Well, he's being isolated. OK Cupid just cancelled his account and banned him for life, stating "there's no place for hate when you're looking for love."

Sadly, this isolationist retaliation can have no other effect besides forcing him to remain a hateful nazi, as no other group will accept him.
I hope people rethink that, he's not going away just because you wish he would, so the better option is to show him how wrong he is, which requires talking to him.

Foreign policy is about doing things favorable to your side. Since the west represents freedom, and we do things responsibly, we keep doing them.

You can't be an isolationist in this world.

You also can't equate their civilization with ours. Ours is better. I know that makes liberals nuts to say, but even Bill Maher is saying it now.

I don't support indiscriminate drone strikes. or anything else indiscriminate, but some collateral damage is going to happen. You can't prevent it. You have to be realistic about it.

Also, I can't believe that Chaos (appropo appellation there) has to play the race card. Most of our nukes used to be aimed at Russians, who are white, last time I checked.

Also, I don't believe the American people support drone strikes just because we get to kill 'brown' people. Ridiculous.

@SDGundamX

Thanks!

@shveddy

Bit confused since you say there's a point of no return at the end, but yes your argument is not really about that.

People not meeting their nutritional needs right now is not due to an under supply but due to general poverty. If sufficient employment and income existed in impoverished countries the world supply of food would be able to cope. As far as a lack of balance, see my earlier point about bringing people out of poverty, closing global income gaps and all sharing the available resources.

I don't think you could characterise any of the global conflicts in the past 100 years as being primarily due to resource scarcity. Perhaps Japan's aggression in SE Asia around WWII because of its lack of energy resources but that's an isolated case in the post-Depression era brought about by misguided isolationist economic policies. If you really want to prevent resource wars, your best bet is to be a staunch advocate of free trade.

Large countries have gone to war because of personalities, territorial ambitions and a general desire for power, not out of necessity because of scarcity.

As far as a point of population balance, that's entirely subjective. Like I said before, his bandying around of exponential is completely unfounded. Population growth is rising at a much reduced rate, proportionate growth relative to current levels is much smaller than in the 1950s during the baby boomer period.

When you say 20Bn as an example, I don't think you appreciate how much we're going to plateau. Have a read of:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2013/06/daily-chart-10

9.6Bn by 2050
10.9Bn by 2100

There is a good chance we will never hit anywhere close to 20Bn short of life enhancing technology which at this point doesn't exist. If we do, then I could equally argue we will invent technology that will reduce our individual resource needs dramatically.

Do I wish population growth was lower and there were more for each of us? Sure. Louis CK has a great bit on it. Agreed on women's rights and education, but as with everything it's correlated to societal poverty. You may as well kill two birds with one stone by just focussing on that. Every policy action has an opportunity cost, given what I've said, I would rather focus on something more pressing.

Given the long history of Haiti, an isolationist view is understandable. What has resulted from all the years and $$$$ of outside intervention? Haiti is still the poorest and most destitute nation in the hemisphere.

I agree with quite a bit of what you said, and I should have been more clear. Democrats for the most part do not acknowledge that Affirmative Action is not improving racial tensions. I haven't seen any credible reports that demonstrate it is helping. But they generally insist it is.

And it is a fact that the US military capability is significantly reduced when funding is cut by significant amounts. That may be an acceptable outcome for you, and if so, we can agree to disagree about differing opinions. I'm talking about the Democrats who often say to do it, and then pretend it won't have an impact on military capability. Cutting defense funding for example would have very likely precluded the US from taking Bin Laden out because it took a lot of resources that likely wouldn't have been available. Good chance we wouldn't have had the intelligence, the Seals personnel available to pull it off, basing rights necessary, etc. etc. That stuff gets conveniently forgotten. I'm fine with a disagreement about if more of an isolationist policy would be beneficial for the US, that kind of thing. But some liberals pretend they can have it both ways. We can have just as robust and capable military/intelligence unit with significantly less funding if it's cut too much.

That's the kind of thing I'm talking about. But I do agree with you - the definition of a conservative is narrowing to absurd proportions, and they're broadening the definitions of liberal, socialist, and communist. Obamacare isn't socialism, or communism. It's a few ticks to the left of what we currently have.

>> ^NetRunner:

>> ^heropsycho:
The only thing that proves is the Democratic party is more splintered, and the GOP is more disciplined. There are plenty of facts the Democrats flat out reject. One issue for example I'm against the Democrats on is Affirmative Action. I think it was a necessary instrument to force racial integration in the beginning, but now it's doing more harm than good. Affirmative Action doesn't seem to be doing a much good, and the cost is having whites constantly assuming a minority only got the job because of a quota, even when it's not true. Yes, there's still racism in the workplace and hiring, but Affirmative Action isn't the way to combat that any longer.
I think most in the Democratic Party are against cutting social safety net spending in the long run even though it is necessary. The cuts in military that would be necessary to prevent having to do that would result in a military that both the Democrats and Republicans would find unacceptable whenever the crap hits the fan. The Democratic Party does also seem to gloss over how bad social programs get gamed by those who don't truly need it.
Both sides are guilty of choosing the facts that suit them.
But, I will agree it's significantly worse on the GOP side. That's why I feel like they're pushing me to vote Democrat. You can call me a lot of things, but it's disingenuous to label me a liberal or conservative. But it seems that the definition of conservative is narrowing as it's pushed farther to the extreme right, and what is labelled liberal is ever expanding.
Obamacare as a perfect example - it's deemed to be an extremely liberal/Socialist policy, and I for the life of me can't see how. It's a very mild liberal reform. It's not the gov't option, or single payer. It's a few clicks to the left on the dial from where we were. Raising the top income tax bracket rate a few percentage points makes this country socialist? Please.
>> ^NetRunner:
At least you recognize there's some asymmetry, but "both sides" aren't guilty of the same thing.
It's sorta like saying punching someone in a bar, and committing murder are the same thing. Technically they are a breach of the same moral edict (don't harm people), but the difference of intensity is so large it puts them into qualitatively different criminal categories.
For example, can you name anything that's the left's equivalent to global warming denial?
Keep in mind, it has to truly be equivalent -- it has to be a belief contrary to an overwhelming majority of experts, and has to be believed (or denied) by virtually everyone who calls themself a liberal. Furthermore, it needs to be a core belief of the liberal movement. It needs to be an issue where saying the (heretical) truth about an issue could get you drummed out of the Democratic party and the broader political movement.
I can't name any issue like that. Can you?
>> ^heropsycho:
I'll agree it's more so on the right, but both sides are guilty of this.
>> ^NetRunner:
It's this kind of behavior from the right that really has me worried. It's one thing for people to be skeptical about information from a particular source, but what we're seeing from the right today is a blanket rejection of all information that comes from outside their own partisan network of sources.



Your two examples of "facts" liberals reject are actually opinions.
This is a statement of fact: "Hiring quotas are illegal in the U.S."
This is a statement of opinion: "I think it was a necessary instrument to force racial integration in the beginning, but now it's doing more harm than good."
And of course, some liberals agree with you. Possibly even several Democrats with seats in Congress.
My point is, conservatives frequently deny verifiable factual information, which is different from spin. Everyone "spins" for sure, but that's minimizing and rationalizing facts that seem to contradict a larger political argument. Conservatives are fond of simply denying the facts themselves.
Conservatives spinning global warming would sound like "Global warming won't be so bad, think of the boom in agriculture when you can grow bananas in Ohio!" Liberals denying the facts on Affirmative action would sound like "Affirmative action doesn't negatively affect any white people, and anyone who says otherwise is part of the vast right-wing conspiracy to reinstate slavery!"
And to your point about cohesiveness, some liberal somewhere saying something like that doesn't mean that liberals and conservatives should be considered equally guilty. Most liberals don't feel that way, whereas the cohesiveness of the conservatives means it's hard for me to find one who doesn't think global warming is some sort of hoax perpetrated for liberal political gain.
A big frustration for me as a self-proclaimed liberal is that I'm already a moderate in the middle. I'm not the left pole in hardly any political debate. And yet there are a ton of people (more in media than around here) who self-consciously try to position themselves "in the middle" by staking out positions to the right of me, and to the left of the Republicans. But doing that doesn't land you in the middle, it lands you way out on the right...because these days "liberal" just means "not a conservative", not that you're some sort of real left-wing ideologue.

conflations.
deflections..
and false equivalencies are all the dissenting arguments i am seeing.
and this is not due to me being a "leftist' and therefore not owning the ability to critically digest historical information and come to a conclusion.

someone spent 20 minutes to refute some of the data in this video only to find out the numbers were accurate BUT they did not reveal the specifics and hence the argument was invalid.
kinda like: "the yellow honda ran over a man today crushing his skull"
"HA! the car was GREEN"
"so it was but how does that change the fact the car crushed a mans skull?"

some have suggested that american interventionism is sometimes messy but usually a necessity.so while it may be complicated,sometimes america has had to do what the rest of the world would not.
this (falsely) implies that their is a thread of moral good when america attempts to straighten out an ugly situation in a foreign country and that sometimes,sadly,this leads to unintended consequences that may lead to blowback.
this is pure propaganda and i say this not because i hate my country but because if it were a true statement then america would be where ALL human rights,oppression and suffering under the hands of despotic governments resided worldwide.

see:rwanda,east timor,bangledesh there is a massive amount of places where america had a strict non-interventionist attitude.
and the reason is simple.those countries had nothing to offer,but our government seems to REALLY like working with dictators.easier to deal with one person who is friendly to american interests than a whole population that might (gasp/horror) have the ability to vote your interests down.so not only does america not give two shits about a country with no resources to exploit,they prefer despotic dictators and have installed them when necessary in the name of american interests.

war is always for the same things:resources,land and labor.now for thousands of years it was religion that was the driving force to get the average person to go out and slaughter but for the past 100 years it has been nationalism.

one last thing to address those who have mentioned alqaeda and what they post.
firstly:this has nothing to do with this video and is a false equivalency.
secondly:look up where alqaeda was on the FBI's most wanted list in 1999.look at who trained alqaeda,even funded them.notice anything?

so we can say vietnam was complicated.
ok..i can agree with that but lets remember it would have never even been issue if not for our government creating a false situation in which to enter vietnam in the first place.see:gulf of tonkin.
and again,has nothing to do with the premise of this video.

we can say muslims dont hate our freedom but rather they perceive us as immoral and decadent.
i would agree with that also if we were in the 1950's and the conversation was sayyid qutb and the muslim brotherhood but we are talking alqaeda which is the creation of the american intelligence CIA.
so it is america which created the complications we are speaking of.so whatever propaganda alqaeda uses now to recruit besides just pointing to us bombing the shit out of them is still indirectly a result of american interventionism.

neo-conservative ideology has nothing to do with being conseravtive but everything to do with using the massive might of the military to secure american interests globally.
might makes right.

lets also remember traditionally republicanism tended to be isolationist and faaar less hawkish.so ron paul is just being a traditional republican.of course now we live in bizzarro universe where everything is opposite so we have self-proclaimed republicans admonishing ron paul for ..what exactly? being a republican?
thats just weird.

and please understand that my points are not just some rage against america.i am not,by my commentary,ignoring the vast amount of good and noble things my country has done over the past 100 years or so but i also will not shut my eyes to what my countries foreign policy has done to so many small countries who happen to coincidently all be populated by brown people.

might i suggest:
chalmers johnson "blowback"
bryzenski's "the grand chessboard"
or the stellar book by john perkins "economic hitman"

maybe you will understand ron pauls position on these things.
/rant off

Where in there was a justification for global empire? We aren't debating words "the left hates." We're debating why we were attacked by a handful of radical folks. Further we're debating whether or not our military engagement, specifically since WWII, has been productive in any measurable way. Can you provide some examples?

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:

The only reason the Proglibdyte left is such a fan of Ron Paul is because he is a non-interventionist. The liberal left's vision of the ideal world is the United States giving all its cash - no questions asked - to the United Nations. At that point the US is supposed to sit down, shut up, and do whatever the UN orders them to do. Then - in the minds of the left - we will have world peace. RP would do about 90% of that by just being an isolationist. He won't give the UN any money, but the left will settle for the US just shutting down all its involvement (especially military).
But American Exceptionalism is not jingoism or arrogance. It is a quick way to summarize the American spirit of enlightened self-interest combined with personal freedom and entrepreneurism. The liberal left hates to admit it, but the US Constitution, economy, and position in the world was no accident of chance or random luck. Our constitution was a model to the rest of the world. Our freedoms and way of life still make us the envy of just about everyone. People still want to come here in droves to escape oppression, poverty, and intolerance. America was innovating, inventing, testing, and producing when the rest of the Western world was literally standing still. This is not arrogance or snootiness. It is just fact. American Exceptionalism summarizes this - and apparently makes Proglibdyte leftists squeal like stuck pigs when they hear the words.

The only reason the Proglibdyte left is such a fan of Ron Paul is because he is a non-interventionist. The liberal left's vision of the ideal world is the United States giving all its cash - no questions asked - to the United Nations. At that point the US is supposed to sit down, shut up, and do whatever the UN orders them to do. Then - in the minds of the left - we will have world peace. RP would do about 90% of that by just being an isolationist. He won't give the UN any money, but the left will settle for the US just shutting down all its involvement (especially military).

But American Exceptionalism is not jingoism or arrogance. It is a quick way to summarize the American spirit of enlightened self-interest combined with personal freedom and entrepreneurism. The liberal left hates to admit it, but the US Constitution, economy, and position in the world was no accident of chance or random luck. Our constitution was a model to the rest of the world. Our freedoms and way of life still make us the envy of just about everyone. People still want to come here in droves to escape oppression, poverty, and intolerance. America was innovating, inventing, testing, and producing when the rest of the Western world was literally standing still. This is not arrogance or snootiness. It is just fact. American Exceptionalism summarizes this - and apparently makes Proglibdyte leftists squeal like stuck pigs when they hear the words.

Precisely. Christians are called to contributing members of society, and to do good works whenever possible. Not to be isolationists and pine away from the second coming. Our hope is in Jesus Christ, but until He returns our life is here on Earth doing His will.

>> ^Morganth:
At least for Christianity, Hitchens is really arguing against a minority position. This "screw the world, we want the apocalypse so we can go to heaven" mentality is a small portion and has not been the historical position of Christianity. This came about with American dispensationalism in the mid-19th century, where it's still confined to today so it's not only the minority position in Christianity, but also American Christian denominations. These are the churches that sadly ignore the fact that a lot of Jesus' ministry included feeding and healing the poor and outcast. These are people who ignore what Jesus said - that the law could be summed up with "love God and love your neighbor as yourself." In practice, these are the churches that never help their communities because they have an Us vs. Them mentality. Churches that say, "Screw you, go to hell" totally missed it. What did Jesus say about your enemies? Love them. Jesus asked God to forgive his murderers as he was dying a torturous death.
Hitchens is arguing against the minority position.

Couple of points in this that are absolutely laughable.

If the gov't can't borrow money, would it continue to function? Yes.
Would it require we immediately cut defense funding overnight, completely withdraw from Afghanistan and Iraq? Yes.
Would we have to become isolationist? Yes.
Would it destroy the US economy pretty quickly? Yes.

Look, even if you're a deficit hawk, if you actually understand economics, you'd know that even if you wanted to transition all gov't expenditure to pay as you go, you can't do it overnight. It's the economic equivalent of throwing someone suffering from hypothermia into a sauna to warm them back up.

The president has gone back on some of his promises like torture, etc. How in the hell is that of any relation to lowering the credit rating of the US gov't?! Yeah, Obama, just like every president in US history, lied, and that means that the national debt, which couldn't be paid back even in this decade, will never be paid back because of Obama, even though Obama would have been out of office for decades before those debts are paid. Why did creditors trust Bush after WMDs weren't found? Why did they trust Clinton after lying under oath about his affair? Why trust Bush Sr. after the "read my lips" gaffe? I think I know why. BECAUSE THEY WEREN'T RELEVANT TO THE US GOV'TS ABILITY TO PAY BACK DEBT!

The above clip is common sense? No, it's narrow minded partisan hackery with a large dose of absolute ignorance of economic policy, regardless of your ideology.

@NetRunner this wall of text of mine was not to defend that teacher but rather to get some answers for some questions I had about MaxWilder's post. But to clarify my stance, using your numbers:

1. Completely agree with you.
2. Completely agree with you again, that is called terrorism iirc.
3. In principle you are absolutely correct. Here though I don't see the implied notion that it is ok as there is not enough context to know how the lesson was and what words were used. If there is a source that I have missed regarding this that shows that he, the teacher, advocates it I will then of course condemn the man/his actions.

I am pro-Obama for the record, I believe he was the best president you could get at the time. If he was assasinated it would be a great loss for not only the US but the world as he has brought the US away from being so isolationistic. If McCain had won you would probably be in 3 wars now and since he is old and frail he might have died in office and I shudder in fear at the notion of Sarah Palin with nuclear launch codes. But then again global warming would probably not be a threat anymore as we would have a nuclear winter to worry about instead but that is off topic...

*edit for trying to get a fubar'ed quote to work. Doesn't seem to work for some reason... maybe it is the @ above that does it?

>> ^NetRunner:

@<a rel="nofollow" href="http://videosift.com/member/LarsaruS" title="member since December 27th, 2009" class="profilelink">LarsaruS you went into wall of text mode to defend a teacher who wanted to give a geometry lesson about how to assassinate the President.
Here's a list of reasons why there's a fuss, since you think this is totally defensible.

1. Killing people is bad
   
2. Using violence to influence politics is bad
   
3. Teaching a bunch of kids that 1 and 2 are actually okay by implication is bad
   

You seem to be implying that if we don't fight military scrimmages abroad that we're isolationists. But, it's not like we wouldn't be trading with nations abroad.

Refusing to ever deploy your military abroad is isolationist. Tell me, exactly what kind of help were we able to offer civilians in Afghanistan through trade? We couldn't even give free schools away without the requirement that girls be barred from attending.

It's not ignoring genocide when our interventionism may stop that 1% of the time, and cause needless destruction and death the other 99% of the time.

And it's not stopping genocide by criticizing the 1% of interventions that actually have done some good for our world.

The very simple fact of the matter is this: nothing we do in Afghanistan, militarily, will make things better for the people of Afghanistan.

You are forgetting to include Pakistan in your assessment. As I pointed out in my previous post, there is far more at play than Al-Qaeda having a safe haven in Afghanistan. The problem is the influence of Islamic jihadists being allowed to fester and grow in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. They aren't only our enemies, they are equally the enemies of all moderate muslims.

The war in Afghanistan is showing huge progress in marginalizing these extremists. Afghan civilians haven't seen much improvement yet. Without a continued military investment from the UN, they face another civil war when we leave. The Taliban will without a doubt come back in force and it's doubtful the ANA can win against them. It most certainly will be a close enough thing that there will be a lot more blood than there is now. And if the Taliban triumph, the blood will continue to flow for awhile as the 'consolidate' their position. That sounds bad, alot like what you've been saying I suppose. Disagree with the assessment if you wish, but please point out details.

Pakistan is a much better story. Before the war in Afghanistan, the extremists had support within Pakistan's government, all the way to the top. They were using that influence and power to crush and suppress the moderate majority. Today, they are recognized throughout Pakistan as an enemy to the country, rather than just another part of the tapestry. I claim that as a positive gain. The Pakistani people and military are actively routing out and defeating the extremist militants and are claiming victory in many regions the government was never able to operate before. That is a positive gain. There are even editorials appearing in Pakistani papers criticizing their own intelligence agencies for not matching the success of the hated American drone attacks. The hate for the drones is more nuanced than any western media protrays it. The majority of Pakistani's hate the affront to Pakistan's sovereignty they represent. At the same time, they don't mourn the deaths that result, they actually have begun to cheer them. Over the last 6 months in particular several leaders known to have encouraged suicide bombings throughout Pakistan have been taken out by the drones. The Pakistani people are themselves claiming that as a major positive gain, so I feel comfortable to do the same.

I've given here many positive gains that I claim are a direct result of America's intervention and influence in the region. Tell me were it's wrong, and explain why simply ignoring the situation is better.

@bcglorf

I don't like the term American isolation. You seem to be implying that if we don't fight military scrimmages abroad that we're isolationists. But, it's not like we wouldn't be trading with nations abroad. So, let me get this straight: trading with them but not fighting with them is an isolationist position? Fighting with them whether you're trading or not is... good?

I don't buy that.

It's not ignoring genocide when our interventionism may stop that 1% of the time, and cause needless destruction and death the other 99% of the time.

White Americans enjoy getting themselves fired up over anything remotely resembling racism because they want to use every opportunity to scream, "I'M NOT RACIST! SEE?!" They're constantly apologizing for their ancestors' actions.
>> ^Raaagh:

It's disappointing to see the Americans fire up, because it seems isolationist and self-centered to pressume this certain strain of cultural poison that is endemic in their own country, must be endemic everywhere else.

>> ^dag:
I think the fried chicken stereotype could apply to anyone of very dark complexion here in Australia. I have heard it used towards aborigines here.


In my 29 years in Australia, I have never heard the Fried Chicken thing applied to aussie aborigines.

The ad plays on the "exhuberance" of the West Indie crowd (they go off with drums and music at the cricket): he is able to settle them down with yummy product - which happens to be chicken. It's not a play on the American stereotype, the ads are too stupid to be that clever (I've seen others in the campaign).

I'm shocked people are even making the link, as that requires you to equate the Native Americans in the West Indies, with the African Americans in America. They are separate population/culture/country, so it seems you could only do such a ludicrous equation on the basis of skin colour. And Im not being trite, but that would be racist.

It's disappointing to see the Americans fire up, because it seems isolationist and self-centered to pressume this certain strain of cultural poison that is endemic in their own country, must be endemic everywhere else.

And it does seem silly to see Aussies fire up. Just because the KFC thing is not present in any meaningful way here.

Its like getting up in arms about an advert which shows a man patting a child on the head, because in parts of Korea its considered an insult ("you are lower than shit" IIRC)

Regardless, have you guys seen the other ads? they are fucking terrible. I hope the entire terrible campaign gets pulled.