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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM

TerminusEst from the Land of Winter and Stars Since: Feb, 2010
#131801: Jul 23rd 2016 at 2:07:16 PM

Overwhelming military and economic might, protecting and projecting commonly held political ideas, and preventing any encroachment from outside ideas and eradicating them as necessary.

Si Vis Pacem, Para Perkele
CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#131802: Jul 23rd 2016 at 2:14:07 PM

NATO as an organization exists to ensure as much of the world's oil supply is controlled the hands of the United States as possible. Keeping the Hordes from the East was a useful pretext until said hordes collapsed upon themselves, after which the convinience other become Muslims. Next up is probably China. So yes, the world as a whole would benefit from it's contraction.

edited 23rd Jul '16 2:16:01 PM by CaptainCapsase

LeGarcon Blowout soon fellow Stalker from Skadovsk Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Gay for Big Boss
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
#131803: Jul 23rd 2016 at 2:15:27 PM

NATO exists to make sure we don't all live under Putin's heel. I'd say it's pretty damn important and we need to support it at any cost.

Oh really when?
Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#131804: Jul 23rd 2016 at 2:16:20 PM

That is insanely naive and flatout wrong, NATO still exists to contain Russia and maintain a semblance of global order. It has its faults for sure, but its done more good than bad, especially since the end of the Cold War.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
AmbarSonofDeshar Since: Jan, 2010
#131805: Jul 23rd 2016 at 2:16:50 PM

NATO as an organization exists to ensure as much of the world's oil supply is controlled the hands of the United States as possible.

Because there are so many oil producing countries in NATO. And NATO joins every American military interventions in the Middle East.

CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#131806: Jul 23rd 2016 at 2:17:51 PM

[up][up][up] It would be no different from American rule except as dictated by the differences in Russia's strategic interests versus America's.

edited 23rd Jul '16 2:18:54 PM by CaptainCapsase

Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#131807: Jul 23rd 2016 at 2:19:29 PM

Honestly, the US could survive off North American oil alone if it really had to. Assuming Canada and the US went into full production.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
Protagonist506 from Oregon Since: Dec, 2013 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
#131808: Jul 23rd 2016 at 2:20:42 PM

"Higher moral ground" does exist in international politics, it's just the high ground is lower than most people realize, and the lower ground is even lower than most people realize.

America is not perfect, no. However, there is no alternative more ethical alternative than US interventionism. For example, let's say in the Korean War, America decided "meh, not any of our business", what would happen is the entire Korean nation would be under the control of the Un Regime right now. Or if America had stayed truly neutral during WWII (as in, no giving away military assets to the UK or cutting off Japan's oil), then the allies would have had a much harder time winning.

Leviticus 19:34
AmbarSonofDeshar Since: Jan, 2010
#131809: Jul 23rd 2016 at 2:21:09 PM

[up][up][up]If you see no difference between America and Russia I would question your judgement.

edited 23rd Jul '16 2:21:18 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#131810: Jul 23rd 2016 at 2:21:40 PM

[up][up][up] Survive? Yes. But like spice on Dune, he or she who controls the oil controls the Earth.

edited 23rd Jul '16 2:24:22 PM by CaptainCapsase

LeGarcon Blowout soon fellow Stalker from Skadovsk Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Gay for Big Boss
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
#131811: Jul 23rd 2016 at 2:21:50 PM

If we had stayed out of WW 2 the Soviets never would have stopped at Berlin.

Oh really when?
Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#131812: Jul 23rd 2016 at 2:21:55 PM

[up][up][up][up]Also this. Intervention is a political tool like any other, and when used properly it does a lot of good. Like helping to save the world from fascism.

[up]That as well. They would have driven to the French-Spain border if they could. Now I doubt Russia's ability to hold Western Europe in such a case (even a communist France probably would have gone the way of Yugoslavia eventually) but still.

edited 23rd Jul '16 2:23:14 PM by Rationalinsanity

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#131813: Jul 23rd 2016 at 2:26:50 PM

@Ambar: There would of course be differences, but those would be dictated not by any inherent difference in the nature and character of power, but by differing geopolitical and economic circumstances. Under present geopolitical and economic circumstances, an Empire cannot hope to dominate the globe through direct rule, and in order to achieve such domination, Russia, China, and any other power with aspirations of supplanting the US would need to adopt a similar strategy of hegemonic domination to do so.

[up] Saving the world from fascism was largely the doing of the Soviet Union first (by far the greatest contributor to the war), Great Britain second, China third if you count Japan's ultranationalism as part of the general fascist movement, and the United States, which did indeed wait to enter the war as long as was politically possible, in a distant fourth. That delay was in fact deliberate based on government documents from the time; those in power at the time were well aware that the longer the great powers remained at war with one another, the stronger America's position would be in the post war world, and so with global domination within their grasp, they waited until it was no longer possible to wait any longer.

edited 23rd Jul '16 2:30:23 PM by CaptainCapsase

Protagonist506 from Oregon Since: Dec, 2013 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
#131814: Jul 23rd 2016 at 2:29:02 PM

[up][up]Reminds me of a quote "Aside from helping to end slavery and fascism, war never solved anything!"

But in seriousness: all governments-even all empires-do not have the same shade of moral grey to them. Culture shapes political ideology, which shapes the ethics of a nation's foreign policy. America can legitimately be argued to be more benevolent than most of the alternatives (indeed, it's a pretty easy argument to make many times).

Also: "All that's necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing"-this is fundementally why US interventionism is necessary. The US cannot, for its own sake and the sake of others, stand by idly and leave the entire world to its own devices. That would not be ethical.

edited 23rd Jul '16 2:29:09 PM by Protagonist506

Leviticus 19:34
Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#131815: Jul 23rd 2016 at 2:30:25 PM

I'd put the US in 2nd (if you can quantify war contribution) after the Soviets myself. The UK was only in a position to defend (outside of North Africa) and was critically dependent on US lend lease. And the Chinese could only pin the Japanese down, the US was the only nation with a powerful enough Navy to challenge the IJN in the East.

And the doesn't get into the whole problem of the Soviets dominating the Eastern Hemisphere problem if America stays neutral.

edited 23rd Jul '16 2:31:33 PM by Rationalinsanity

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#131816: Jul 23rd 2016 at 2:32:02 PM

[up] People seriously undersell how much their investment in China weakened Japan. America would've been seriously bloodied, perhaps even to the point where public support for the war effort would falter and a treaty leaving the Japanese regime intact would have been signed, had China capitulated early.

edited 23rd Jul '16 2:33:54 PM by CaptainCapsase

LeGarcon Blowout soon fellow Stalker from Skadovsk Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Gay for Big Boss
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
#131817: Jul 23rd 2016 at 2:32:12 PM

The United States is a superpower. Without sounding all White Man's Burdeney it has to be said that with that power comes responsibility. We are absolutely obligated at times to intervene in world affairs.

We've got the economic and military might to save a lot of people so we have to.

Oh really when?
Protagonist506 from Oregon Since: Dec, 2013 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
#131818: Jul 23rd 2016 at 2:32:44 PM

[up][up][up]Also, the US was also very helpful later on from saving a good chunk of the world from Communism. While it is true that they didn't directly defeat the Soviets, they did stop the soviets from grabbing resources and land that would have made their regime more successful than it was.

edited 23rd Jul '16 2:32:54 PM by Protagonist506

Leviticus 19:34
CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#131819: Jul 23rd 2016 at 2:36:20 PM

Listen, the rest of you have a very fundamental philosophical disagreement with me about the nature of power and the nature of states.

As much as I dislike his actions as a person, I consider Henry Kissinger/Richard Nixon's school of realpolitik to be a very good descriptive model for how nation states behave; to summarize, "Nations have no moral compass or sentimental allies, just interests and the obstacles standing in their way."

Where we disagree is the notion that such a state of affairs is something desirable.

edited 23rd Jul '16 2:37:40 PM by CaptainCapsase

Euodiachloris Since: Oct, 2010
#131820: Jul 23rd 2016 at 2:38:25 PM

[up] Desirable or not, you can't change the nature of the game if you don't play.

Elle Since: Jan, 2001
#131821: Jul 23rd 2016 at 2:39:15 PM

Can we agree that there are shades of interventionism up and down the good/bad scale? There's been good, there's been questionable and there's been "I'm ashamed to share a country with these people" bad. Painting them all with the same brush is unhelpful.

MarqFJA The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer from Deserts of the Middle East (Before Recorded History) Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
#131822: Jul 23rd 2016 at 2:39:46 PM

Saving the world from fascism was largely the doing of the Soviet Union first (by far the greatest contributor to the war), Great Britain second, China third if you count Japan's ultranationalism as part of the general fascist movement, and the United States, which did indeed wait to enter the war as long as was politically possible, in a distant fourth.
... You do realize that the USA's entry alone cut down the duration of the war by several years (and by proxy, the expected number of casaulties by a considerable margin), and ensured that the defeating the Axis Powers was actually feasible instead of just forcing them into a stalemate? Between the American giant on the western front, and the Soviet giant on the eastern one, Nazi Germany had no way of winning or even holding the line.

That is definitely not what I'd call a "distant fourth".

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#131823: Jul 23rd 2016 at 2:40:24 PM

Let's look back into the Bush administration's record:

  • The invasion of Iraq was one of the greatest foreign policy crimes in the history of this country. At least 600,000 Iraqis died as a direct result. The country’s entire civil infrastructure was destroyed; its professional and managerial classes were killed or fled. America lost 4500 soldiers and over $2 trillion dollars. The invasion in general and horrors like Abu Ghraib in particular helped do incredible damage to our international reputation. The invasion destabilized the country and directly contributed to the rise of ISIS.
The principle of international cooperation and UN approval of foreign wars was undermined. A country was poisoned, figuratively and literally, for generations.
  • Whatever your thoughts on the Afghanistan invasion in general, the prosecution of that war failed in its most basic tasks during the Bush administration. Osama bin Laden was not captured; the Taliban was not permanently defeated; a functional and free Afghanistan did not emerge. The war devolved into an intractable, violent quagmire.
  • Bush responded to the devastation of Hurricane Katrina with utter apathy for days as poor people literally drowned in the streets of New Orleans. There was ample warning from the National Weather Service, and a concerted effort by the federal government to get people out of the city could have saved many lives, but no such help came. Bush publicly praised Michael Brown, the now-disgraced FEMA director, despite Brown’s total incompetence in handling the crisis.
  • The Bush administration did nothing to address the conditions that led to the financial crisis back when they could perhaps have been addressed. In fact that contributed to a culture of lax enforcement of regulations and a generally permissive culture that allowed Wall Street to run amok. They appeared to be caught completely unawares by the crash, despite many warning signs. Their response, while successful in preventing a worldwide economic meltdown, amounted to a vast, taxpayer-funded payout to the very same banks and wealthy people who created the crisis in the first place.
  • The tax cuts pushed by the Bush administration immediately upon entering a period of war and national emergency may be genuinely unprecedented in terms of slashing taxes just as a country entered a period of war. The Bush administration slashed taxes, claiming that most of those cuts would be for the middle class; that was a transparent lie.
  • Bush was a key figure in building a vast network of illegal surveillance of both Americans and others.
  • The Bush administration was complicit in torture, the establishment of a due process-free prison for Muslim men at Guantanamo, and the disappearing of “suspected terrorists” to foreign black sites without legal review or accountability.
  • After 9/11, thousands of Iranians took to the streets to protest the attacks. The Iranian government made overtures of solidarity towards ours. It was the best opportunity for rapprochement in my lifetime. That chance was destroyed by the (David Frum written) “Axis of Evil” speech.
  • Bush pulled the US out of the Kyoto protocols, one of the most essential pieces of international climate change action ever.
  • The Bush administration deepened the War on Drugs, even after 9/11, and continued to pursue nonviolent drug offenders with zeal even as we poured vast sums into fighting terrorism.
  • Bush was a staunch opponent of abortion. He was a staunch defender of the death penalty. Enforcement of equal housing and equal employment opportunity laws declined and stagnated in his term. He supported vastly increasing budgets for anti-undocumented immigration enforcement along the US-Mexico border. His administration elevated unqualified or outright incompetent people to roles of immense importance. He pushed Medicare Part D, a massive transfer of government money to pharmaceutical companies, without expanding coverage or access to essential medicine for the vast majority of Americans. He championed the disastrous No Child Left Behind school reform bill. He participated in retribution against Valerie Plame for her husband’s role as a whistleblower. He dramatically expanded executive power in all of the worst ways. He was a disaster, from start to finish, someone with the blood of literally hundreds of thousand of people or more on his hands, a war criminal, a bigot, a historical villain of the first order. And he was in charge of this country 8 years ago.

Nowadays, when we hear "US Interventionism", we think "Busherie" at worst, and CIA drones at best. US interventions are not sustained by caring. US foreign policy is indifferent to fascism, and favours or represses it according to convenience. Certainly, Clinton's realpolitik is preferable to Bush's... idealism.

I'd rather US adminsitrations focused those immense pork barrels of military spending into stimulating their own economies, healing their sick, teaching their students without indebting them, repairing and expanding their infrastructures, making a better use of their renewable energies, and, perhaps, just perhaps, spending some of that money into foreign aid. I do believe any populace that worships the USA for aiding and protecting them is more useful than one that lives in fear of clear skies.

In both world wars, converting US industry into a war machine was easy, quick, and terrifyingly effective. I am certain that the same would apply to the opposite. If proper care is taken to combat corruption, and the spectacular amount of dysfunction in its sprawling militaries and industries, the USA need not even lose actual power over this; they could do more, with less, and the money saved would result in even more money returned.

I am hoping that the likes of Sanders and Warren can help push this forward, turning the USA into a smart, benevolent hegemon, rather than the bully it is now. Try and be Superman, will you? We'd all thank you very much indeed.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#131824: Jul 23rd 2016 at 2:40:49 PM

[up][up] It tipped the scales, which certainly gets it a place of honor, but the majority of the price in blood and death had already been paid by other nations. I'm talking in terms of how much America sacrificed to stop fascism, which was a fairly paltry sum compared to the others.

@Elle: I'd agree that intervention can be beneficial in the same way 19th century Imperialism undoubtedly was occasionally beneficial to its recipients, but maintain that such benefits are only ever incidental, and thus, I will only support intervention under circumstances where I believe American interests actually aligns with the interests of the local population, which is something vanishingly rare in my eyes.

edited 23rd Jul '16 2:44:46 PM by CaptainCapsase

TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#131825: Jul 23rd 2016 at 2:42:42 PM

Yup, they joined the fray late, and reaped.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

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