Ensuring A New American Century

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Actually, people are attacking the premise of his posts - i.e. that having the US as the dominent world power over the next century is a good thing. I think that's fair game.

 

I don't see any ad hominem attacks. What I do see is a disagreement of the central premise of the OP. The title of the thread is "Ensuring a New American Century" with the major premise being how the US can maintain (or to use the author's words, "ensure") American dominance in the world into the next century and beyond.

It is hardly surprising that with many of the members of this site not being American, that they really don't give a rip about American dominance continuing. It is also unsurprising that since they weren't raised in a culture where everyone said how great the US is and how the US is the greatest country in the world, that they don't accept such statements as self-evident truths.

Bottom line - Arctic is certainly free to put his opinion out there, but that's no guarantee that everyone will agree with that opinion. And since he put it out there, it's fair game to talk about it, and even be critical of it. Hell, it's even enlightening to consider the perspective of a non-American. They can disagree as non-Americans without having to answer questions like, "Why do you hate America?" or "If you don't love America, do you support the terrorists?" It's actually quite refreshing.

 

"A debater commits the Ad Hominem Fallacy when he introduces irrelevant personal premisses about his opponent. Such red herrings may successfully distract the opponent or the audience from the topic of the debate."

http://www.fallacyfiles.org/adhomine.htm

It seems to me that putting words into OP's mouth re: "USA is awesome" consitututes an logical fallacy. You are right--it may not be an ad hominem attack. But it's not what Daishi said.

I'm not even trying to defend his viewpoints. I was personally much more engaged by the space travel discussion, above.

 

So what you are saying dog is that Arctic doesn't think or express the opinion that the US is awesome and it would be a good thing if it continues to dominate the world for the foreseeable future?

 

Aldeth's last post hits the nail right on the head.

 

Hilarious. Even more worrying is that clip from The Newsroom where the guy loses his rag at the BS beijd spouted. For a TV show to use the 'news' that America might not be the 'greatest country in the world' as a vehicle to shock, only says to me that people must be told this stuff so much over there all the time, and I can't imagine why. Except as some form of latent xenophobia hid behind a patriotism pretext.

The only other countries I know who drill 'we're the greatest' into their citizens are perhaps communist states.

 

dogsoldier -- I think you're targetting the wrong people. AD has done most (albeit not all) of the ad hominem attacks. He even called me a liberal European (much to the dismay of the liberal Europeans on the boards) and proceded use that as a foundation of why I couldn't possibly know anything about the topic. At least that's my version....

 

Of course we don't think that. We even spoof the idea. Haven't you ever seen an episode of The_Greatest_American_Hero.

 

Well, look, I'm not here attempting to serve as a mouthpiece for AD's viewpoints. Frankly, I think they verge on facism (more on that later).

I'm just saying that he didn't say "the US is awesome" and that someone else put those words into his mouth while criticizing him. Literally.

I have no idea what he thinks. Do you honestly believe anyone can pretend to actually know what anyone on these boards actually thinks? All I have to go on are typed sentences. Many of which are often calculated to drum up some sort of response.

What AD did was pose a long and well-reasoned viewpoint that everyone may disagree with to their heart's content--and that many of you have, coherently and rationally (as have I, hopefully). The reality, however, is that many Americans, especially those close to the government, do indeed percieve the U.S. as exerting unquestioned hegemony across the globe today and many of these people continually fret, debate, and scheme about the U.S.'s future. These are interesting questions and an interesting phenonmenon.

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You are at least partially right, and I am certainly uncomfortable in my current position.

AD has indeed himself resorted to ad hominem attacks, which has lowered the quality of the debate here.

All I mean is, I wish we could get back on-topic without making clumsy and largely uninformed attacks on each other's nationalities. Including AD. This is why I gave up on the gun-control thread a while back.

 

Partially right?!?!

He turned me into a newt!



I got better....

 

Ha ha! I'm sorry...I forgot you are a Chicagoan! That makes his misidentification of you as a "liberal European" funnier.

 

What is a 'liberal European' anyway? The first words that spring to mind are 'chilled out nice person'?

 

"Liberal" is one of those great words that is used by conspiracy theorists to describe a highly organised group of hippies who secretly want to take over the world by taking away every patriotic American's guns and putting everyone on welfare. Watch out for liberals! Your neighbour might be one!

 

One of the things I've learned over the years on these boards is how differently the word "liberal" is interpreted by the rest of the modern world outside of the US. The US definition of liberal (and it's not that far off from the caricature HB sets up above) is not how virtually any person in any other nation would charactertize the world liberal.

 

He may not have specifically said “America is awesome”, but it’s pretty clear he is of the opinion that the world would be a better place by having the US as the dominant force, and the only way that makes sense is if he thinks the USA is the greatest nation on earth.

OK. I'll do my part by commenting on this:

I can picture it now. Representatives from the US and other right-wing countries (for example, as outlined by AD in post #11) sitting around a big stone fireplace, holding hands and singing America The Beautiful, with the Swiss throwing in the occasional “yodel-ey-ee-oo” for added inspiration. People would pause periodically to sip Jack Daniels and polish their guns with cloths lovingly made by Taiwanese textile workers, often offering to share their barrel with the person sitting next to them. They would lament the lack of freedom in backwards nations like Sweden, Portugal and England, and make plans for their liberation. I get choked up with emotion just thinking about it.

You're welcome.

 

^ Because snarkiness is always the answer?

Seriously, some of you guys are making it difficult for me to hate AD.

 

I find the above paragraph problematic and even disturbing. I've done some reading recently on the evolution of the all-volunteer force in the U.S. military (America's Army by Beth Bailey) and it is interesting to see how the U.S. has relied on the draft thoughout our history. First, the most experienced and motivated service-members have typically NOT been draftees; the U.S. military has always relied on a solid core of individuals who are doing exactly what they want to do when they are serving in the military, most of whom form the "careerist" group who serve until retirement. Second, with the existence of the draft, many other individuals have been motivated to volunteer in order to get into the service or even speciality they wanted to serve in, rather than passively waiting for the largely senseless and arbitrary sytems of the military to chose it for them. (I believe the most draftees served not during Vietnam but during WW2--something like 10 of the 16 million who served during the war were draftees).

Anyway, studies conducted in the late '60s and early '70s show little empirical evidence that the success of national defense could be linked the existence of an conscripted force. There is some evidence that national defense may be cheaper (the modern military pursues a number of expensive measures designed to satisfy the modern service-member with military life, including pretty decent housing, a relatively good family health-care system, generally good on-post educational services, etc, which they wouldn't necessarily need to maintain if the gov't simply forced everyone to serve) but I think, considering the massive U.S. population, it would actually be more expensive in the long run to train a massive amount of people (who don't want to be there).

I don't believe compulsary service would strengthen the economy. I suspect it would do the opposite, in fact. I think it is important to keep brilliant innovators like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates out "innovating" (I mean, these guys were college drop-outs--in the Army they would have be low-ranking, nondescript soldiers toiling away in a service that promotes largely by arbitrary timelines and rewards certain things according to certain gates that I'm unconvinced either of them could ever meet) and the bulk of the workforce working. After all, the military is a largely extractive institution (that is, it does generate some money through military contracts, especially when one looks at companies like Boeing) but it is really funded by the taxpayers. Some of the biggest proponents of the all-volunteer force in the 1970s were economists like Milton Friedman, who advocated for the AVF based on his belief in the strength not just in the market economy but also in principles of democracy.

Which is, to me, one of the biggest points against a conscript force. The U.S. is founded on principles of democracy, free choice, free dissent, capitalism, and other ideas which seems antithetical to the idea of a military formed by citizens who are compelled by force to serve. My personal belief is that the principles of freedom and individual choice are too important to trample on while attempting to force individuals to serve in military service. Furthermore, I as an officer have enough problems working with, for, and leading the people who are currently in the service; I cannot imagine the difficulties if I suddenly had to work with 10x more people, most of whom don't want to be here, and almost none of whom would do this as their first choice of profession.

I don't like this idea, mostly for the ideas laid out above (they apply to non-citizens about as effectively as they apply to citizens). Furthermore, can you imagine the difficulties in trying to train individuals who may not even speak English, let alone be educated to the standard of an American high-school senior? A problem we have in Afghanistan, actually--which doesn't even get after the problems inherent in motivating, understanding, and educating people from a different culture. Plus, as another poster noted, why would someone emmigrate to the U.S. so they could go fight the U.S.'s wars for them? That being said, I've served with many non-citizens who served in the U.S. military--most of whom expressed that they were motivated to serve because they were proud and wanted to pay back the country that took their families in.

It's not freedom if you are forced to do it. If one compells people to do it, it is a restriction on the behavior of a free people.

 

By my count, based off the SIPRI website, we outspend the next 18 states combined (http://www.sipri.org/). Kind of an interesting list. I had no idea that Spain or the United Arab Emerites spent as much as they did, for instance.

But yeah, that's an interesting question. Hypethetically, can we still have a secure state, defend our interests abroad, and abide by our alliances if we, say, cut our spending by an enormous 70%--to, roughly, what China (#2 in defense spending) and Russia (#3 in defense spending) spend on defense, combined, around approximately $210 billion? Right now we have enormous heartache in the Pentagon about cutting our defense spending just a couple of percentage points.