I see a lot of reflexive scorn, but no real refutation of Dave’s post.
Damn good post Dave. Sure you will get shit, but deep down they know you are right on about that. That’s what pisses them off.
But are they having an aneurysm yet? That seems to be the metric. 
Fuck metric! USA! USA! USA!
Why don’t you guys go out and shoot some cats with BB guns or something.
How dare you suggest such a thing, you cat-hating monster.
If we were to shoot cats, it would be with our banned “assault rifles” with 30 round banana clips, you dweeb. 
No, “assault rifle” is a valid term. “Assault weapon” is mush-headed leftist nonsense about pistol grips and bayonet lugs and things that are scary-looking.
So…is it still a “pile on” when its only a couple of guys and really, really lame?
Point taken.
I mean Bryan, not luci.
You should. Because the US doesn’t exist in an economic or geopolitical vacumn, and it can’t just shut its eyes and pretend the rest of the world doesn’t exist.
France put a serious cramp in our plans for Iraq early on. It was always a bad idea, but who knows how it may have turned out if other nations (besides the UK) gave it a veneer of international legitimacy and actually gave some real military aid. Who knows, maybe a larger joint force could have pulled the cockamamie thing off.
Chavez’s regime in Venezuela has real economic consequences for US interests. So does Iran and Saudi Arabia. They’ve got the oil, so the president has to hold hands with the prince of the barbaric absolute monarchy.
China pretty much has us by the balls, economically speaking. They own so much of our debt and make so much of our crap that we’re practically in a state of economic MAD with each other. Except they’re more populous than us and their state does have a disturbing history of letting their own people starve for ideological reasons.
And then there’s the terrorists, of course. Not just them, but the people who kinda sorta think they might have a point, and don’t so much support them but don’t raise a finger to help the US actually stop those guys.
So yes, it fucking matters what other people think about the US. It is in the best interests of the US to be friends to everyone, even if a particular act doesn’t immediately benefit us. It’s called diplomacy and we’ve got an entire cabinet position dedicated to it.
Nobody has claimed a pile on. Should that be hyphenated?
His post seemed like a whole lotta opinion to me. What refutation is there but more opinion?
I don’t know that much about global politics, but it doesn’t seem that unlikely to me that if the US were to isolate itself as much as possible, then India, China and Japan would completely control the stage in terms of global brainpower and maufacturing. I don’t know how well they would work together and I don’t know how big their non-US markets are but I find it hard to believe that the US is really so important to global survival that if we left the rest of the world would be fucked.
Also I couldn’t help but think of Ozymandias while reading Weirddave’s post.
Well, Dave makes a good point, and maybe somebody more well-versed than I should start a GD about “Should we take our ball and go home?” I mean from a hypothetical worldwide POV. The US has toyed with isolationism in the past.
Current political climate aside, it might be an interesting conversation. I am not sure it has been done before.
Then would it be fair to say that all the jeering responses are also unprovable opinion?
Which is precisely why it is so uninteresting, it may as well be metaphysics. No facts are offered, nor would any facts be relevent. It would be the political equivalent of “Is God A Homo?”
Yes. Didn’t I just say that?
Just making absolutely certain.
:eek:
I understand the words, but in combination, they baffle me. Metaphysics? Uninteresting?