Oh my god. They've done it. This takes all rights away. - by Outlooker
Matthew on 26/10/2006 at 19:54
Quote Posted by Dr Sneak
Well Munich in 1938 made things a lot worse than they had to be, who's fault was that?:rolleyes:
I'm afraid I don't quite follow what that rather sarcastic post had to do with mine.
Dr Sneak on 27/10/2006 at 00:41
Quote:
I'm afraid I don't quite follow what that rather sarcastic post had to do with mine.
What I mean is that US isolationism would have worked just fine if european states had stood together and kept their house in order.
SD on 27/10/2006 at 01:00
Yes, it's all Europe's fault for exposing the flaws in American isolationism :mad:
TheGreatGodPan on 27/10/2006 at 02:00
Quote Posted by Agent Monkeysee
Operation Sealion ring a bell? I don't think the UK had much choice in the matter.
Operation Sealion? The Operation Sealion that was never carried out? The one that wasn't planned out until both countries were already at war with each other? I don't see how that's relevant to either the U.S or U.K decision to go to war with Germany. Switzerland and Sweden declined to join in either disastrous world war, and their decisions seem have worked out pretty well.
Regarding treaties, a policy of isolationism precludes in engaging in many of them. This is more conducive to the liberty of our own country. George Washinton warned against entering into foreign entanglements, and John Quincy Adams did similarly, with his phrase "going abroad in search of monsters to destroy" fitting modern American foreign policy rather well. Striving for peace and trade with all countries used to be an American principle, but I suppose that's just not fashionable today.
lewrockwell.com isn't really a blog, although it does feature blog. I don't know if I'd say I "really like" it either, as it's of very varying quality. Ocassionally the affiliated mises.org site has to point out the idiocy of lewrockwell writers. That site has a blog as well I used to comment on but they banned me last week for calling a 9/11 conspiracy theorist an idiot, who cited a lewrockwell article for "proof", despite the writer's confusing of the acceleration due to gravity during free-fall and the speed of free-fall.
hopper on 27/10/2006 at 08:11
If your incongruous blather filter were on, that post would never have happened.
Matthew on 27/10/2006 at 08:32
Quote Posted by Dr Sneak
What I mean is that US isolationism would have worked just fine if european states had stood together and kept their house in order.
Further explanation required, I think.
Aja on 27/10/2006 at 08:40
Quote Posted by TheGreatGodPan
Striving for peace and trade with all countries used to be an American principle, but I suppose that's just not fashionable today.
Not since longer than any of us can remember. Communism ring a bell?
Dr Sneak on 27/10/2006 at 09:47
Quote:
Further explanation required, I think.
If England and France had taken a harder line against Hitlers land grabs prior to 1939 when he was militarily weak, it is possible that WW2 would not have happened at all or would have been on a far smaller scale. If that was so, the US would have never been involved at all and it stands to reason that the Cold War would have never happened either. We would still be a strong powerful nation today but our money and resources would be spent at home, not poured into aid or intervention elsewhere and no one would have anything to bitch about, plus whenever we intervene in a global conflict-we end up defeating one threat but creating another. We've been playing global games since 1945 and have never gained anything for our efforts but hostility and contempt .
Agent Monkeysee on 27/10/2006 at 15:51
Quote Posted by TheGreatGodPan
Operation Sealion? The Operation Sealion that was never carried out? The one that wasn't planned out until both countries were already at war with each other? I don't see how that's relevant to either the U.S or U.K decision to go to war with Germany. Switzerland and Sweden declined to join in either disastrous world war, and their decisions seem have worked out pretty well.
Oh come off it. Hitler didn't "plan" to invade Russia when he signed the non-aggression pact with Stalin but if you read the internal Reich documents it was plainly obvious that was the idea from the start. UK was on the chopping block in 1938, it's just that no one but Hitler's inner circle knew it yet.
Sweden and Switzerland are terrible examples. Sweden gave so many concessions to German troop movements and materiel that for all intents and purposes they were occupied. Switzerland was essentially the money-launderer for Nazi loot; there was no reason to invade a country that collaborated so closely with the regime. In addition neither country was a regional or imperial power. Hitler's plan was to take down every major player in the region; Lebensraum would have never worked without that step. That means France, the Soviet Union, and the
United Kingdom.
Regardless your views of "American isolationism" are ignorant fantasy. We were only truly isolationist when we were too weak to do anything, and arguably even then our expansionism West into Indian, French, Spanish, and Mexican territory was just as overbearingly aggressive as the Monroe Doctrine. Actually I revise that. It was goddamn Manifest Destiny, it was
contemporary with the Monroe Doctrine. Our foreign policy has been aggressive and hegemonic since 1803.
Our conduct in the Americas and the Pacific is a long, long history of imperialist intervention, toppled governments, and gross economic manipulation. Our "isolationism" has only ever applied to the European sphere; just as along as Europe stayed the hell out of our hemisphere. There was never EVER a time when we were content to sit on our laurels and trade passively with our immediate neighbors. The America you're describing has NEVER EXISTED.
BEAR on 27/10/2006 at 17:45
Wow, well I think that about settles it.
Nicely said.
