Comey might fall under the category of Trump doing something right.
Yes and no. Comey is not an Alt Right Ugly Green Toad.
Donald Trump may be an exuberantly loud fellow, bit he has his own code of silence.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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(05-09-2017, 12:20 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: (05-09-2017, 04:04 AM)Galen Wrote: (05-08-2017, 12:40 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: (05-08-2017, 11:45 AM)Cynic Hero Wrote: France has Just been subjected to globalist tyranny and Human Rights tyranny. A sad day for civilization.
And a great day for us boomers who want to impose human rights and globalism on the world! Yaaa Hooooo!
Go "Boomers" like Macron! ha ha
You do realize that Macron made his pile as a Rothschild banker? Which makes him one of the 1% that you despise so much.
But he's a socialist! That makes him equal. He just happens to be more equal than others, unlike the rest of that evil 1%.
Yes; well, a pro-business socialist. The French Bill Clinton; except he's not a boomer! It's what policies he enacts that will count, and what he can get done.
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05-10-2017, 10:53 AM
(This post was last modified: 05-10-2017, 10:54 AM by David Horn.)
(05-09-2017, 05:50 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I think firing Comey might fall under the category of Trump doing something right.
If it had come prior to his revelation about the ongoing Trump investigation, I would agree. Now, it looks remarkably like one more attempt by Trump that shows how he handles people who cross him in any way. Remember Preet Bharara? Or how about Sally Yates? This is similar in many ways to the Nixonian model of killing the messenger.
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(05-10-2017, 10:53 AM)David Horn Wrote: (05-09-2017, 05:50 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I think firing Comey might fall under the category of Trump doing something right.
If it had come prior to his revelation about the ongoing Trump investigation, I would agree. Now, it looks remarkably like one more attempt by Trump that shows how he handles people who cross him in any way. Remember Preet Bharara? Or how about Sally Yates? This is similar in many ways to the Nixonian model of killing the messenger.
The person Trump appoints to replace Comey will verify Trump's intentions. Unfortunately, Trump's record of appointees is not good. We'll see.
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(05-10-2017, 11:57 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: (05-10-2017, 10:53 AM)David Horn Wrote: (05-09-2017, 05:50 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I think firing Comey might fall under the category of Trump doing something right.
If it had come prior to his revelation about the ongoing Trump investigation, I would agree. Now, it looks remarkably like one more attempt by Trump that shows how he handles people who cross him in any way. Remember Preet Bharara? Or how about Sally Yates? This is similar in many ways to the Nixonian model of killing the messenger.
The person Trump appoints to replace Comey will verify Trump's intentions. Unfortunately, Trump's record of appointees is not good. We'll see.
It's hard to see how it will get any less ugly. President Trump loves yes-men even where such are least appropriate.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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In view of the generational cycle, I 'm beginning to think that President Trump is doing something positive, if without intention -- by showing how to do so many things wrong and to show the consequences of such, that he is setting up the next President -- someone better than any President since FDR (sorry, President Obama!) who gets away with being a great President in the time that quality matters more than partisanship and identity. The generational cycle can work that way. Maybe it took the forgettable figures of the time of the French and Indian War to set up the principled leadership of the American colonies on the eve of the American Revolution. Maybe it took the awful Presidencies of Fillmore, Pierce, and Buchanan to make Lincoln look good as a prospective leader. Maybe it took the twelve-year disaster of Harding/Coolidge/Hoover to make FDR presentable. Obama, good as he was, may have simply delayed the Crisis; he certainly was not the one to set up a Lincoln or FDR and he was not that great. Obama reminds me of the sort of leadership that a country usually gets after a Crisis is decisively over -- the mature Reactive like Truman or Eisenhower.
We have had a very good President sandwiched between two of the worst in American history (Dubya looks good in contrast to Trump, but that isn't saying much)... but even if we end up with an Obama-like President following Trump, we are likely to give him more of a chance than we as a nation gave Obama. That will be the difference between an Obama... and a Lincoln or FDR. Of course, if the political institutions that we have are ripped asunder and must be remade we might end up with another Washington. Obama's personality with the cloak of military success?
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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(05-09-2017, 03:21 PM)Galen Wrote: (05-09-2017, 06:35 AM)Odin Wrote: (05-09-2017, 03:57 AM)Galen Wrote: (05-08-2017, 06:47 AM)Odin Wrote: (05-06-2017, 11:50 PM)Galen Wrote: Libertarian thought does start with John Locke in the seventeenth century but it has evolved and still is evolving. Only you would have problems with people who base their political philosophy on the non-aggression principle. Still given how the peaceful the left have shown themselves to be this is to be expected.
The Non-Aggression Principle can simply be dismissed as naive nonsense, it's basically throwing up ones hands and going "why can't we all be nice to each other and sing kumbaya and everyone will be happy???", it's the domestic equivalent of naive pacifists carrying cute signs like "what if they ordered a war and nobody came?".
The non-aggression principle does allow for self-defense since it is the initiation of force that is disallowed. As usual you have failed to do even the most basic research.
Once again you missed the point since you think I was only talking about self-defense, I wasn't. There are a lot of situations where the initiation of force is necessary to stop a greater evil. Then again, IIRC you are one of those deranged Isolationists who think the US should have stayed out of WW2 and that Pearl Harbor was all FDR's fault, so I wouldn't expect you to understand that.
Considering the consequences of the embargo on Japan it is clear that Pearl Harbor was FDR's fault. I learned about all of this in a class on World War II history in the eighties and The Rising Sun by John Toland touched on the subject. His later book Infamy is devoted to just that subject.
I would have preferred that the US would have stayed out of the First World War which would most likely led to a more equitable peace and probably avoided World War II which was in many ways a continuation of World War I. It is worth noting that without US entry into that war both sides would have had to sue for peace and neither could have impose anything like the terms of the Treaty of Versailles since they were simply running out of men to throw into the trenches. It is also very likely that the German High Command would not felt compelled to send Lenin back to Russia and there might never have been a Soviet Union.
You might actually want to spend some time with actual history rather than the comic book version we all get from the public schools.
If Japan didn't want to be embargoed maybe it shouldn't have been engaging in an imperialistic war of conquest in China. So no, it is 100% not FDR's fault.
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