I would prefer society not fall in such a manner. The amount of destruction and death would be horrendous and any return to normalcy would be long coming.
I could easily see the rise of aggressive nation states duking it out for turf for a few years with many of them taking or trying to military equipment and people to their side.
Who watches the watchmen?Short of an international force of sizeable military strength stepping up preferably an ally I do not see a U.S. collapse being a good thing ever. Granted our society is getting pretty fucked up from my point of view I would rather drag it a new direction kicking and screaming rather then off the bastard and find a new one to take its place.
Who watches the watchmen?@ Tuefel: About Canada, well it won't just be the Canadians — I can easily see the British Forces based at Suffield
getting involved, and any other forces undertaking exercises within Canada.
It'll be too big to ignore.
Keep Rolling OnIndia wasn't really a successful peaceful revolution, that was just a result of the British Empire's ongoing dissolution. Plus the the whole fiasco of splitting India and Pakistan wasn't exactly peaceful.
Better examples would probably be the various nearly bloodless revolutions in Eastern Europe following the collapse of the USSR.
With cannon shot and gun blast smash the alien. With laser beam and searing plasma scatter the alien to the stars.
Those were very similar to the British example in that they represented the collapse of an empire, rather than the wholesale overthrow of an existing government. Those "revolutions" simply filled in the power vacuum left by the dissolution of the Soviet Union. And they did not all leave peaceful, stable governments in their wake.
The issue here is that running a democracy is difficult in Eastern Europe since some of these countries were made up of existing countries (Yugoslavia) or only had autocratic leadership. Democracy has to be taught in my view and its not a natural or efficient way to run a government but it is a humane way to run one.
Well he's talking about WWII when the Chinese bomb pearl harbor and they commuted suicide by running their planes into the ship.^
Same problem Afghanistan has, they can't be ran under a democratic government because they simply don't understand the concept in the first place, which is the most important hurdle. Voting for everything doesn't make sense when you come from a culture where rule of law has been decided by the strongest warlords for centuries, if not outright millennia.
Not to mention they are unlikely to accept any system forced on them by a foreign party, which again goes back centuries.
I would say that a worthier cause would be building infrastructure in Afghanistan but I'm sure that will head nowhere as well.
Not that attempting to create a democracy isn't a good cause but I know too many people in my poly-sci classes who think that deep down inside everyone wants to be like us but doesn't realize it.
edited 2nd Feb '11 10:13:50 AM by saladofstones
Well he's talking about WWII when the Chinese bomb pearl harbor and they commuted suicide by running their planes into the ship.Blegh, Im so sick of people talking about "rebuilding society from the ground up". No, you know what, you'll do the same goddamn thing all over again, just like you've done every other goddamn time someone had to start society over. It always ends up the same damn way! No matter how you do it, no matter what ideology you might start off with, eventually the system becomes corrupted by outside interests of various kinds, and the whole process starts over again.

Barky, I'd join your NCR. If I'd be good to join.