Is it worth it to be a super-power?

[Mia]

What we have to do to the world, I mean. Or do we do enough good to outweigh the bad? Even that isn't right because we are taking it upon ourselves who deserves to live in a country where genocide is taking place so we can have cheap diamonds.

Or having a country full of one-legged people so we can build an oil pipeline around Iran.

Or, or, or. There's lots of examples of the havoc we wreak 'to preserve our way of life'.

I say it's not. It's not right for one country to live on the backs of others, just like it's not right for the higher-class to live on the backs of slave-labor or what have you within a country.

Why couldn't we be more like a country who minds our own business more?

We have lots of oil too. We can develop alternative fuels and reduce or eliminate our dependence on it.

We can pay a fair price for diamonds so that country that has them can enjoy the fruits of their resources, the people can EAT, etc.

We can legalize drugs and let Central America take advantage of their resources.

Where do we get opioid for our script narcotics anyway?

[Athena]

The cost of being a super power is not just the wrongs done to people in other countries. We are paying a very high price for leading the New World Order. We are no longer the democracy we defended, our relationships and experience of family life is not what they were.

“Whatever their efficiency, such great organizations are so impersonal that they bear down on the individual lives of the people like a hydraulic press whose action is completely impersonal and therefore completely crushes out individual and liberty and power.”

written by a poet and seer of India, Tagore. Sara H. Fahey, teacher of English, Seward Park School, New York City, quoted Tagore in her speech at the 1917 National Education association. She tells us, Industry, Education and National Defense sat on the same board for the first time when we mobilized for WWI. She wants us to know our enemy and why we must defend our democracy. She goes on to say,

“Note the contrast in ideals. In Central Europe the instruction of youth has been based on the military regime. The aim has been to teach a narrow-minded patriotism consisting of pride in the armed world power of one's own nation and a contempt of others nations. Unquestioning readiness to fight at the first sign from the war lord and to sacrifice any sums for the demands of the war department is the highest virtue implanted in the growing generation by the official school methods... Small wonder that the ideals of these countries clash with ours. With these people nationalism is a delusion by which they have perverted their civilization into a mechanical organization of power that now menaces the truest interests and welfare of mankind.”

Hum, impersonal and mechanical, do Sara's words have meaning to us today? Let me tell you, I am a baby boomer, conceived soon after my father returned from WWII. My mother sang in USO shows, and my grandmother was, of the generation of teachers, who defended democracy, and our liberty, in the classroom, from grades 1 through 12. I remember when we trusted one another, and understood our liberty depended on that. Today, we can't even trust our bankers who have no qualms about figuring another clever way to take more money from us, and whose games now threaten our whole economy. I am writing to tell you, if we do not immediately come to understand how our nation was radically change in 1958, we fought previous wars for nothing. The memory of the democracy we once had is dying with those who fought to defend it.

[Mia]

I agree completely!

[Mr.Vicchio]

I think you all have "Hate guilt Syndrome" And you're full of crap too.

If America is so evil, Take arms and bring her down or move the hell out.

Cause you want what America isn't, and you're full of guilt and refuse to see any good and totally play up the bad.

When you find a perfect country... call me, I'll move there with ya.

[Milton Bradley]

Quote by: Mr.Vicchio When you find a perfect country... call me, I'll move there with ya.

LOL, yeah, you'll be the first person on the invite list.

[Mia]

Quote by: Mr.Vicchio I think you all have "Hate guilt Syndrome" And you're full of crap too. If America is so evil, Take arms and bring her down or move the hell out. Cause you want what America isn't, and you're full of guilt and refuse to see any good and totally play up the bad. When you find a perfect country... call me, I'll move there with ya.

I don't hate America, and by far I do not think it is evil. That does not mean we have not done evil things.

What's hysterical here, is that it was founded on completely different principals that we are now operating under now, at home and world-wide, but I'm the America Hater if I want her to be as she was created.

Things that make you go hmmmmm.

I'm not leaving. The imperialist freedom-haters need to, if anyone. But I'm not asking you to go. That's childish of you to even say to me.

[Mia]

Quote by: Milton Bradley LOL, yeah, you'll be the first person on the invite list.

LOL!

[ruksak]

Sometimes I wonder. If Hitler had won the war and propelled Nazi Germany into the worlds leading superpower, would these America bashing crybabies have ever been born?

Quote by: Mia What's hysterical here, is that it was founded on completely different principals that we are now operating under now, at home and world-wide, but I'm the America Hater if I want her to be as she was created.

Every time I hear this sh!t, I think of our founding fathers beating their nig**rs while sipping lemonade. Guess what Mia? Its a far different world than it was 300 years ago. "All men were created equal", providing your not black, a woman, or poor. You wanna reinstall their ways of old? Go buy yourself a black man to mow your lawn? Lose your landowning and voting rights?

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Is it worth it to be a super-power?
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Hell yes!

Better us than them, I say. Imagine Hitlers grandson leading the new world order. Or Stalins. Perspective will allow you to see our actions and sacrifices as ideal. I think many people are spoiled these days. They don't have a clue what it would be like to live in a real dictatorship.

[Mia]

Hey now, calm down. I didn't say we shouldn't be. My last two posts were responses to slightly different things.

I am looking for a discussion of the pros and cons here.

[ruksak]

Quote by: Mia I am looking for a discussion of the pros and cons here.

Generically speaking; PROS;
1) We call the shots.
2) No one would dare try to invade us.
3) We have the money and resources to pick and choose our friends.

CONS;
1) Being #1 will garner us jealousy.
2) Everybody blames us for everything bad that happens.
3) Even when we do good, somebody gets pissed.
4) Our sons and daughters must take their last breath laying on some stinking plot of sand in some country that he/she couldn't have even found on a map 2 years ago.

The super power of the world can be many things. #1: It can be a horrible invading dictatorship that enslaves foreign peoples.
#2: It could be rich, with the largest most powerful army ever known to the human race, and do nothing while other countries suffer, mad men gain nuclear
power, and religious fanaticism gathers speed and power. Soon capable of challenging the reigning super- power.
#3: It could be rich, with the largest most powerful army ever known to the human race, and try to police the streets of our world.

America makes mistakes, sure. We create alliances, sell or give nations/factions millions of dollars in weapons, only to have war with them a decade later. Gotta shake it off and move on.

[bishop]

Quote by: Mr.Vicchio I think you all have "Hate guilt Syndrome" And you're full of crap too. If America is so evil, Take arms and bring her down or move the hell out. Cause you want what America isn't, and you're full of guilt and refuse to see any good and totally play up the bad. When you find a perfect country... call me, I'll move there with ya.

if i had a dollar for every time vicchio posted something like this, i'd have some full pockets.

and imo, it isn't worth it to be a superpower... much better to be an economic giant that the world respects - like canada.

[nm420]

As far as I'm concerned, anyone that wishes to hold unchecked supremacy over their neighbors has some serious issues and is to be avoided, or opposed even, at all costs. They may be purely egomaniacal or a utopian idealist or anything in between; regardless, they will be blind to any wrongs they will inevitably commit (they are human, after all) as anyone questioning their methods is obviously not a team player and must be silenced, creating yet more wrongs which feed into a vicious cycle.

Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely; this adage exists for a reason. Unfortunately, our hegemony will be our eventual undoing. Even more unfortunately, our undoing will lead to yet another superpower, which will fall and lead to another, and so on. This will continue as long as the human species refuses to shed its animal nature, living by the law of the jungle.

[Mia]

OK, I agree with all of that. Everything on both sides, actually, lol. Because different things are true for different circumstances.

I'm not convinced I want us to be a super-power, there are some downsides, but I'm also not convinced I DON'T want to be.

After all, the middle east would all band together and become the next one, or China, and I don't want them wielding the most power in the world!

We may not be perfect, but a hell of a lot better than the alternatives.

[SoylentGreen]

Mia We may not be perfect, but a hell of a lot better than the alternatives.

I would venture that the Greeks, the Romans, the Cartheginians, the mongols the British etc etc , all said the same thing.

[Mia]

I know, I know. But tell me this: do you really want to live under the world order type that China would create? Or Arabs?

I ain't wearing no burka! So if it's them or us, I'll take us. I do not believe for a second we make the world harder for them then they would us.

I know that's going to spark a lot of talk about the wars and stuff, but they'd be invading us too, and they are some ruthless mofo's. Genocide is high on their list when they invade.

Nothing we do in those countries rises to the level of genocide like they do when they go to war. It may be bad, I am not saying it isn't, but there are levels here.

And they wouldn't be trying to install democratic governments either.

[SoylentGreen]

Mia I know, I know. But tell me this: do you really want to live under the world order type that China would create? Or Arabs?

Its all a matter of perspective. In a thousands years when they are sifting through the ancient ruins of New York, they will wonder how people managed to live like that.

I ain't wearing no burka! So if it's them or us, I'll take us. I do not believe for a second we make the world harder for them then they would us.

You may not, but have you considered they may do.

Nothing we do in those countries rises to the level of genocide like they do when they go to war. It may be bad, I am not saying it isn't, but there are levels here.

So far so true. By the way are you guys still building atomic bombs?

And they wouldn't be trying to install democratic governments either.

The democracy you have works for you. The democracy the Romans had worked for them. And the democracy for the next lot will probably work for them.

The trouble with america being a superpower is that it is a global superpower. When Rome fell only Rome was effected, but when america falls it could very well take the rest of the world with it.

[ruksak]

Quote by: SoylentGreen So far so true. By the way are you guys still building atomic bombs?

Go ask the Japanese about that mess. The wretched droppings of the Enola Gay slotted a bookmark in American history which showed inarguably that sometimes an evil empire with dreams of world domination, can be turned into a very productive democratic society. Just by melting a large portion of their population into glass, we provided them with a social bitch-slap that seemed to bring reason afoot.

Could an ass-kicking of biblical proportions straighten out the Middle Easts torrent culture? Just maybe.

Quote by: SoylentGreen The trouble with America being a superpower is that it is a global superpower. When Rome fell only Rome was effected, but when America falls it could very well take the rest of the world with it.

Which is why we must remain proactive and diligent in suppressing other aspiring superpowers. One foot in the gutter, one fist in the goal.

[Mia]

Go ask the Japanese about that mess. The wretched droppings of the Enola Gay slotted a bookmark in American history which showed inarguably that sometimes an evil empire with dreams of world domination, can be turned into a very productive democratic society. Just by melting a large portion of their population into glass, we provided them with a social bitch-slap that seemed to bring reason afoot.

The Japanese would have not stopped until all of them and many, many more of others were dead. We saved way more lives than we took when we did that.

[ruksak]

Quote by: Mia The Japanese would have not stopped until all of them and many, many more of others were dead. We saved way more lives than we took when we did that.

No sh!t?
Captain Obvious strikes again?

[Mia]

OK, don't get too full of yourself, not everyone agrees with that by far.