Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting!
NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source.
The Bolton book thing is one reason, the other is a poorly understood impeachment mechanism that allows the presiding judge to issue a subpoena in support of what can be likened to a discovery issue in regular civil litigation. Basically, there is a Senate rule-based path that tracks closely with what oftentimes results when opposing parties are fighting over what is and is not discoverable in regular court, namely a short testimonial hearing where an individual with personal knowledge of the potentially discoverable evidence describes said evidence for purposes of a relevance/production ruling.
On January 27 2020 06:29 Belisarius wrote: China's regional hegemony involves the map labels in its region changing to "China". Its neighbours have very good reasons to align against it. Those reasons are the-country-formerly-known-as-tibet, the-country-nobody-is-allowed-to-call-Taiwan, and the-sea-already-called-china-nobody-else-is-allowed-to-fish-in-anymore. There are many issues with the US's foreign policy stance, especially now, but China is aggressively expansionist in a way the US has never been, and its neighbours are very rightly wary of its borders encroaching towards them.
There's also thousands of years of complex history in the region that most westerners are ignorant of. It's tempting to say the nations are all Asian in the way euros are now all European, but the politics are extremely fraught and distrustful. Japan and SK, for example, have 1.3 billion reasons to be strategic parters, and recognise this, but also fucking hate each other due to a legacy of conflict going back well past ww2.
The Mexican-American war? Pretty much anything west of the halfway line of the US on the north American continent, excluding Alaska. Prior to that it was other countries occupying land for you.
Sure, but if you think a conflict from a century and a half ago has the same bearing on the region as the military bases China built in its neighbours' EEZs in the last couple of years, I don't know what to tell you.
The shift in US foreign policy under Trump does factor in, of course. There's a rapidly crystallising timeline in which a neofascist US faces off against a hyper-authoritarian China for what's left of a planet in ecological collapse. If that eventuates, Japan, SK and, indeed, Australia, will have to do whatever we can to survive.
In the meantime, however, for SK and Japan to turn to China would require them to take a good look at the last year in Xinjiang and Hong Kong, and decide those are outcomes they can tolerate in the long run.
I was more specifically replying to the below section.
There are many issues with the US's foreign policy stance, especially now, but China is aggressively expansionist in a way the US has never been, and its neighbours are very rightly wary of its borders encroaching towards them.
The US has been massively expansionist on and off. More so than China is right now. I don't agree with China's current stance but I even less agree with white washing history.
The 13 states was the size of the US at its forming. A nation with no expansionist trends would have kept that size. Of course it is somewhat old history by now but I wouldn't call it ancient by any means.
Bolton thing seems more like hyping his book than a substantive development regarding impeachment/witnesses. Romney is getting good quotes on the record for 2024/another election and Collins seems like she's kinda made a shtick out of this kinda stuff imo.
Hard to imagine Republicans could vote for witnesses without getting Hunter though since he is specifically named in the articles of impeachment.
The loophole thing is new to me, so I guess that could happen (but I doubt it)
Throw Biden and Bolton both on the stand. This whole idea that giving hunter Biden for Bolton is a bad trade is ridiculous. Stop defending Biden and let him deal with his own problems. Trading Bolton for Biden is an enormous win. If hunter testifying brings down Biden, he was gonna lose the election anyway. Let this being a test.
I think it was absurd to begin with for the Trump team to equate all the corruption from active members of public office with the actions of a private citizen, but they can have Hunter at this point for all I care. I don't imagine it'll do them any favors to have at him at this juncture, it was purely a distraction tactic.
On January 28 2020 06:43 NewSunshine wrote: I think it was absurd to begin with for the Trump team to equate all the corruption from active members of public office with the actions of a private citizen, but they can have Hunter at this point for all I care. I don't imagine it'll do them any favors to have at him at this juncture, it was purely a distraction tactic.
I think the concern is that if it turns out Hunter is shady, which he almost certainly is, it gives republicans a way to say that targeting Hunter was justified. It isn't just about protecting Biden, and it will become less and less about protecting Biden if Sanders ends up smashing him into itty bitty pieces. Regardless, I support a trade of Hunter for Bolton.
On January 26 2020 11:19 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote:
On January 26 2020 09:29 ShoCkeyy wrote: The full video of Trump asking to fire the ambassador to Ukraine has been released. You can watch it at the 43 minute mark.
Currently on the move but I’ll post the video when I get a chance or if some else can post it?
It takes the guy less than a minute to convince Trump to get rid of her, just by saying she's from the Clinton administration and that the ambassador was telling people Trump would be impeached. Trump has a real tone change compared to the rest of the dinner when he says the 'get rid of her, take her out, do it' part. He does sound agitated/serious.
The Ukraine part starts few minutes earlier around 39mins. Trump seems overly surprised to hear Ukraine has oil.
The rest of the vid is kind of interesting if you want to know how a lobbyist dinner with Trump is. Lots of ass kissing and lots of bad takes.
On 8 mins where they shit on South Korea, and Trump shows he has no clue why the US is even there or what the Korea war was about.
11min he talks about the US taking in billions from the tariffs. None of the businessmen affirm him because they know it's bullshit lol
On 16mins Trump says 'WTO is a weapon to hurt the United States. And the European Union the same thing, it's a group of countries that got together to screw the United States, and they are probably worse than China'
33m30s Kanye West will pull the millennials to Trump
He makes a good point about SK. I would trade Trudeau for Trump in an instant.
Care to elaborate what point about SK you like?
I didn't hear anything exceptional. Negotiate trade in favor of U.S.A. Hints that U.S.A. military shouldn't be there. Sadly I don't think he cares about much other than short term GDP and campaign slogans. He's a bad president but the contenders are disastrous imo. Good ones blocked by MSM and the parties.
But I don’t care much about Trudeau. I do, however, care some about South Korea, and listening to that recording all I heard was some grumbling about how South Korea is ruining our steel industry (possibly with *gasp* Chinese steel) and how that’s really very ungrateful of them considering how we’re stopping North Korea from nuking them and all.
Personally I don’t understand what’s to like about that, and I’d be interested to hear what part appeals to you. The protectionism, I guess? The indignation that a state benefiting from our world policing would dare to compete with us commercially? I don’t know specifically what the “shipping Chinese steel on trains” business is about, maybe you do?
I don’t get protectionism’s appeal much honestly. The lazy argument I can make is “look at Trump’s trade war, it’s going bad for us and the stock market freaks out about it sometimes.” And I think it probably has been bad for us, but more broadly the whole premise of protectionism is “we’re going to try to set the rules of international trade to give our businesses a systemic advantage over foreign competition.” Why is that fair? If a foreign business is more efficient than ours but we manage to set the rules such that our business has an unfair advantage and runs them out of business, why is that a good outcome? If we so quickly demonstrate to other countries that we have no interest in fair dealings and will pick their pocket at first opportunity, how can we hope to maintain positive relationships with them, or expect them not to backstab us just as quickly?
Our troop presence in SK adds a twist to this. A lot of people are very critical of our wide military footprint and insistence on policing the world - I don’t like it much myself - but of all our international meddling, putting troops in South Korea to discourage North Korean aggression seems like one of the better causes we’ve taken up. North Korea invading South Korea would be a massive humanitarian catastrophe, and our troop presence meaningfully reduces the likelihood of that happening.
But it’s a bit rich for us to make all this fuss about keeping South Korea “free” and then turn around and say they don’t have the right to compete with us economically. Are they free, or aren’t they? I don’t have a bit of interest in hitting up our allies for protection money, as Trump likes to talk about, but demanding they direct their economy to grow ours rather than their own is even worse to me. Is this not extortion?
In game theory terminology, Trump’s foreign policy generally usually boils down to an “Always Forsake” policy. Shout and threaten our enemies unless they serve our interests; extort our allies out of their lunch money and threaten to sanction them or even refuse to protect them unless they pay up. It’s unabashedly immoral; but even in self-interest terms, it’s probably pretty bad policy. “Always Forsake” makes you an asshole, but also usually means nobody wants to cooperate with you so you’re ultimately worse off, too.
I wish US would stop playing world police and force/allow other countries to grow up. I don't have a problem with Trump asking for more money to cover the cost, if SK wants the US to continue as their bodyguard -- besides wishing they weren't there at all. It's reasonable to ask if it's still worth it to be there.
This is an unusually stupid take.
The reason that the US occupied Germany and Japan (and Japan's former colony SK) is not because Germany and Japan are weaklings that need the United States to protect them while they grow up, it's that they're regional powers that were denied their shot at the title in the 19th century and spent the first half of the 20th century fucking shit up.
The US isn't in these places because the US doesn't believe they can defend themselves, it's in these places because the US has seen what it looks like when they defend themselves and it didn't like it.
We could instead discuss the conditions that led to WW1 and then argue in favor of recreating those conditions. Perhaps climate change really won’t be our biggest problem after all.
It takes the guy less than a minute to convince Trump to get rid of her, just by saying she's from the Clinton administration and that the ambassador was telling people Trump would be impeached. Trump has a real tone change compared to the rest of the dinner when he says the 'get rid of her, take her out, do it' part. He does sound agitated/serious.
The Ukraine part starts few minutes earlier around 39mins. Trump seems overly surprised to hear Ukraine has oil.
The rest of the vid is kind of interesting if you want to know how a lobbyist dinner with Trump is. Lots of ass kissing and lots of bad takes.
On 8 mins where they shit on South Korea, and Trump shows he has no clue why the US is even there or what the Korea war was about.
11min he talks about the US taking in billions from the tariffs. None of the businessmen affirm him because they know it's bullshit lol
On 16mins Trump says 'WTO is a weapon to hurt the United States. And the European Union the same thing, it's a group of countries that got together to screw the United States, and they are probably worse than China'
33m30s Kanye West will pull the millennials to Trump
He makes a good point about SK. I would trade Trudeau for Trump in an instant.
Care to elaborate what point about SK you like?
I didn't hear anything exceptional. Negotiate trade in favor of U.S.A. Hints that U.S.A. military shouldn't be there. Sadly I don't think he cares about much other than short term GDP and campaign slogans. He's a bad president but the contenders are disastrous imo. Good ones blocked by MSM and the parties.
But I don’t care much about Trudeau. I do, however, care some about South Korea, and listening to that recording all I heard was some grumbling about how South Korea is ruining our steel industry (possibly with *gasp* Chinese steel) and how that’s really very ungrateful of them considering how we’re stopping North Korea from nuking them and all.
Personally I don’t understand what’s to like about that, and I’d be interested to hear what part appeals to you. The protectionism, I guess? The indignation that a state benefiting from our world policing would dare to compete with us commercially? I don’t know specifically what the “shipping Chinese steel on trains” business is about, maybe you do?
I don’t get protectionism’s appeal much honestly. The lazy argument I can make is “look at Trump’s trade war, it’s going bad for us and the stock market freaks out about it sometimes.” And I think it probably has been bad for us, but more broadly the whole premise of protectionism is “we’re going to try to set the rules of international trade to give our businesses a systemic advantage over foreign competition.” Why is that fair? If a foreign business is more efficient than ours but we manage to set the rules such that our business has an unfair advantage and runs them out of business, why is that a good outcome? If we so quickly demonstrate to other countries that we have no interest in fair dealings and will pick their pocket at first opportunity, how can we hope to maintain positive relationships with them, or expect them not to backstab us just as quickly?
Our troop presence in SK adds a twist to this. A lot of people are very critical of our wide military footprint and insistence on policing the world - I don’t like it much myself - but of all our international meddling, putting troops in South Korea to discourage North Korean aggression seems like one of the better causes we’ve taken up. North Korea invading South Korea would be a massive humanitarian catastrophe, and our troop presence meaningfully reduces the likelihood of that happening.
But it’s a bit rich for us to make all this fuss about keeping South Korea “free” and then turn around and say they don’t have the right to compete with us economically. Are they free, or aren’t they? I don’t have a bit of interest in hitting up our allies for protection money, as Trump likes to talk about, but demanding they direct their economy to grow ours rather than their own is even worse to me. Is this not extortion?
In game theory terminology, Trump’s foreign policy generally usually boils down to an “Always Forsake” policy. Shout and threaten our enemies unless they serve our interests; extort our allies out of their lunch money and threaten to sanction them or even refuse to protect them unless they pay up. It’s unabashedly immoral; but even in self-interest terms, it’s probably pretty bad policy. “Always Forsake” makes you an asshole, but also usually means nobody wants to cooperate with you so you’re ultimately worse off, too.
I wish US would stop playing world police and force/allow other countries to grow up. I don't have a problem with Trump asking for more money to cover the cost, if SK wants the US to continue as their bodyguard -- besides wishing they weren't there at all. It's reasonable to ask if it's still worth it to be there.
It's reasonable to ask sure, but you shouldn't need to. A stronger Korea and Japan keeps China's power in check. Do you think it is in US interest to maintain status as the global super power? The notion that everything comes down to money and extorting our allies because we can is misguided foreign policy. We didn't install ourselves into Korea and Japan to be their bodyguard. We installed ourselves there to exert power and influence in Asia.
In my opinion help Korea and Japan become strong enough to stand on their own as good allies, along with other nearby nations scared of China enough to do the same. I'd rather not have US or anyone as a global super power but independent nations in alliance. Doubt US will give up influence and leave, and also doubt SK wants them to.
I'm actually learning Japanese as a hobby, but it made me think that Japanese and Korean culture has always been very strongly tied to China. We had a look in my language class at some typical Japanese cultural traditions such as flower arrangements, tea ceremonies, various Buddhist rituals and schools, and it can all be directly traced from contact with China. Same for language, there are many words of Chinese origin in Japanese, and obviously they use Chinese symbols for writing. So on that level, which is a bit naive obviously, wouldn't it make much more sense for Japan and Korea to be allied with China? The USA wouldn't like it one bit if Mexico was an ally of China and had all sorts of naval bases there and so on. In Europe we wouldn't like it if, idk, Italy was a Russian client state. It would create incredible tension. I haven't been convinced that US presence in that region is not a destabilizing factor and that it is preferable to a more natural Chinese regional hegemony.
Same with Iran honestly. Isn't it more natural for Iran to be the regional power when it comes to the Middle East's shiite population instead of the USA?
Learning the language isn't knowing the history or the culture.
Back in the formative years of both nations China was the cultural and political superpower. It's not unfair to compare it to the British Empire, but even more locally influential. Japan was a client state giving tribute to China for a long period. But like a lot of island-states, both grew out of it and eventually asserted their independence and individual cultures.
China is - and has always been - strongly about one-culture. You can totally see echoes of that in Japan and Korea, but their visions of that one-culture are divergent. China would never be willing to see either of them as equal partners and they would never deign to be seen as less than that. It's fine to accept the US as a more powerful ally because the US is outside of the cultural history, but Japan's got a solid history of kicking China's face in and inflicting war crimes on them.
Likewise, Japan attacked and brutalised Korea. The Koreans don't trust the Japanese or Chinese, and the Japanese don't trust the Chinese and see the Koreans as inferior. There's really zero chance of those three nations ever really allying with each other. A united Korea would be as stridently independent of larger Asia as South Korea tries to be now.
So yes, you would end up with an arms race in Asia if you left them to their own devices. The Japanese/Chinese are going to expect an invasion from the other, and Korea will be expecting an aggressive knock from one or both at some point, because that's what's happened throughout their history.
While all of this is true, Europe had shown to that if economic conditions change, it's actually quite easy to move past about 1000 years of wars and atrocities back and forth.
Not that Eastern Asia is currently anywhere near the situation Western Europe was in in the 1950s, but starting categorically that Korea, Japan and China will be enemies forever is about as sensible as stating England, Spain and France will always be enemies, because they were warring for centuries.
I gave up following this impeachment shit from when it started. Way too many "developments" that mean absolutely nothing consequentially. Its a bunch of complacent politicians who are gonna vote along party lines, minus maybe Romney so he can look good in the future. I can't help but feel as though none of them even really care if Trump is impeached or not lmao
On January 26 2020 11:19 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote:
On January 26 2020 09:29 ShoCkeyy wrote: The full video of Trump asking to fire the ambassador to Ukraine has been released. You can watch it at the 43 minute mark.
Currently on the move but I’ll post the video when I get a chance or if some else can post it?
It takes the guy less than a minute to convince Trump to get rid of her, just by saying she's from the Clinton administration and that the ambassador was telling people Trump would be impeached. Trump has a real tone change compared to the rest of the dinner when he says the 'get rid of her, take her out, do it' part. He does sound agitated/serious.
The Ukraine part starts few minutes earlier around 39mins. Trump seems overly surprised to hear Ukraine has oil.
The rest of the vid is kind of interesting if you want to know how a lobbyist dinner with Trump is. Lots of ass kissing and lots of bad takes.
On 8 mins where they shit on South Korea, and Trump shows he has no clue why the US is even there or what the Korea war was about.
11min he talks about the US taking in billions from the tariffs. None of the businessmen affirm him because they know it's bullshit lol
On 16mins Trump says 'WTO is a weapon to hurt the United States. And the European Union the same thing, it's a group of countries that got together to screw the United States, and they are probably worse than China'
33m30s Kanye West will pull the millennials to Trump
He makes a good point about SK. I would trade Trudeau for Trump in an instant.
Care to elaborate what point about SK you like?
I didn't hear anything exceptional. Negotiate trade in favor of U.S.A. Hints that U.S.A. military shouldn't be there. Sadly I don't think he cares about much other than short term GDP and campaign slogans. He's a bad president but the contenders are disastrous imo. Good ones blocked by MSM and the parties.
But I don’t care much about Trudeau. I do, however, care some about South Korea, and listening to that recording all I heard was some grumbling about how South Korea is ruining our steel industry (possibly with *gasp* Chinese steel) and how that’s really very ungrateful of them considering how we’re stopping North Korea from nuking them and all.
Personally I don’t understand what’s to like about that, and I’d be interested to hear what part appeals to you. The protectionism, I guess? The indignation that a state benefiting from our world policing would dare to compete with us commercially? I don’t know specifically what the “shipping Chinese steel on trains” business is about, maybe you do?
I don’t get protectionism’s appeal much honestly. The lazy argument I can make is “look at Trump’s trade war, it’s going bad for us and the stock market freaks out about it sometimes.” And I think it probably has been bad for us, but more broadly the whole premise of protectionism is “we’re going to try to set the rules of international trade to give our businesses a systemic advantage over foreign competition.” Why is that fair? If a foreign business is more efficient than ours but we manage to set the rules such that our business has an unfair advantage and runs them out of business, why is that a good outcome? If we so quickly demonstrate to other countries that we have no interest in fair dealings and will pick their pocket at first opportunity, how can we hope to maintain positive relationships with them, or expect them not to backstab us just as quickly?
Our troop presence in SK adds a twist to this. A lot of people are very critical of our wide military footprint and insistence on policing the world - I don’t like it much myself - but of all our international meddling, putting troops in South Korea to discourage North Korean aggression seems like one of the better causes we’ve taken up. North Korea invading South Korea would be a massive humanitarian catastrophe, and our troop presence meaningfully reduces the likelihood of that happening.
But it’s a bit rich for us to make all this fuss about keeping South Korea “free” and then turn around and say they don’t have the right to compete with us economically. Are they free, or aren’t they? I don’t have a bit of interest in hitting up our allies for protection money, as Trump likes to talk about, but demanding they direct their economy to grow ours rather than their own is even worse to me. Is this not extortion?
In game theory terminology, Trump’s foreign policy generally usually boils down to an “Always Forsake” policy. Shout and threaten our enemies unless they serve our interests; extort our allies out of their lunch money and threaten to sanction them or even refuse to protect them unless they pay up. It’s unabashedly immoral; but even in self-interest terms, it’s probably pretty bad policy. “Always Forsake” makes you an asshole, but also usually means nobody wants to cooperate with you so you’re ultimately worse off, too.
I wish US would stop playing world police and force/allow other countries to grow up. I don't have a problem with Trump asking for more money to cover the cost, if SK wants the US to continue as their bodyguard -- besides wishing they weren't there at all. It's reasonable to ask if it's still worth it to be there.
This is an unusually stupid take.
The reason that the US occupied Germany and Japan (and Japan's former colony SK) is not because Germany and Japan are weaklings that need the United States to protect them while they grow up, it's that they're regional powers that were denied their shot at the title in the 19th century and spent the first half of the 20th century fucking shit up.
The US isn't in these places because the US doesn't believe they can defend themselves, it's in these places because the US has seen what it looks like when they defend themselves and it didn't like it.
I don't remember who it was, but some one in this thread posted a really good documented youtube video once as to why the US just can't stop being the world police.
Seeing Fox and Republicans now call Bolton as a 'tool for the radical left' is sad and hilarious at the same time. The dude worked for Fox for years and is a diehard conservative, and picked by Trump to work for him. Some ministry of truth stuff.
On January 28 2020 13:08 ShoCkeyy wrote: Defamation before his book is only going to make his book more popular.
It's the usual far right stuff, they're just pushing to move the debate from what he says to who he is, a typical ad hominem attack. "Radical left" should never be an insult btw, it's pretty telling it is used as one for them.
I feel like it's a bit risky to question familial ties to state officials, like the case of Hunter Biden, with the Trump family the way it is... Still the right thing to do but would there be a possibility of it backfiring on Trump? (Not that it would matter much if it does most likely)
Good decision by the Supreme Court yesterday and another win for the Trump administration. "Under current regulations, the criteria for deciding if an immigrant would become a public charge is whether they are likely to rely on certain cash benefits. The new rule would expand that, defining public charge as someone who relies on cash and non-cash benefits such as housing or food assistance for more than 12 months in a three-year period. The rule also allows immigrants to be declared a "public charge" and denied green cards even if they are employed." https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/480114-supreme-court-allows-trump-administration-to-move-forward-with
On January 28 2020 13:08 ShoCkeyy wrote: Defamation before his book is only going to make his book more popular.
It's the usual far right stuff, they're just pushing to move the debate from what he says to who he is, a typical ad hominem attack. "Radical left" should never be an insult btw, it's pretty telling it is used as one for them.
Imo most people use radical left as a descriptor for people like the Bernie staffers who support re-education camps, violent revolution, communism, and so on. I don't think it's an insult but I also don't often hear it in a positive context, because people don't usually self-identify that way.
On January 26 2020 11:19 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote:
On January 26 2020 09:29 ShoCkeyy wrote: The full video of Trump asking to fire the ambassador to Ukraine has been released. You can watch it at the 43 minute mark.
Currently on the move but I’ll post the video when I get a chance or if some else can post it?
It takes the guy less than a minute to convince Trump to get rid of her, just by saying she's from the Clinton administration and that the ambassador was telling people Trump would be impeached. Trump has a real tone change compared to the rest of the dinner when he says the 'get rid of her, take her out, do it' part. He does sound agitated/serious.
The Ukraine part starts few minutes earlier around 39mins. Trump seems overly surprised to hear Ukraine has oil.
The rest of the vid is kind of interesting if you want to know how a lobbyist dinner with Trump is. Lots of ass kissing and lots of bad takes.
On 8 mins where they shit on South Korea, and Trump shows he has no clue why the US is even there or what the Korea war was about.
11min he talks about the US taking in billions from the tariffs. None of the businessmen affirm him because they know it's bullshit lol
On 16mins Trump says 'WTO is a weapon to hurt the United States. And the European Union the same thing, it's a group of countries that got together to screw the United States, and they are probably worse than China'
33m30s Kanye West will pull the millennials to Trump
He makes a good point about SK. I would trade Trudeau for Trump in an instant.
Care to elaborate what point about SK you like?
I didn't hear anything exceptional. Negotiate trade in favor of U.S.A. Hints that U.S.A. military shouldn't be there. Sadly I don't think he cares about much other than short term GDP and campaign slogans. He's a bad president but the contenders are disastrous imo. Good ones blocked by MSM and the parties.
But I don’t care much about Trudeau. I do, however, care some about South Korea, and listening to that recording all I heard was some grumbling about how South Korea is ruining our steel industry (possibly with *gasp* Chinese steel) and how that’s really very ungrateful of them considering how we’re stopping North Korea from nuking them and all.
Personally I don’t understand what’s to like about that, and I’d be interested to hear what part appeals to you. The protectionism, I guess? The indignation that a state benefiting from our world policing would dare to compete with us commercially? I don’t know specifically what the “shipping Chinese steel on trains” business is about, maybe you do?
I don’t get protectionism’s appeal much honestly. The lazy argument I can make is “look at Trump’s trade war, it’s going bad for us and the stock market freaks out about it sometimes.” And I think it probably has been bad for us, but more broadly the whole premise of protectionism is “we’re going to try to set the rules of international trade to give our businesses a systemic advantage over foreign competition.” Why is that fair? If a foreign business is more efficient than ours but we manage to set the rules such that our business has an unfair advantage and runs them out of business, why is that a good outcome? If we so quickly demonstrate to other countries that we have no interest in fair dealings and will pick their pocket at first opportunity, how can we hope to maintain positive relationships with them, or expect them not to backstab us just as quickly?
Our troop presence in SK adds a twist to this. A lot of people are very critical of our wide military footprint and insistence on policing the world - I don’t like it much myself - but of all our international meddling, putting troops in South Korea to discourage North Korean aggression seems like one of the better causes we’ve taken up. North Korea invading South Korea would be a massive humanitarian catastrophe, and our troop presence meaningfully reduces the likelihood of that happening.
But it’s a bit rich for us to make all this fuss about keeping South Korea “free” and then turn around and say they don’t have the right to compete with us economically. Are they free, or aren’t they? I don’t have a bit of interest in hitting up our allies for protection money, as Trump likes to talk about, but demanding they direct their economy to grow ours rather than their own is even worse to me. Is this not extortion?
In game theory terminology, Trump’s foreign policy generally usually boils down to an “Always Forsake” policy. Shout and threaten our enemies unless they serve our interests; extort our allies out of their lunch money and threaten to sanction them or even refuse to protect them unless they pay up. It’s unabashedly immoral; but even in self-interest terms, it’s probably pretty bad policy. “Always Forsake” makes you an asshole, but also usually means nobody wants to cooperate with you so you’re ultimately worse off, too.
I wish US would stop playing world police and force/allow other countries to grow up. I don't have a problem with Trump asking for more money to cover the cost, if SK wants the US to continue as their bodyguard -- besides wishing they weren't there at all. It's reasonable to ask if it's still worth it to be there.
This is an unusually stupid take.
The reason that the US occupied Germany and Japan (and Japan's former colony SK) is not because Germany and Japan are weaklings that need the United States to protect them while they grow up, it's that they're regional powers that were denied their shot at the title in the 19th century and spent the first half of the 20th century fucking shit up.
The US isn't in these places because the US doesn't believe they can defend themselves, it's in these places because the US has seen what it looks like when they defend themselves and it didn't like it.
Said another way, if the US didn't occupy and play the big brother role post WW2, the soviets would have.
Side note - do you really need to start your reply in such a rude, condescending way? You're a mod who should be aiming to make this thread a better place, not worse. Do better.
EPT
