Or rather it has to do with Russia and the Brics trying to subvert the dollar, not war. Not to mention, there's no way it would get cut off from the west at this point, if only in political rhetoric. Nordstream and Southstream kicked Washington in the balls at every turn, to the point where they're almost dropping their intentions.
Next, the west has a shit ton of money invested in the Russian stock markets. Their stock markets rebounded back to previous levels a few weeks after the sanctions.
It's certainly not that Putin needs to suppress dissent from his own people. It's a very small minority in Russia that would like Putin removed.
Now, if we're talking about the west investing x billion in "democratic institutions"(Ukraine, anyone?), it makes some sense for Russia to isolate itself. Obviously, it's easy to paint Russia as evil, but the cold war is over, buddy.
That's hilarious. People in Russia support Putin exactly because there are virtually no free mass media. This is one of the latest steps to block access to all media channels that may oppose Russian cleptocratic government.
don't always believe what you read here, there are a lot of Russians who want to relive the glory days, real or perceived. Just because we in the West don't like him doesn't mean much to them, if anything it might bolster his image there.
plus, considering what our President(s) do/done where do we have room to brag/gloat? I cannot find those news articles where Putin is using drones to kill his citizens abroad.
This is spot on. Russians had a ton of structure for ~70 years, then one day all of that disappeared. Outside the big cities, things did kind of go to shit for a long time, with many youth addicted to drugs or simply jobless and desperate. This led to a rise in extreme nationalism among the youth, who pine for the "good old days" when Russia was a global superpower.
You know those racist, alcoholic rednecks in Alabama who fly confederate flags, praise Jesus and love America? Russia has a lot of those. Except the government actively encourages their insanity, because redirecting their furor at outside forces (Ukraine/Crimea, US, the EU, etc) distracts from the kleptocracy that runs the country and has quietly been consolidating wealth and business ownership into the hands of a very small group of oligarchs. Putin is a hero to these guys; he projects a nationalist ideology onto the global stage, where Russia is the bully that gets its way.
Not saying the US doesn't do its share of geopolitically shady crap (NSA spying, etc) but it never reached these levels of crazy. What Russia and Putin are doing is very reminiscent of Nazi Germany, and not in a "they're acting line Nazis" kind of way. By promoting the dangerous idea that "ethnic Russians" in other countries need protection, it elevates that nationalism to the point where it can be used as a context for an invasion of a country. Never mind that the idea of "ethnic Russian" could apply to any person living in a country that was formerly part of the USSR.
Just to make it clear, I don't disagree with your first two paragraphs regarding nationalism and alcoholism, but your apologetic attitude for the US is somewhat worrying.
Except for Ukraine, which is a controversial subject, when was the last time Russia directly threatened a sovereign nation and overthrew their governments?
Now, how about the US in the last 14 years - Iraq, Afghanistan, Venezuela, Haiti, Gaza Strip, Somalia, Iran, Lybia and Syria. Does that not come off as "crazy" to you?
EDIT: oops, sorry. Forgot Yemen and Pakistan, against whom there is no official declaration of war either.
Except for Ukraine, which is a controversial subject, when was the last time Russia directly threatened a sovereign nation and overthrew their governments?
What did Russia in Georgia with Abhazia and South Ossetia? How about Republic of Moldova where Russia still holds a standing army with no legal status? (It's the former 14th USSR army, which just happen to remain on the Moldova's territory after the fall of USSR, but to submit to Moscow nevertheless, and which was/is being used to support the so-called Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, BTW.)
P.S.: Please, don't use USA's action to justify Russia. If crimes are being committed by someone somewhere doesn't mean that a crime are no longer a crime.
You are right - we overthrew Iran's government way back in the 1950s, not recently. Their president was a popular moderate (a medical doctor I think). Then we forced the Shah of Iran on the Iranian people.
In my lifetime I believe that we have tried to overthrow 30+ governments around the world when in the interests of America's financial elite.
Do you know what I consider patriotism to be? It includes admitting things that we did wrong and try very hard to do better in the future.
This whole thread started from "US does more bad things than Russia, just look at recent history." You can't start tossing things that the US did in the 50's on the table, and not do the same for Russia. The whole point (as I see it) of the "in the last 14 years" qualifier is that we're talking recent history. It's disingenuous to dredge up things from much further into the past.
It was also a different time period with different considerations. Now I'm not being an apologist for this stuff, but I would say that similar actions in the more recent past have much less justification, even if you are someone that buys into the "Domino Effect" defense from the Cold War-era.
Or other information about Russian atrocities in that war. (The whole point with drones is that they are pinpoint attacks, with relatively low civilian casualities.)
And USA is a tempering influence, re Gaza. Consider what would happens if Finland or a Baltic country used rocket artillery against St Petersburg? No, better to not consider that... (shudder.)
1) That was not what I was doing. He was comparing Russia and the U.S. in the last paragraph, so it was very relevant.
2) If we're talking about atrocities, let's talk about 100,000 casualties in Iraq.(most conservative estimate). Additionally, 2,400 dead from drone strokes. Most, if not all, without due process in Pakistan and Yemen.
3) Tempering influence? Are you serious? Is it tempering to overthrow governments and install new ones while denationalizing oil contracts? I heard Lybia's a democracy now and not a shithole.
U.S. is just as bad as Russia. Your time of being the beacon of light and democracy is gone.
>>Tempering influence? Are you serious? Is it tempering to overthrow governments
"Tempering influence" was specifically about Gaza.
But you know that.
>>100,000 casualties in Iraq
First, let me note I am not defending the Iraq invasion. Not because I cares about the rights of evil juntas, but because it was so badly managed it even increased the suffering.
Second, those in Iraq were mainly killed in a civil war by people also trying to kill Americans. It is not trivial to blame Americans for that...
I think you know that, too.
About drone strikes -- both the Pakistani and Yemeni governments accepted them. In Pakistan unofficially, because the extremists targets polticians/media/etc with the "wrong" opinions.
I think you know that, third...
Etc.
Edit: I might add that I'm not American. Please keep personal attacks relevant at least, propagandist.
I think you're painting everything black and white here. I'm Russian, I have no TV at home, I get all my news from reddit and twitter, and I still support Putin, though I don't like him a lot. You're right about mass media, but that doesn't mean you can't have sources of information you like. Russia is not North Korea.
Putin brought quality of life in Russia to a pretty nice level, and he keeps doing it, and a lot of people like that. And I see no point in becoming involved in protest movement and revolution rage. We all saw what happened to our neighbour, we need evolution, not revolution.
Just like it was the russians in Odessa that burned all those people alive? Please.
Russia barely supports anyone in the east. Even NY times(the newspaper that was fully pro Iraq war) went in, talked to the separatists and found out they're just pro federalization.
Your blind hate for Putin is apparent. You'll start blaming earthquakes in Oklahoma on him soon.
I have a good friend who is an Israeli citizen and he has been complaining for the 20 years I have known him that his country's politics are so warped by the people he calls 'the rich American assholes' (like AIPAC) who fund the right wing in Israel that sometimes his country does not seem to be such a good democracy. Imagine a whole lot of external money being injected into the politics of your country - you would probably not like it either.
As for my country, the USA: we are certainly a democracy but there is so much cheating via gerrymandering, etc. that I feel like we have lost something very precious since the end of the second world war when our financial elites started to step up their game.
Why should I define democracy, chemical entropy or anything else which I am not an expert on -- and lots of academics have put much time and energy into defining?
Look up democracy index and freedom index on wikipedia, which I referenced.
Russia has fallen a lot further on the central ones of those, as I wrote. I asked if that ALSO was a Western conspiracy, which the Russian media are full of.
The POINT was -- the paid Russian propagandists aren't allowed to write that. They mostly go away.
It seems the whole internet quality suffers, not only HN, from those Russian astroturf trolls in most languages.
(Israel is not only beside the point -- as I've heard it described, if you put three Israelis in a room you'll find at least four hard opinions on most any subject. :-) The same goes for the media. In general, democracies put under pressure from terrorism aren't pretty: By definition, terrorism scares the voters. That results in that the governments throw out the law books, because they want to get reelected. See Germany, USA, Italy, Israel, Britain, etc.)
So you refuse to criticize the Putin junta for being non democratic? Thanks, that is all I need for an opinion about you.
[I guess it is time for you to use another account to lower the HN quality? :-( A quick browsing through your comment hostory is mostly USA criticism and pro-dictators, mainly Russia. Very little to none of programming or development. ]
How is the weather in Moscow, by the way? (St Petersburg? Some military base somewhere?)
>That's hilarious. People in Russia support Putin exactly because there are virtually no free mass media.
That's BS. They support him because he is not a bloody puppet like Yeltsin and co, and the alternatives are worst.
He might support cronyism, but that's nothing compared to selling your country wholesale to the highest western bidder, like a sorry excuse of a lackey.
Russians prefer a cleptocratic government with Putin than a cleptocratic government without Putin. There are no non-cleptocratic governments in the world. Power corrups ... you know the rest of this, right?
Just stop this craptastic argument of "every government is the same". Another favorite argument taken directly from putinbots social media guidance.
And stop using strawman arguments. No government is perfect but there are degrees of corruption in the government. Russian government is extremely corrupt, Iceland government is a little bit corrupt. One is better than another. God, do I really have to post trivia on HN?
Don't think trivial and you'll be safe. There are degrees of corruption between of the biggest countries and the tiny ones, but not so much inside the group. The methods vary, of course.
Heh, Right. Is there free mass media anywhere else? Are you aware that any journalist who spoke out against the Iraq war never had a career again? Free mass media is a political talking point, not a real thing.
Would you prefer Yeltsin? Putin is what Russia needs.
Since you're more concerned with attacking me ad hominem, I guess I'll just join in. You are paid by the NSA[0]. Mind-blown!Since, after all, character assassination is the way lead a discussion.
Additionally, your name sounds ukrainian. You must be a right wing ULTRA then! How is that for being a putinbot. See how ridiculous you look throwing accusations at people just because they disagree with you.
Hah! Benevolent! I'm glad you get to sleep well at night, while U.S. military terrorizes the world, and creates wars in order to finance itself.
You're either ignorant or amoral.
edit: eh. I feel like it needs reminding - I realize that in terms of geopolitics there needs to be a superpower. Every century has had a superpower that in all likelihood abused the weaker countries. My issue is with the way OP describes the issue: US being benevolent and great, bringing in fruits to US economy, completely ignoring repercussions worldwide, and OP has absolutely no problem with it.
I'm not American and not really an US fan. But I think he's at least partially right.
Many of the previous wannabe #1s (as the US is now), were motivated by ideology ("we're better than you, culturally, religiously, racially, etc"): Spain, Portugal, England, France, Germany, by a power trip (Russia) or by what I could only call sheer insanity (Nazi Germany, USSR). The US is a bit different in this regard since it was always basically a trading nation and this what drove it forward: we don't (usually) want your land or want to convert your people to whatever crazy idea we have, we just want to get (worst case) / buy (best case) your stuff.
That is an entirely different message and as long as it is not abused to much (see Iraq especially), it is a much better approach for the smaller guys.
Ideally I'd want all the countries to be open, democratic, tolerant, free market economies AND equal partners. In practice I'd just want the big guy to not abuse me too much and give me a chance to grow myself.
That's why as a Romanian I'm kind of horrified, for example, by Russia's resurgence. They fail 3 out of 5 those "ideal" criteria completely (open, tolerant, equal). The US fails basically just "equal", the rest might not be awesome but they have passing grades.
I would argue (as a not-American and not really US fan) that the US is motivated by the same sort of ideology. In this case, it's the oft-repeated American nationalism ('America is the best nation on earth') to the denigration of other countries. As a Canadian, you often see this attitude of 'America is the best, you should be glad to be around us', and an attitude towards other countries of 'they should be glad they get to do business with us'.
Americans aren't interested in your land or people, because then they would have to manage them. Dirt-farming peasants in some filthy third-world country can have their crappy lives, as long as the despots that we deal with (and, often, installed) give us a fair price for the goods they take from you.
The 'better approach for the smaller guys' is probably true in your area of the world, where the US hasn't been able to effect serious political change due to proximity towards European and Soviet (now Russian) powers; in South America, on the other hand, the US has been known to help overthrow elected governments in favour of dictators with more favourable relationships (as they also did in Iran, for example); in that case, I think it's much worse for the little guys vs. a well-run occupation.
Monty Python said it pretty well: 'Apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order... what have the Romans done for us?'
I actually wanted to throw Guatemala up there, next to Iraq, as an counter-example. The USA has from the absolutist point of view an awful track record. But the competition was so bad that from a relative point of view it's like purgatory versus hell. Canadians or Mexicans might not like the US, but there's no neighbor of Russia that did well because of Russia. Any sane citizen which has no vested interest in Russian occupation or is actually Russian (Russia and the USSR have displaced a lot of populations, have colonized large areas and have russified huge populations) will agree.
Meanwhile Canada and Mexico are doing quite fine - those borders have been stable for over 100 years and there's been no major "abuse", as I called it before, that I know of.
Also, arrogance is not a capital offense, discrimination based on it is. From many points of view the US discriminates less than those mentioned previously.
I have sympathy for pacific remarks, but you have to keep in mind that warmongering in foreign countries doesn't exactly fit as, let's say, one star a half on a five star ethics scale.
Iraq is not an abuse, becasue the abuse is mass murder; and it's not the only one.
There are a few interesting conceptual problems. It's arguable that this approach favours the smaller guys. Who are the smaller guys? The ones surrounding Russia, because they're important for strategic reasons?
Well, true. But we have to exclude the smaller guys who sit on oil reserves, because if they don't agree with giving their oil at a more than fair price, they get the bombs.
Also, we have to exclude various smaller guys which have been supported when it was convenient for various economical reasons, and then have been abandoned to self-implosion after they've been exploited.
So, who's really the smaller guys?
There are several other problems. One that I find very dangerous is that it's not just a matter of getting/buying "somebody else's" stuff. It's also a matter of exporting corporatocracy, which is an alarming direction.
Up until the Ukraine crisis, the US has been working very closely with Russia trying to become equal trading partners. Case in point: the Space Program and the Rockets the US have been using are all Russian made.
Mind you, US --- Venusuela relations are pretty bad right now, and we certainly want their oil. But the US isn't going to invade Venusuela any time soon. The politics and reasons behind the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are far more complicated than just oil. Otherwise, there'd be a heck of a lot more countries we'd be invading. (Iran, Venesuela, etc. etc.)
There is a good point made here. The US at worst just wants stuff: it doesn't want to prove its superiority over other countries (although there are factions of the Warmongerers who do wish to do that... it seems like politics of war are more practical than the 19th century "Great Game" period).
There's a lot of people hating on the current approach of global politics. But any studied historian will agree: the US is doing a heck of a lot better than Napoleon, the British Empire, Rising Sun Japan, or other historical world powers. Heck, "Corporatocracy" was the standard Asian power from 1600s to the 1800s. The East Indian Trading Company (a corporation) was one of the world powers that conquered India.
We no longer live in an era where corporations are allowed to have standing armies and navies. We no longer live in an era where world powers wage war over the ability to trade Opium for the explicit purpose of weakening a country. (IE: the 1800s Opium Wars).
Perhaps "benevolence" is the wrong word to use to describe America, but its certainly doing its "Super-power duties" better than its historical predecessors.
Don't forget that there are a lot of countries around the world that borders to former USSR that are very happy with American military superiority.
My home country is one of them. USSR at some point had stamps where half of our contry was painted in as part of the empire, and rich in resources and strategic as it was there is a fair chance they had invaded us hadn't it been for the Americans. Most of us prefer different degrees of rich as in USA versus everybody equal(ly poor) as in USSR so we are mostly happy.
Understand that I cannot defend everything every American has ever done but on average I'd feel much safer with an American soldier pointing a gun at me than about anyone else.
We're in agreement. I myself hail from a former soviet satellite country.
My point is that it's insulting to call the US benevolent. The difference between US and USSR is that the US prefers a more subtle way of conquering a country, namely, by causing turmoil and overthrowing the government, letting rebel groups run rampant and financing them. It's always easier to overtake strategic resources during anarchy.
Why do you think all the Iran, Ukraine etc civil wars are happening. Because the BRICS countries want to move away from the dollar.
Would you feel the same, on average, if you were a citizen of a South American country, or how about the middle east?
I think you mean Syria, to Iran. suggesting that their civil war is occurring just because they want to move off the dollar standard is rather absurd. That may be a factor, but you have to weigh it against other factors like long-standing repressive autocratic rulers, demographic pressures with large numbers of unemployed youth, the relatively sudden availability of real-time digital communications and information access.
The 'US as malefactor' viewpoint depends on attributing enormous competency to the CIA and similar agencies to start revolutions, but simultaneously ignoring other factors - like the lack of concrete support for the rebels in Syria, notwithstanding the brutality of the Assad regime or widely-accepted evidence of chemical attacks. If the US were actually intent on toppling that regime it has had ample opportunity to advance that goal, but has chosen not to do so. In a larger context, the idea of moving away from the dollar as the reserve currency is often advanced because that would supposedly make it more difficult for the US to import the oil it needs. But there's no record of the US having adjusted its monetary policy in response to swings in oil price, which you would expect if that were the issue; and in any case domestic US oil and gas production is at a historic high and we've started expanding our nuclear fleet again after a 30 year hiatus.
I'm not American either, and I don't see the US as benevolent so much as driven by enlightened self-interest. Where I differ from you is in thinking that US interests aren't dependent on or even advanced by destabilizing other countries, notwithstanding historical US reliance on that strategy.
>the lack of concrete support for the rebels in Syria, notwithstanding the brutality of the Assad regime or widely-accepted evidence of chemical attacks. If the US were actually intent on toppling that regime it has had ample opportunity to advance that goal, but has chosen not to do so.
Obama, who is hardly a hawk, was politically unable to act due to citizens understandable war weariness. Putin has no such restraints.
Quite, but since he campaigned on skepticism about war from the outset of his presidential run (ie opposing the Iraq war and pledging to extract the US from it), I'm questioning the notion that he would have engineered the civil war in Syria to begin with.
Unfortunately rayiner is neither, as a look at his comment history makes clear. His morality is just antithetical to yours and mine.
To paraphrase and invert an H.L. Mencken quote, it seems in any dispute between a citizen and the government, it is his instinct to side with the government; he is for all efforts to make men virtuous by law.
Nah, I've seen his comments, and I agree that he is both of those things. I've found many of his "corrections" to be minimally researched and false. This usually goes unchallenged, so readers probably assume he knows what he is talking about. But really, he's a bit too quick to be contrarian.
It's not just peace in America. It's peace in Europe and Asia too. What do you think the political situation would be vis-a-vis U.K. versus Germany versus France or Japan versus China if the U.S. military didn't have supremacy over everyone? History suggests it would be a lot less peaceful than it is now.
> It's peace in Europe and Asia too. What do you think the political situation would be vis-a-vis U.K. versus Germany versus France or Japan versus China
Hmmm, no, this is flat-out wrong.
You've clearly never been in UK, Germany, or France, and yet, you think you have precise insight of the politics of those countries and the world.
The most terrible thing is the inesorable logic of how people develop this sort of thoughts, through growing up in cultural closeness, put together with exposure to militaristic propaganda (note that it's a general remark, not referred specifically to US).
I'm European and completely agree with him. I grew up in Ireland (a constitutionally neutral country) and have lived and worked in the UK, Netherlands, Germany, and Spain as well as visiting several other European countries.
You would have to be living under a rock to ignore the long history of European internal wars, and equally to ignore the fact that European countries have been able to maintain a minimalist approach to defense spending because of the US security umbrella.
You're mixing a couple of things here; we're not talking about defense in general, but specifically to the thesis that without US military presence, France/UK/Germany could/would go into conflict; this is just ridiculous, as much as thinking that US countries would go into a conflict as well, because they had a civil war in the past.
History suggests the U.S. generally does whatever it wants in order to get richer, ever since WW2. Selling weapons to both sides of the war(e.g. both nazi germany and USSR) and helping out whichever side is winning.
So, no, history doesn't suggest that. Neither does recent history with 20+ regime changes.
edit: I feel like it needs reminding - I realize that in terms of geopolitics there needs to be a superpower. Every century has had a superpower that in all likelihood abused the weaker countries. My issue is with the way OP describes the issue: US being benevolent and great, bringing in fruits to US economy, completely ignoring repercussions worldwide.
In the grand scheme of things, knocking over a dictatorship and trying to build a democracy friendly to us, even if self-serving and ill-advised, is quite a different thing than just cynically conquering a country and harvesting its resources, the way the European countries used to before America came along. People use the phrase "American Empire" as a metaphor. They use "British Empire" literally.
> knocking over a dictatorship and trying to build a democracy friendly to us
If I remember well, Afghanistan, Irak and Iran are the last places where US overthrew a Shah or a dictator. I don't remember them being a working democracy recently.
By the way, why was there a dictatorship in the first place? Most often because of a colonial past (we're all guilty here, I am French myself). I just want to remind that I see nothing good in a country just overthrowing a dictatorship: What we need is to build economic growth, like the Plan Marshall.
But you still sleep well at night, right? Continuing to ignore the people dying everyday because of geopolitical aspirations.
Eh fine. I'm starting to sound self-righteous. My issue with your statement is how absolutely peaceful you are about contributing to war machine. You're implicitly helping the armed forces kill people.
Not really sure that argument holds upon closer inspection. For example, I agree with the idea of rule of law without agreeing with all laws that get implemented. By your rules, I would have to agree with all laws if I agreed with any.
It's completely related, but you've got your 'feathers ruffled', so to speak. One can agree with (and support) a system in place for many reasons and still 'sleep well at night' when that system doesn't work out exactly as you'd like because of the other benefits. I (willingly) pay police salaries without considering myself morally culpable when they do something out of line.
Except when you pay police salaries, you're expecting them to maintain order within a society. The end goal of advanced military equipment[0] is to kill people as efficiently as possible. It's the goal, not something out of line.
[0] Doesn't even have to be equipment. Maintaining databases which are required for a functioning military complex means you're still serving their vision. Their visions as of late are often amoral.
At the risk of further deviating this thread from the original topic and getting into extremely useless discussion territory, I would disagree that killing people in and of itself is an amoral goal, and even ordinarily peaceful people will often find there are circumstances that will cause them to agree with this assessment.
The large system designed to kill targeted groups of people efficiently, when it works as designed, doesn't actually spend much time (if any) actually doing that job. The mere existence of such a force should prevent that from happening (as it absolutely has for the most part). Having said that, there are circumstances when I absolutely expect them to do just that - if an aggressive foreign army were to roll into your hometown tomorrow, you would likely agree.
I realize that to the rest of the world right now we (i.e., the U.S.) are that aggressive foreign army, which is why I say the system is out of line - certain unilateral actions were a misuse of the system. This is why many people see no hypocrisy in 'supporting the troops', but being 'against the war'.
Anyway, not trying to say you are completely wrong and you should feel bad WHY DO YOU HATE AMERICA, just trying to provide some explanation of another viewpoint. As you said, it's about perception and morality - not surprising we end up with different stances.
> The end goal of advanced military equipment[0] is to kill people as efficiently as possible.
I can't speak for other militaries, but for the U.S. military the goal is peace, without abject surrender (which is no "peace" at all), and with the "American way of life" and international law.
The means to achieving that goal is the credible deterrent threat that comes from having ways to blow the right things up. Do not conflate the two, right now you are confusing ends with means.
Perhaps I am confusing the ends with the means. But international law? Several ex US presidents can't even fly to certain countries in Europe because they'd be jailed right away.
International law - indefinite detention, torture; or killing with drones without due process? Doesn't seem like international law is held in high esteem in the US.
Neither indefinite detention nor drones are contrary to international law per se. German combatants were detained indefinitely during WWII, and a drone is no different from any other aircraft as far as international law is concerned.
Torture is against international law. Even if you want to quibble about whether Geneva Conventions apply to "unlawful combatants" I think that even non-treaty customary international law would forbid torture.
So I suppose that's why the U.S. abrogated Bush's policies on torture as soon as Obama took office in 2009.
> Even if you want to quibble about whether Geneva Conventions apply to "unlawful combatants" I think that even non-treaty customary international law would forbid torture.
More importantly, it would be against treaty-based international law even if you ignored the Geneva Conventions completely, since it is prohibited by the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
But are we sure it's not just nuclear peace we're seeing here? Sure, the US can make a lot of countries back off each other, but I would argue it's superfluous when MAD's already there.
> But are we sure it's not just nuclear peace we're seeing here?
If it is nuclear peace, it's because of the Americans as well.
NATO doesn't have nukes, its member nations do. And a nation can't use nukes without being nuked in return (which is why the American extension of their nuclear shield over western Europe is so notable).
Even with that, France and the U.K. both didn't trust the U.S. to actually nuke the U.S.S.R. if push came to shove... would the U.S. really put itself in a position where it might be mutually destroyed just to save France and the U.K.?
Well, that's the same question all the non-nuclear members of NATO would be asking, if "nuclear peace" were the only answer. So apparently it's more than that.
That's somewhat fair (there are still conditions under which war might occur), but my point was that we are seeing a deeper peace than simply "peace between great powers".
One problem is that, especially since 9/11, it isn't a pax Americana. We started the wars. And the problem with that is that the US pissed away $TRILLIONS on misguided and outright aggressive wars that drained resources just as the US was further weakened by the derivatives crash.
Strength comes from the economy. The ability to defend against tyranny is a product of a strong economy. But American military and banking policy has been ruinously bad for US economic power, and for the long-lead-time things like education that would rebuild the economy's ability to grow at a strong rate.
No need for character sniping. He's a self-described statist, and many here (myself included) have a lot of disagreements with his views, but at least he can justify them better than the average statist (of the "Without a powerful government who will protect the children!" variety).
If anything, that's why his comment is more warranted. Most of the aforementioned lack the facilities to inform their position, which can be forgiven. Someone who knowingly and proudly endorses what can only be described as evil should not be given a pass.
You can't generalize the entirety of the military. He could have easily been working on software for the military that doesn't actually have anything to do with killing people. Did you think of that?
The narrative you want is that the problem is only that America is evil, but the fact is the entire West is working together on intel. But that is a bit of rage deflator, and consequently conveniently ignored.
Well, it's not like a huge player with tons of resources and bad-will can't buy out politicians in high places even in large Western European countries. Or sponsor the campaigns of people they favor (lackeys).
Or, if the above don't work sometime, straight-out help install military dictatorships -- e.g even in the heart of Europe, in the late sixties:
Relieving Europeans of responsibility for their own government guarantees American power over them. They can complain while still feeling righteous, brilliant.
>Relieving Europeans of responsibility for their own government guarantees American power over them
It's not like Americans have any greater "responsibility" over their own government.
It sure doesn't work for their best interests -- only for the same private interests and multinationals that also take advantage of Europe (and all post-colonial countries in their sphere of influence).
And it's not like European elites do not benefit from that -- it's just that the majority of those people tends to reside across the Atlantic, and finds it easier and more effective to yield US as their own private economic/diplomatic weapon. For the actual country and the majority of its citizens, they could not care less.
>They can complain while still feeling righteous, brilliant.
Not sure how "feeling righteous" is contradictory with "complaining" (your phrasing seems to imply that).
Your message seems to be: "if you're fucked over by a bully, you don't have the right to complaint, because it's your responsibility to stand up to him".
Well, replace Europeans with black people in the South pre-Civil War. Does that retain the same kind of ring that you intented it to have?
Well going a bit off topic, a story a manager of a local manufacturing company told me. They had built a new factory on another side of the country, state of the art, huge. They ended up shutting it down a year later when they found the employees just wouldn't show up to work. This is a business that has operated in my local area for years without any problems like that.
Anyway, silly patriotism? Nah, real patriotism. There's more to being an American than paying your taxes. That said, I'm not some patriotic radical. I can see why it would be better to hire a team abroad. Just not in this case.
Thinking about this more, it's not even that he hired a team abroad. They're friends, you can tell, and sometimes friendship knows no bounds. Or maybe he has some affinity with Columbians and specifically wants to help out the local people; that's honorable too.
My issue is how the article's framed, like it's somehow America's fault! I don't buy it!
The article says that theoretically it is possible that the NSA hacked internal server traffic at Google. Therefore they are intercepting and archiving every snapchat ever sent? This is not intelligent discourse.
Your confidence in asserting what the solution to this problem is a bit concerning(not to mention how your suggestions are hardly actionable). At least the author is somewhat humble.
Why would I be humble about something that has personally changed me? If a man discovers a cure for his cancer, would he quietly keep it to himself, or would he take it straight to CNN and rave about the solution he's found, in hope that everyone could try it for themselves?
There are actionable suggestions, but you would need to take the time to seek understanding. I hope I haven't made it sound simple and easy.
1) How about something sustainable? Something that, instead of removing personal responsibility, enables you to conquer the fear and anxiety? An actual system.
2) There are plenty of reasons why your suggestion should not be taken seriously. Personal anecdotes are just that - anecdotes. Provide me with metrics of how it improved the bio-checmical composition of your brain and removed anxiety, and then we'll talk.
3) You're so confident about something that is not measurable in any way, is highly subjective, and you put down the author for being humble.
> Why would I be humble about something that has personally changed me?
You've answered your own question. The fact that it's personally changed you makes the need for humbleness apparent - your spirituality _yours_. It's something that helps you find balance, but it clearly doesn't work its wonders on everyone. Meanwhile, other methods - meditation being one example - help others find balance, but not everyone as well. Truly, to each their own.
To assume that your answer is "the answer that will work for everyone, if only they find it" spits in the face of their beliefs, which is everything they stand for - the same way someone telling you your relationship with God is merely a "solution that works for you." You have no problems doing this, as you feel that your answer is singularly "correct." However, this is in fact not the case - there are many others who find their balance doing other things, as users have pointed out.
Some people just aren't wired to be religious, but find equally effective means for finding balance in their lives. To answer as though the solution is a trivial "accepting of religion into one's life" just because it was trivial _for you_ to do demonstrates a clear lack of empathy and understanding for others' positions and beliefs.
I always find it interesting when hackers are willing to bicker over the "right answer" (because one exists) on just about every other topic imaginable... But whoa, step into the state of a man's spiritual condition and all bets are off.
Suddenly it's every man for himself, isolated in his own tiny world that (supposedly) has absolutely zero crossover to another man's world. Somehow, gravity in one man's world pulls things up, and in another it pushes all objects to the sky.
But does that even make sense? It's really just hogwash, and a convenient easy-exit from having to wrestle with a challenging state of affairs. We all have the same fundamental needs, and we even live in a world where the very fundamental building blocks of the universe can be explained in distinct formulas with distinct "right" answers.
Unfortunately if that really were the case -- that spirituality really only applied to a single man alone -- then the message of grace from God would have stopped at Christ himself and never spread to another man's life. But it has not, and will continue to affect each man who discovers the spiritual wonders of a grace-filled life. Grace, does, in fact, present a freeing answer to all those who seek it.
> step into the state of a man's spiritual condition and all bets are off
The religion best represented on HN, and that to which hew most commenters here, includes among its basic doctrines the tenet that all spiritual beliefs are equally invalid, and therefore equally meaningless, save only that religion's own such beliefs, which are believed to be empirical rather than spiritual. This makes it trivial for believers to produce public displays of simultaneous tolerance ("whatever works for you") and superiority ("but you can't claim it's The Answer because there is no one answer"), something which they find both personally satisfying and socially beneficial.
Of course, their beliefs are no more empirically demonstrable than those of any other religion, nor are they derived from pure reason as their adherents prefer to believe. For example, believers in this faith universally misunderstand the nature of religion, so as to imagine that no system of beliefs can be called religious save that it involve at least one deity; indeed, this misunderstanding constitutes a crucial slab in the foundation of their dogma, for on it rests the belief that they are virtuous skeptics who can't be fooled by mere religious faith, and are thus apart from and above (all other sorts of) believers:
> Some people [like my own worthy self] just aren't wired to be religious
Which leads us to a popular explanation, among atheists, for the vexatious popularity of other religions: that the human nervous system is so wired as to produce religious experience entirely by accident, and thus meaninglessly. [1]
Well, everyone else's nervous system, anyway; they themselves "aren't wired to be religious", obviously, because if they were, they'd have a religion, and atheism isn't a religion -- it can't be! It has no deity! -- so atheists aren't religious, so they must be "[not] wired to be religious", which must mean they're necessarily smarter and/or "more evolved" [2].
The former belief is hardly limited to atheists, of course, and is merely smug and pretentious. The latter, though, rests in a fundamental misunderstanding of the workings of evolution, and is thus utterly senseless; it is every bit as much a matter of faith as, for example, the idea of divine providence.
(How marvelous it is that these fellows presume to offer counsel on the subject of humility!)
The truth of the matter, of course, is that, if any of us are "wired to be religious", then all of us are. (All of us are.) The only remaining question, which applies equally well to all the many other filters inherent in our perceptual mechanisms, is whether we recognize it as such and attempt to account for its effect, or instead fail so to do and believe its input to be a reliable representation of reality.
That latter category is shared by theists and atheists alike -- each believing, however he represent himself in public, that he has found The Answer, and that those in the other camp must just not really understand the world, because if they did, they wouldn't be in the other camp.
The former category is sparsely populated by comparison, and, would-be bodhisattvas excepted, most of us in it tend to keep our mouths pretty well shut on the subject; neither a theist nor an atheist is often well equipped to comprehend an areligious perspective on anything, and to detail one thus rarely has any effect save to start a pointless gunfight. (Besides, being a member of neither camp makes it very easy to get along with those in both, and why not do so?)
I break my habit of silence on this occasion not because I have any hope of unusually productive discussion on the matter, but instead simply in order to place myself outside the argument which will probably ensue from my observation that I'm favorably impressed, sir, by your bravery and courage in contravening publicly the popular faith, and by the altruistic impulse which motivated you to do so. Irrespective of the reception you encounter in doing so, the act itself speaks well of your honorable character, and that's something I'm always glad to see.
Not being convinced by the evidence (or lack thereof) of every religious faith is not a faith. You can call it a faith until you turn blue in the face, it still isn't one.
Next, the west has a shit ton of money invested in the Russian stock markets. Their stock markets rebounded back to previous levels a few weeks after the sanctions.
Furthermore, military equipment. See France.
Uh, freedom. what? Have you been to Russia?