We burned down Toronto. Wanna have a contest to see which country can repeat their feat of destruction faster? 
Oh, well why didn’t you say so? Hey guys, it’s okay, because there won’t be a lot of bloodshed. Only a little bit. Can’t make an omelete without breaking eggs, right?
Just out of curiousity, how much is okay before we get to “a lot”? One person? Just a stray bullet, a warning shot really, and we can ignore the guy’s son crying himself to sleep at night.
Or maybe a few hundred people? What’s one little skirmish, in the grand scheme of things? Sure, we’ll have to divert some funds to pay for the funerals and memorial services, but that shouldn’t be a problem with your new burgeoning joint economic model.
How about a few thousand? I mean, it’s just a tiny battle. A little flareup before the dust settles. No big deal, really, and we can all go home in time to watch the Simpsons.
How many people does it take, Aeschines, before it becomes wrong? How many mothers will lose their sons, how many sons will lose their fathers, how many husbands will lose their wives?
How many people have to die before the people of Earth cry out as one, “This must not happen again.”? Look at history. It is brimming over with instances of one culture dominating another. And yes, I know you say this is an integration, not a domination, but Communism looked good on paper too. Consider that reality is always far grittier, and dirtier, and more disgusting than the glowing goals we craft for ourselves. Consider that someone’s going to get power hungry. Consider that someone, a lot of people in fact, will take it personally. “Live free or die” isn’t just for us US’ers, you know.
How many times must we delude ourselves? How many more lives will be lost in senseless violence? How many more rivers of blood will drench the earth, how many more people will die on their knees, staring into the barrel of a gun, before we learn to solve our problems instead of blowing them away?
I dunno, you say clairobscur reflects French existentialist fatalism by reminding us that WE won’t be around in 100 years anyway, but it seems to me that YOU are the radical pessimist, who believes the coming change will be for the worst unless we step in and actively steer it in the direction of preserving and expanding the “native” French or Anglo-American culture/society as-we-know-it.
For all we know, a couple of steps ahead in the evolution of our national cultures, after maybe a century of transitional pains, dead ends, and bad mistakes, ther appears something that goes on to further greatness and achievement, save that for what we now call USA it goes under the name “Unión Americana”. Or maybe we just move, spent, to the back benches and leave the spotlight to someone else, like the vast majority of empires and hegemonic nations of the last 4,000 years. What, we expected to be “It” for the rest of human history?
I should, as an aside, point out that the political culture of Mexico needs reform. The people and the government both cry out for it, to the point where they hired Rudy the G-Man for reform aid.
We, the US, should help them help themselves. If it requires police assistance, we should work with them to help them clean up their country. As a brother. But we shouldn’t force them to do it.
THERE WAS NO CANADA IN 1812. The British burned the White House. That would be like the US saying we beat the French, because the British Empire beat them in the French and Indian War.
Yeeaggh I hate when someone brings up that “we burned the whitehouse” crap
Unless the person saying this is British and over 200 years old it is A) Wrong and B) Pointless.
British Marines Burned the Whitehouse. If I recall they weren’t even Marines stationed in Canada but ones on loan from the end of the Napoleonic wars, which the War of 1812 was an extension of.
It has nothing to do with anything… sheesh. There are much more exciting and better examples of Canadian Military achievements without drudging up this “fact”
Well I am sure glad at least Neurotik has a sense of humour.
I just hate, hate, hate it when Canadians say this. Hate it.
The White House was burned down in the War of 1812 by British troops. You taking credit for Canada doing it is exactly the same as an American saying that the United States won the Battle of Stalingrad.
Here we are trying to dispel the ignorance of someone who thinks we sponge off U.S. defence spending - and you’re claiming a military victory for us that was won by another country.
Yeah but he’s being humourously wrong. That’s ok. :dubious:
Yeah. He was blowing off my point by saying, “Well, we’ll be dead.” That’s just a cruddy attitude in my book.
I didn’t call clairobscur a
“pessimist”; I called him a fatalist. Those are two entirely different things. A fatalist is someone who gives up; a pessimist is someone who assesses a situation negatively.
I’m not even a pessimist. I think the current US foreign policy, among other things, has put our country into an arc of decline. I think a better foreign policy, along with some other things, could put us back on the right track.
You are right. I am talking about adapting so that we continue to create the future–a moral, peaceful, just and prosperous future. I am not interested in power for power’s sake.
People in this thread are focusing on the “naughty” side of my idea. I’m going to take away those poor Mexicans’ sovereignty!
But look at what else I’m saying: We will take a much poorer country under our wing with a commitment to helping them achieve our level of prosperity. We will give them the rule of law. We will reduce the exploitation of the poor. We will exchange their pesos for dollars. We will let Spanish and their culture become and even bigger part of our own culture.
And I think doing so is, in the long term, the best way to preserve our own culture and prosperity.
I applaud your humanitarian stance and largely agree with you. But hear me out.
Suppose through a perfectly legal (in terms of both US and Mexican law) process, the annexation was effected. You are OK with that thus far, right?
But suppose at the same time people rebelled and started fighting over the thing. Mexico already has the Zapatista rebels in the south, anyway, so the US would inherit some kind of war or another. So yes, some level of bloodshed would be necessary, no doubt about it.
A lot of the wars going on in Latin America are not really about politics, anyway. War is simply the job of the thugs waging it: The drug lords, kidnappers, eternal guerillas. Sure, if the US annexed a Latin American country, those types and other sincere and semi-sincere types would make a career out of bitching about it and fighting against it.
That’s just human nature.
Would any be yours? Or are you a graduate of the chickenhawk school of foreign policy?
Sorry, I think you’re wrong in a basic factual way. Both North America and South America (as the names indicate) were always recognized as “America.” The United States of America was meant to distinguish that political entity from others in the hemisphere.
I don’t agree. We’ve continued to admit new states from the very beginning, including those that were once part of Mexico. Is California somehow not treated as the the equal of New York?
I like our flag. I guess we really disagree. I think the US has not just a great constitution and legal system, it’s also a great brand and has a great story and history behind it. And it’s flaws as well, past and future, but I certainly don’t think we need to toss out what we’ve got and create a generic “Friendly Empire.”
Fine-tuning is indeed necessary, but…
No, please no.
No doubt. I decry exploitation in the US as well, but being given Wal-Mart-level wages and benefits (slight as these may be) would be a tremendous step up for most Mexicans. That’s why they’re running over here to begin with, and most illegals do not get even as good treatment as Wal-Mart offers.
I think it is slightly an apples and oranges thing. If Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire were their own little country, they would beat the US average too. You can talk about the dynamite Singaporean economy, when it’s really just one small city.
I feel, and most Americans I think feel, that the border between Canada and the US is an artifact of history and completely arbitrary at this point. We are essentially the same culture, the same people. I think it’s absurd to say that Canada is the “greatest nation” in the hemisphere. It has not risen to the same challenges as the US, has been coddled by two empires throughout its short history, and has not the same number or level of accomplishments under its belt.
Sure, US defense policy since WWII has been a grabbag of smart and stupid, effective and ineffective. But there was at least some base level that was necessary to preserve order in the world. Beyond that, we can argue about what the West should have done about the commies. Viet-Nam? Big failure. But a strong defense to counter Soviet Bloc aggression? I think Reagan was basically on the right track.
I’m not saying Canada was doing anything wrong. But praise for its nice social programs and orderly society must be combined with an understanding of its geographical, political, and historical peculiarities.
Yes. We share the same common law. The US came from the UK.
And Canada has provinces; we have states. And so on. It’s not as though Canada has dictators, caliphs, etc. Basically similar, polically and culturally.
Yes, and between Quebequois and British Columbians, between New Yorkers and Los Angeleans, etc. etc.
But similar to certain large segments of the US, and vice versa. Sam Stone is from Canada but seems like a regular ole (well-spoken) US conservative.
Oh yeah. Canada is more liberal and intelligent than the US average. Good for you. I can understand your not wanting to deal with our SCs, but please be annexed by us and help us raise our mean, OK?
Right, because you get the best of both worlds. You get the benefits of the US fighting for oil and whatnot, but also get to deride the US for being a bully.
Funny, but it’s the preventing of conflict by US might that is of real benefit to you.
Riiight, and if I think the US should prevent genocide in Darfur (I think it should), then I have to enlist tomorrow, right?
I’m not even advocating a military action. I’m simply saying that there will inevitably be someone pissed enough about a 100% legal and non-violent annexation to kill over it.
Genocide in Darfur = illegal immigration in the USA?
“… shall we go on conferring our democratic civilization on the peoples that sit in darkness, or shall we give those poor things a rest?” Mark Twain
You dodged the point. If I support any military action, am I required to enlist in the military?
As for Twain’s comment, I think there are some nations that can profit from a helping hand, and others that can’t.
Actually YOU dodged the point by using a ridiculous comparison.
So its first Mexico, then Guatemala, then Honduras and before you know it you’re at Tierra del Fuego?
It’s not a comparison at all, actually.
You threw out some words, implying that if one advocated a military action (or in this case, a political initiative that could result in bloodsheed), then one should be willing to die for that cause.
I say that’s bullshit. And I doubted whether you thought we all had to be willing to die for the noble military causes we support.
Answer the above if you will, or no.