rhynne wrote:When was the USA previously an isolationist country?

Pretty much never. There was however once a US Republican Party that advocated against war. WWI & WWII were entered by Democrat presidents under opposition from Republicans who were called "isolationists." Korea & Vietnam were initiated by Democrat presidents & ended by Republicans. War costs a lot of tax money, something generally disliked by Republicans.

This principle was however abandoned by the Reagan administration, which didn't actually get us into major wars but spent as if they were (e.g. the large number of divisions mentioned by bbarsh above). That is, aggressive & big-spending neoconservatives replaced conservatives, joined by similarly war-like neoliberals.

These days, you'd have to go to the Libertarians to find true fiscal conservatives who advocate against foreign military involvement. Some have been elected to office as Republicans (Rand Paul), so we'll see what impact they might have.

In any event, withdrawing from our overseas bases would save a ton of cash. Regarding the other stuff mentioned on this thread, legalizing & taxing drugs would bring in cash (& end the Mexican civil war just beginning to spill over our border), so would regulating & taxing otherwise illegal workers (the drug gangs are also human smugglers).

Kingofpain89 wrote:We could always dissolve NATO, withdraw from the United Nations, and become an isolationist country again right?

Dissolve NATO?  Be isolationists?  Who said that?  

Our air force is pretty well invicible as it stands.  We should be building F-15's and F-18's.  Putting off the upgrade for a decade will not harm our international standing. (F-14's are already out of service and replaced.)

Your point about aircraft carriers is well-stated.  We have the ability to project force all over the world, and we have it at a ratio no other nation can match for the foreseeable future.  That is exactly my point.

NATO is not going to confront China.  Russia is the only foreseeable major opponent for NATO and the Russians have lost the ability to threaten Europe with ground forces for at least the near future.  Certainly, a nuclear threat from Russia remains, but our conventional forces in Europe might be making that more likely, not less.

South Korea is outnumbered by North Korea...no question there.  The question would be the ability of the South to defend themselves against the North.  They could do it, as you have stated.

This is not a question of isolationism or whining American liberal politics.  It is a question of priorities and real military needs.

If anyone is interested in a different look on US history, perhaps A people's history of the United States by Howard Zinn would be interesting.

Or Rogue State by William Blume which has a part on US interventions in the world.

mbassoc2003 wrote:
The same is true of all countries to one degree or other, but the US is as much a proponent of ignorance and propaganda and Russia, China or wherever. It's just that, like a Russian or a CHinese national educated in the system, the majority whole heartedly believe what they 'know' is the truth.

FormCritic wrote:

Yeh, double eye roll.  It's human nature to believe our country has the "best" and "most intelligent" viewpoint of current events or world history, but one has to remember that the US has the freest, most wide ranging news media in the world. In Europe, you generally have one source, the BBC, which it's watchers seem to forget is a national news source supported by the government (much as if the US had the Washington DC Daily Government Supported News channel).  Any day I can turn on the TV or radio and get news from Fox, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, and dozens of other pundits with conservative, liberal, progressive, ultra right wing, and independent slants.  There is sometimes little or no agreement between these sources on current events or past histories, making an open mind the best thing to have while flipping the dial.  I fail to see how much consistent propaganda can enter the American consciouness unless it's by an individual ignoring one side and believing the other wholeheartedly (which, I agree, many are able to do).  

People often confuse patriotism and support for country for being brainwashed.  Americans, far more than Europeans, are loyal to their country and will support it at the expense of annoying other world nations, even when we don't always do the "right" (as judged by other countries) thing.  It's just our nature.  Sometimes I'm most proud of the US when they stubbornly take the opposite view of everyone else (I'm all for never ratifying the lunacy of the Kyoto accords, thank goodness the government feels the same).

Mike B.

Now I agree with everything Bill has just said.

I don't suggest the US has exerted its influene in a morally wrong way, or in a manner specifically designed to be 'evil', I'm just pointing out how naive it is to believe that ANY country is 'neutral', 'isolationist' or independent and impartial.

And I also question any system where it's people are ignorant of world events in favour of what they are taught and told to believe. In the UK we do have US news channels, 'independent' television news channels, satalite TV nes, and a veriety of broadsheet and tabloid newspapers. All of which have their own political agendas, although maybe not as overtly political as TV networks in the US.

I would question anyone who said they believed something because they were taught that in school, not because of any particular school, but because they believe it without question on 'faith' that the teacher imparting that knowledge wasn't just repeating to them the stuff they had been told to tell students.

Isn't it the same principle as teaching children creationism at the exclusion of all other sources of information? Shouldn't we all gather information from as many different sources as possible and form our own opinions on things, rather than just believing this county or that is independent, honest, and impartial?

Kingofpain89 wrote:
Just about the only time we go into a typical grocery store anymore is for specialty items ... HP Sauce

Great choice. Possibly one of the best sauces in the WORLD.  

Good point Ian. That is why the highest quality public education is so important - it is the bedrock upon which all of this is built. Educated citizens will be better at choosing from an increasingly diverse media (whether in the US or Europe).  While I am not averse to reducing government spending now to reduce the deficit (and remember I am a leftwing high tax liberal ), e.g. on welfare, I think that education should be a top priority for every country.

red_bus wrote:Good point Ian. That is why the highest quality public education is so important - it is the bedrock upon which all of this is built. Educated citizens will be better at choosing from an increasingly diverse media (whether in the US or Europe).  While I am not averse to reducing government spending now to reduce the deficit (and remember I am a leftwing high tax liberal ), e.g. on welfare, I think that education should be a top priority for every country.

I can't say I fully agree, but I understand the premis. I do not think there is a direct link between education and freedom of thought. Freedom of thought is something less tangible than that. I think the fundimaental problem in the UK is that the overwhelming majority of parents don't give a F about helping educate their children and their only interest is in making sure they can blame the school or society if their kid is an a$$hole.

This comes down to personal responsibility of an individual or a couple who bring a child into the world. It is those two people's primary responsibility above everything else, to make sure their child is fed, educated and cared for in a suitable manner, and that priority and responsibility is completely abscent in a huge chunk of UK society, from the underclasses all the way up to the middle and professional classes where mummy and daddy wok and little Johnny is a spoilt brat expecting everything in life to be handed to him on a platter.

This is something the US has a much better handle on than the bulk of Europe, and they don't provide state sponsered education for all regardless of how incapable or lazy the child. The child and the parents are rewarded directly for how much effort and work they put into raising their kids, and the parents are penalised and punished directly and swiftly for being a$$holes, even to the point of going to jail. Whilst I might not agree with what is taught to children in the US, and the openmindedness and general awarenerss of the average US citisen, they are on the whole doing better than we are at providing the ability to educate their kids well, and trying to punish the lazy and the feckless.

mbassoc2003 wrote:I agree with what Mikw is saying, about diversity in the news media in the US, and I can see that some intelligent souls can disseminate that level of information and extract their own opinion from it, and trust to a certain degree that it is fairly well balanced.

But that may only account for 5-10% of individuals. The majority tend to adhere to their education and upbringing, their political leaning and those news sources that concur with their established world view.

Yes, the US is free and open to those who wish to use the sources, but how many actually ever look further than their own preconcieved idea of the world?

We have the advantage of already being well educated and more open minded than most, by virtue of our chosen hobby and the creativity and resourcefullness it requires, but we are not representetive of the overwhelming majority of our countrymen, and unfortunately a country's masses define it, and not it's fringes.

But that's the same anywhere, Ian. You can bring a pig to a trough but you can't make him eat; i.e. in any country there is a percentage that are going to go along with the sources of information that conform to their world view over common sense.   It's human nature EVERYWHERE for individuals to take their viewpoint as the "norm" or base of their beliefs.  However, to compare US news sources to China or Russia is nuts.  For one thing I can fire up the computer every morning and go to any website in the world with the internet; something that is not even permitted in other countries. Instead of throwing those espousing dissident viewpoints in prison or assassinating them, they often become celebrities in their own right in the US (or end up hosting cable news shows!).  It's about as far from China as can get.   Now, how (or whether) people use that information is one thing, but it is out there for consumption.  

I would disagree that the masses of the US are any more of less politically connected that the masses of any european country.  Once again I'm sure everyone would love to think their country contains more enlightened individuals, but I don't know of any test to prove it.

Mike B.