Politics thread (USA Elections 2016) - Page 67

On June 30 2017 19:24 VanDerMeyde wrote: Show nested quote + On June 30 2017 05:05 Baalim wrote: lol such a cheap bait to discuss with Drone but we've run out of ppl to argue with, VanDer isn't giving much to work with Some of us have a job. And my best arguments in this thread from Hitchens/ Sam Harris keep getting ignored from all the islamapologists anyway. As expected thou

You dont read posts, that is the problem, how can you call us islamapologists when I've said multiple times that mass migration is terrible idea, that the majority of muslims hold barbaric beliefs not compatible with the west and that it is by far the most destructive ideology of our time.

If you paid any attention you would realize the dangers of Islams have been acknowledged in this thread, however unlike you, we see that all the strife in the middle east caused by military intervention produces a hotbed for violence, naturally this radicalized them and now they want to see the demise of the west, and that more violence wont solve this problem

On June 30 2017 14:17 Liquid`Drone wrote: I really think he genuinely wanted to make the world a better place. I think he also wanted to make america an even better place than the rest of the world, but I'm sure someone as idealistic as you will agree that societal improvement is not a zero sum game.

Didn't you say the same about Obama?

Hitler was passionate about making Germany great and building an utopian society and Lenin pursued at all costs equality in its people so they could build a great nation.... but who cares the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

You excuse Obama's coward massacre of hundreds of thousands, selling billions of dollars to violent regimes, arming wars all around the world, all because he kind of "wanted a better world" and because there are forces in motion beyond his control so its all cool.

By the way... Angela Merkel just voted against gay marriage because she thinks "marriage is supoosed to be between a man and a woman"

HA!

On June 30 2017 14:25 Liquid`Drone wrote: I don't think pol pot being allowed/enabled to kill a quarter of the population of cambodia is an argument against intervening in other conflicts, even if it ends up looking hypocritical.

I mean't it as a counterexample to the view that the western nations support humanitarian intervention - something that is popular among academics today. I have no illusions that any country has good intent when it invades, except in very rare cases, vietnam's intervention in cambodia is one of the examples political scientists/IR scholars cite as humanitarian intervention-which I don't disagree with that it had a good effect, although I don't know what the intent was. Either way, the reaction from western nations gives evidence that we don't support humanitarian intervention in principle, otherwise we would have let Vietnam do it. (It was welcomed by the vast majority of the public).

I agree that the UN/America should have intervened in Rwanda, but they didn't really do that. I believe that some American lead interventions were morally justified, like east timor in 1999. But historians/textbooks portray it as humanitarian intervention, which is clearly false.

that is pretty ridiculous lol

and I think fdr was a genuinely great president. of course according to modern standards some of his views might be outdated and you can find examples of him supporting someone I don't but within political realities it's hard for me to see how he could have done a significantly better job.

I think Obama was good for american standards, even if I don't at all support his extended use of drones or sales of arms to oppressive regimes. I don't know what you're referring to when you say cowardly massacre of hundreds of thousands.

On June 30 2017 23:06 Liquid`Drone wrote: I think Obama was good for american standards, even if I don't at all support his extended use of drones or sales of arms to oppressive regimes. I don't know what you're referring to when you say cowardly massacre of hundreds of thousands.

And Edward Gein was pretty good for cannibal serial killer standards, but that doesnt make it admirable in any way.


And with cowardly massacre hundreds of thousands I mean 8 years of wars with Iraq, Afghanistan and invading Syria, Yemen etc... is that blood not on his hands?

I definitely don't think it's fair to blame him for iraq. I didn't know he invaded syria, what do you refer to by this? Obama is not to blame for the syrian civil war. I'm not gonna defend aiding saudi arabia's invasion of yemen but no, I don't think that blood is on his hands, and it wouldn't be in the hundreds of thousands either way. Afghanistan I don't know enough about to really comment on.. I think Obama's military involvements have largely been attempts at creating stability in regions destabilized by past american politics, and I'm not convinced that if obama upon entering office immediately withdrew all american armed forces stationed anywhere we would have a more peaceful world today.

stability is mainly used as a propaganda term from what I can tell. It's basically double think-in order to stabilize a country you need to destabilize it with drone strikes or w/e means are being used. It's commonly used by politicians and their pet IR scholars. It's quite clear drone strikes; apart from being straight murder, have a destabilizing effect on communities as they drive the survivors towards radicalism-and islamic fundamentalism is the closest form of radicalism that is available. Plenty of people report this. Jeremy Scahill is one journalist who reports it. It's pretty obvious that this would happen as well. If someone dropped a drone on my house I would be very angry and ready to find an outlet for it.

On July 01 2017 01:19 Liquid`Drone wrote: I definitely don't think it's fair to blame him for iraq. I didn't know he invaded syria, what do you refer to by this? Obama is not to blame for the syrian civil war. I'm not gonna defend aiding saudi arabia's invasion of yemen but no, I don't think that blood is on his hands, and it wouldn't be in the hundreds of thousands either way. Afghanistan I don't know enough about to really comment on.. I think Obama's military involvements have largely been attempts at creating stability in regions destabilized by past american politics, and I'm not convinced that if obama upon entering office immediately withdrew all american armed forces stationed anywhere we would have a more peaceful world today.

Well I suppose without "boots on the ground" its not an invasion, so lets change the world invasion for Coup d'etat attempt.

The narrative that "we cant just leave overnight" is bullshit, is along the line of "The 2 nuclear bombs in Japan saved lives because it didnt drag the war any longer" sure thing.

How can you say that with a straight face.. it has been 8 years and in the late years Obama increased the numbers of troops in Iraq and currently the pentagon wont even report to the public how many troops are deployed, it is painfully obvious that his administration never had non-interventionism intentions, which I thought you believe should be the general approach.

About the casualty numbers, its estimated that over a million people died since the start of the Iraq war, naturally most fall under George Bush i'm finding difficult to find Obamas exact number of casualties, what numbers do you have?... fun fact I found while searching... Obama dropped over 26,000 bombs in 2016... that means 3 bombs every hour.. 24/7, yeah such a good guy who wanted a better world!

665k died in iraq between 2003-2006 according to the most reliable study; I think by extension it is almost a million but I've never seen a study. I saw one say 1-2 million from the so called 'war on terror'.

Iraq's death toll rivals vietnam; but over a longer period of time. From the 1960's onwards America has killed perhaps 2-3million people in Iraq. 200k from the gulf war, 1.7million from sanctions in the 1990's. and close to one million from the 2003 invasion, (the studies vary, but its somewhere around one million.) Then there was military support to saddam in the 1980's, gassing kurds, and the iran-iraq war. Not sure what the number is there,

Probably the death toll from American Imperialism since 1945 is around 10million but i always undercount, i don't count structural violence and a lot of violence that is stage removed. (I've seen others say as high as 50million). I don't count it like people count Mao, they say he killed 28 million but it was through economic policy. (still totally immoral of course). I don't count America's violence through economic policy but it would be worse than Mao. I mean 100million people died in India since they gained Independence purely through adopting a more capitalist health care/agricultural system according to one study done by Amartya Sen. People don't like citing that though because it criticizes capitalism haha.

I'm actually pretty moderate in my criticism of American Imperialism.

Once i saw an estimate that euro-centric colonalism has killed about one billion people over the last 500 years.

On July 01 2017 02:21 Baalim wrote: Show nested quote + On July 01 2017 01:19 Liquid`Drone wrote: I definitely don't think it's fair to blame him for iraq. I didn't know he invaded syria, what do you refer to by this? Obama is not to blame for the syrian civil war. I'm not gonna defend aiding saudi arabia's invasion of yemen but no, I don't think that blood is on his hands, and it wouldn't be in the hundreds of thousands either way. Afghanistan I don't know enough about to really comment on.. I think Obama's military involvements have largely been attempts at creating stability in regions destabilized by past american politics, and I'm not convinced that if obama upon entering office immediately withdrew all american armed forces stationed anywhere we would have a more peaceful world today. Well I suppose without "boots on the ground" its not an invasion, so lets change the world invasion for Coup d'etat attempt. The narrative that "we cant just leave overnight" is bullshit, is along the line of "The 2 nuclear bombs in Japan saved lives because it didnt drag the war any longer" sure thing. How can you say that with a straight face.. it has been 8 years and in the late years Obama increased the numbers of troops in Iraq and currently the pentagon wont even report to the public how many troops are deployed, it is painfully obvious that his administration never had non-interventionism intentions, which I thought you believe should be the general approach. About the casualty numbers, its estimated that over a million people died since the start of the Iraq war, naturally most fall under George Bush i'm finding difficult to find Obamas exact number of casualties, what numbers do you have?... fun fact I found while searching... Obama dropped over 26,000 bombs in 2016... that means 3 bombs every hour.. 24/7, yeah such a good guy who wanted a better world!

I read the entire wikipedia article on 'debate on hiroshima-nagasaki bombing' and it actually made me go from being staunchly opposed to dropping them to thinking you know what, hiroshima was probably fair enough. (not nagasaki).
estimated casualties from a land invasion varied between 400k to 10 million japanese civilians, japan wasn't gonna surrender without being crushed, their empire was probably even more grotesquely anti-humanity than nazi germany was, and they had to a degree entered a 'massacre all civilians in occupied territories-phase' towards the end. Nagasaki is a different story, but I have not seen persuasive arguments that can convince me of a) japanese empire should have been allowed to maintain power or b) japanese empire was willing to surrender (in acceptable terms) without being inflicted massive casualties. I don't care about preserving american soldiers more than japanese civilians, but the analysis I've seen points towards dropping the bombs indeed lowering the civilian casualty numbers compared to a land invasion.

Now, WW2 is an entirely different beast. I understand that history is written by the winners, I'm not blind to atrocities committed by the allies during WW2, but WW2 did have a clear aggressor, and I'm incredibly happy the axis powers ended up losing the war because they were significantly worse than the allies.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_over_the_atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki)

And as for Iraq, Obama took power in 2009. He withdrew completely in december 2011, as per agreement signed by george w bush. Then IS started rising to power, and US troops started reentering the fray in 2014. I think that's fair enough and an attempt at damage control from earlier failed policies that were not his responsibility.

The thing is, I acknowledge that current world strife is largely caused by former and current imperialist actions of Europe and the US. However, I don't acknowledge that a complete withdrawal of troops everywhere is going to yield positive results. I don't acknowledge that there cannot exist a situation warranting a humanitarian military intervention. I don't think great societal improvement is possible on a short time frame, I think incremental improvement is the only thing politically feasible. And I see Obama as a marked improvement on US foreign policy compared to all his predecessors. Not even close to perfect, I have no defense of the amount of bombs dropped, nor the use of drones. I think the lack of american military casualties is very dangerous because it emboldens them to embark on more missions, and I'm very much negative towards expanding american military influence. I just don't accept that we live in a world where a complete immediate withdrawal from all regions of conflict, even if I principally support that, is politically feasible. I think Obama upon entering office genuinely had non-interventionism as his preferred policy and that political realities changed his attitude, sad as that might be.

What's your suggested solution to the rise of IS btw? Like, after the US first turned Iraq into a bigger shithole than it was during Saddam years, after they withdrew their troops, and when IS started occupying cities, how was Obama supposed to respond to that? Ignore it completely and hope the problem of extremist muslims attempting to establish a caliphate just goes away on its own?

And also like, I'm willing to accept that I'm kinda out of my depth here. I think the whole middle east situation is incredibly complex and difficult to grasp, and I'm not a scholar in this field. But my basic understanding leads me to believe that we're basically choosing between different options, all which will have significant negative drawbacks that are hard or impossible to predict with any reasonable accuracy, but that doesn't automatically make non-action the preferred way to go.

One area where I have absolutely no defense for the west however, and this targets Norway and all the norwegian parties that 90% of the population vote for as well, is the continued manufacturing and selling of all types of weaponry and ammunition. This practice strikes me as deeply immoral no matter how you slice it, as it proliferates conflicts and enriches us through human suffering.

Also, genuine question baal. Who is your favorite politician? Or just a couple that you respect and think would do good for the world? Current and historical are both appreciated. ;p I think it's very easy to be critical because there's always stuff to validly criticize, but politics, in democracies, is essentially about finding the solution that is achievable and the most palatable to the most people.

The politicians we know of are typically the worst human beings, to achieve power you usually have to conform to everything your PR person says. you are basically vetted by the priesthood, which is the mass media. If you call yourself a socialist or an anti-imperalist the media will denounce you, and you face an uphill battle of ever achieving power. The only thing you've got going for you is that the public is on your side.

There is no evidence to suggest there are any democratic countries in the world. In the US the 'solution' is finding what is most palatable to the richest people, and not most people. Huge amount of evidence supporting that in political science studies done by martin gilens and others.

On July 01 2017 03:54 Stroggoz wrote: mean 100million people died in India since they gained Independence purely through adopting a more capitalist health care/agricultural system according to one study done by Amartya Sen. Once i saw an estimate that euro-centric colonalism has killed about one billion people over the last 500 years.

I'm not the biggest of capitalism either, but this seems quite unfair as the only factors that would be evaluated are the oens that actually happened, while there is no way to predict the actual deaths which would ve been caused otherwise.

This sounds lame and is the exact mindset which the US uses when invading MId East countries while bringing them freedom, but it is different in this scenario.

Got any links to the study?

Super surprised that Merkel voted like that regarding gay marriages, the gay community in Germany is not a small one plus I heavily doubt that the polls were saying a vote with "No" would benefit her the most. This makes no sense to me at this moment.

On July 01 2017 23:43 Spitfiree wrote: Show nested quote + On July 01 2017 03:54 Stroggoz wrote: mean 100million people died in India since they gained Independence purely through adopting a more capitalist health care/agricultural system according to one study done by Amartya Sen. Once i saw an estimate that euro-centric colonalism has killed about one billion people over the last 500 years. I'm not the biggest of capitalism either, but this seems quite unfair as the only factors that would be evaluated are the oens that actually happened, while there is no way to predict the actual deaths which would ve been caused otherwise. This sounds lame and is the exact mindset which the US uses when invading MId East countries while bringing them freedom, but it is different in this scenario. Got any links to the study? Super surprised that Merkel voted like that regarding gay marriages, the gay community in Germany is not a small one plus I heavily doubt that the polls were saying a vote with "No" would benefit her the most. This makes no sense to me at this moment.

It's a comparitive study done by Jean Dreze and Amartya Sen in 1989, they looked at deaths in China and deaths in India, comparing structural violence of both political systems. The book is called hunger and public action. I think your point has some truth to it-you cant predict what would happen to a country if it went some other course. entirely. However in the study they claim that India/China had similar political systems in the 1940's (after independence), and developed their separate political systems since then. India happened to choose a political system that wasn't totalitarian, yet had very poor health care and infastructure. China went the path of totalitarianism, but had a far better health care system. Both political systems had mass deaths as a result of their choice, but India had a lot more deaths than Mao, counting the period from 1947-1980's.

On July 01 2017 10:42 Liquid`Drone wrote: Show nested quote + On July 01 2017 02:21 Baalim wrote:   On July 01 2017 01:19 Liquid`Drone wrote: I definitely don't think it's fair to blame him for iraq. I didn't know he invaded syria, what do you refer to by this? Obama is not to blame for the syrian civil war. I'm not gonna defend aiding saudi arabia's invasion of yemen but no, I don't think that blood is on his hands, and it wouldn't be in the hundreds of thousands either way. Afghanistan I don't know enough about to really comment on.. I think Obama's military involvements have largely been attempts at creating stability in regions destabilized by past american politics, and I'm not convinced that if obama upon entering office immediately withdrew all american armed forces stationed anywhere we would have a more peaceful world today. Well I suppose without "boots on the ground" its not an invasion, so lets change the world invasion for Coup d'etat attempt. The narrative that "we cant just leave overnight" is bullshit, is along the line of "The 2 nuclear bombs in Japan saved lives because it didnt drag the war any longer" sure thing. How can you say that with a straight face.. it has been 8 years and in the late years Obama increased the numbers of troops in Iraq and currently the pentagon wont even report to the public how many troops are deployed, it is painfully obvious that his administration never had non-interventionism intentions, which I thought you believe should be the general approach. About the casualty numbers, its estimated that over a million people died since the start of the Iraq war, naturally most fall under George Bush i'm finding difficult to find Obamas exact number of casualties, what numbers do you have?... fun fact I found while searching... Obama dropped over 26,000 bombs in 2016... that means 3 bombs every hour.. 24/7, yeah such a good guy who wanted a better world! I read the entire wikipedia article on 'debate on hiroshima-nagasaki bombing' and it actually made me go from being staunchly opposed to dropping them to thinking you know what, hiroshima was probably fair enough. (not nagasaki). estimated casualties from a land invasion varied between 400k to 10 million japanese civilians, japan wasn't gonna surrender without being crushed, their empire was probably even more grotesquely anti-humanity than nazi germany was, and they had to a degree entered a 'massacre all civilians in occupied territories-phase' towards the end. Nagasaki is a different story, but I have not seen persuasive arguments that can convince me of a) japanese empire should have been allowed to maintain power or b) japanese empire was willing to surrender (in acceptable terms) without being inflicted massive casualties. I don't care about preserving american soldiers more than japanese civilians, but the analysis I've seen points towards dropping the bombs indeed lowering the civilian casualty numbers compared to a land invasion. Now, WW2 is an entirely different beast. I understand that history is written by the winners, I'm not blind to atrocities committed by the allies during WW2, but WW2 did have a clear aggressor, and I'm incredibly happy the axis powers ended up losing the war because they were significantly worse than the allies. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_over_the_atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki) And as for Iraq, Obama took power in 2009. He withdrew completely in december 2011, as per agreement signed by george w bush. Then IS started rising to power, and US troops started reentering the fray in 2014. I think that's fair enough and an attempt at damage control from earlier failed policies that were not his responsibility. The thing is, I acknowledge that current world strife is largely caused by former and current imperialist actions of Europe and the US. However, I don't acknowledge that a complete withdrawal of troops everywhere is going to yield positive results. I don't acknowledge that there cannot exist a situation warranting a humanitarian military intervention. I don't think great societal improvement is possible on a short time frame, I think incremental improvement is the only thing politically feasible. And I see Obama as a marked improvement on US foreign policy compared to all his predecessors. Not even close to perfect, I have no defense of the amount of bombs dropped, nor the use of drones. I think the lack of american military casualties is very dangerous because it emboldens them to embark on more missions, and I'm very much negative towards expanding american military influence. I just don't accept that we live in a world where a complete immediate withdrawal from all regions of conflict, even if I principally support that, is politically feasible. I think Obama upon entering office genuinely had non-interventionism as his preferred policy and that political realities changed his attitude, sad as that might be. What's your suggested solution to the rise of IS btw? Like, after the US first turned Iraq into a bigger shithole than it was during Saddam years, after they withdrew their troops, and when IS started occupying cities, how was Obama supposed to respond to that? Ignore it completely and hope the problem of extremist muslims attempting to establish a caliphate just goes away on its own?

About he nuclear bombs, Japan was in internal turnmoil about surrender way before the bombs, when Russia was talking about declaring war to Japan it was said that the majority of japans generals were for surrender and as you mentioned, the second bomb was total proof that this wasnt an attack that tried to get minimal deaths of civilians, so this isnt an argument we should be having, the bombs were atrocities.

Also the nuclera bombs pale in comparision to the incendiary ones the US threw on the civilian populations, those were even more destructive and criminal, but you are right, the japanese were also maniacs probably worse than the germans in terms of disregard for human life.

Now, you keep saying that you dont believe total withdrawal from the region is the best course of action, but we aren't seeing a plan of establishing stable governments to take control of the region at all, what Obama did was continue the madness, again 26 thousand bombs in 2016 alone man, do you think thats how you stabilize the region to then withdraw properly? no.

So these people you support are not doing what you think its good for the region, they are doing exactly the same thing Bush did just with less men and more drones, there is no building or stability in the agenda at all and the results speak for themselves.

On July 01 2017 13:50 Liquid`Drone wrote: Also, genuine question baal. Who is your favorite politician? Or just a couple that you respect and think would do good for the world? Current and historical are both appreciated. ;p I think it's very easy to be critical because there's always stuff to validly criticize, but politics, in democracies, is essentially about finding the solution that is achievable and the most palatable to the most people.

Well, the strongest corrupting agent mankind know is power, and in general good hearted people do not seek power, so basically most government systems are unintentionally design to give power to huge assholes.

And sure these people have been tested like we will never be, and perhaps we would fail to make the rigth choices like they did, but I chose to judge on their actions and I am not impressed.


But to answer the question I'm sure there are many, although a tiny fraction of all the leaders throughout history I wish I could name a few but I would have to know much more about history than I do and also its hard to judge objectively leaders from the past since we are only as moral as our time allows us to be, but right now I can think of Marcus Aurelius emperor of Rome.