Libertarianism - the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Cutlery_sl said:

He's already explained this to you several times, don't let your patriotism cloud your vision on this.

Lemme ask you this -

If the rest of the world is so against our warmongering, how come we don't have sanctions imposed on us by the UN?

Click to expand...

Same reason there are no sanctions imposed on China by the UN? (you can't really sanction permanent council members with veto powers)

Numbers_sl said:

So how did Canada and friends make you develop the military industrial complex? Of course countries around the world exploit current conditions, but I've never read anything about Canada's involvement in international institutions that pressured the U.S. into spending $700 billion a year on the military in the U.S. The soviet economic system was its own worst enemy and was destined to fail in places that it was forced upon. Canada has traditionally been wary of American military strength and has pushed back against military development of space, or even the development of nuclear weapons. Make no mistake, the U.S. has made its own decisions based on their own interests and countries like Canada are invited to international groups and agreements in part because it serves American interests to have us at the table, not the other way around.

Click to expand...

I think I see why you're misunderstanding--you view Canada as only what it does in terms of it's government, within the realm of international relations. It's a pretty myopic view of the sum total of "Canada". Canada is not just your government, it's the logging company exporting lumber, or the maple syrup company, involved in an international food conglomerate like DOLE who is shipping gooey goodness all over the world. When these Canadians want a large, multi-million dollar transaction to go smoothly, they use U.S. dollars (Or the Euro), because everyone knows these funds are universally fungible in every other market in the world. This means almost every transaction goes through various U.S. financial institutions (Or the EU--but even then, it often traces back here.)--this generates an ENORMOUS amount of money for private parties in the U.S.

Now, when a market is threatened with violence; trade dries up. Just watch the stock market, any time you see a potential rogue state, or some other unhinged world actor create a shit storm, the money simply evacuates that market--that's because state violence (Or really any uncontrolled violence--again, look at Africa) is one of the few things that can null a contract without fault and make trade impossible. So if I have 10 million dollars invested in South Korea, and North Korea decides to go buck wild, I'm shit out of luck--any rational person, given the threat of violence, would IMMEDIATELY sever connections in that market (Again, this is why you don't see companies utilizing slave African labor--violence). That is, unless you knew there was a deterrent in the region with the capability to force stability and claim a "monopoly on violence" (Look up that term, everything in civilization is based off of it) Like I said before, is it a Canadian Aircraft carrier that parks itself around NK when they act shitty? No, no it's not. That aircraft carrier is protecting 12 billion dollars in trading between Canada and SK.

So, any good Canadian company that is of decent size, is going to be part of a cooperation, or more likely, be a subsidiary of a larger brand. These multi-national entities hire lobbyist in Washington and one of the things Lobbyist do is just lather Senators and Congressmen in money in order to prevent international base closing or troop reductions in certain regions. Also, you have the financial guys, who are making money hand over fist from said Canadian trading in our dollars, doing the same. And this international, stable trade has given these actors money to lobby, campaign fund, and give good statistics, (Showing how they produce X jobs because of eventual trade between Canada and the U.S. due to X foreign market) which the Congressmen and Senators need for their next run (This is how you see those statistics of I saved/protected/created X jobs). This creates a powerful profit motive for an essential monopoly on world deterrence--which is what the U.S. military provides, and what the industrial complex builds shit for.

Do you understand? The U.S. military does not just kill brown people because it's racist. It kills them because all the world's market depends on the oil underneath them or it kills them because they threaten various markets with their little bombing fetish. Whenever a market is threatened, the process above happens and eventually it creates a powerfulmonetaryneed for U.S. military involvement. It's a pretty vicious cycle and international pressure for the U.S. to police various areas is very powerful, not because Canada is openly asking for it, but becauseCanadiansare making tons of money off of it. This is why Canada itself openly says America sucks in foreign policy, but quietly trains our troops for cold weather fighting, allows it's airspace for our fighters, enters into trade agreements in unstable markets sometimes solely due to U.S. military presence in the area, continues to support our monetary policy (Even though China offered to suck Canadian cock for internalized currency exchanges.) and unquestionably supports our spear headed agreements in entities like the WTO and WB.

Because Canada depends on the hegemony as much as the U.S.--and the wealthiest Canucks know it. If they really found the U.S. abhorrent they would have entered into the recent push to trade using their own currency, or the new oil exchange. They didn't--instead they are lining up to exploit Iraq oil if Iraq doesn't collapse, and hoping the U.S. military can maintain enough stability in Afghanistan to get in there and get at those resources. Because in the end, as much as people say they love peace, they love money more. And while some countries have taken a stand against us (Like Ven/China--but even then, China knows not to push too much because they don't want the job, it's absolutely thankless and draining), most still fall in line and support our policies because it makes them the most money and it's lead to the most stability the world has seen since the modern age began (Which is why it makes them the most money.)

Eomer_sl said:

NATO, maybe? Jesus christ man, you're fighting a losing battle here.

Click to expand...

Do you think I'm arguing that countries like Canada are completely against having a military? Canada has openly criticized American military operations in the past as well as the militarization of space. Was it really Canada and other members of NATO that forced the United States' hand into becoming the military premiere force in the world, or was it due to American interests? Lithose said that countries like Canada successfully lobbied the U.S. to shape and protect trade routes for them by investing heavily in military procurement, but I have a hard time ignoring American interests in this respect. Has Canada benefited from the spread of democracy and the rule of law? Of course. But that wasn't what I was talking about. He probably just misspoke.

Nobody forced anyone's hand. What he is saying is that we are in a partnership. American interests are Canadian interests are British interests etc. The US does some US shit and everyone benefits together, everyone understands that, and nobody rocks the boat.

My only point of contention was when he said countries like Canada essentially lobbied the U.S. to become a military behemoth so that we could get the goods for free. It just simply is not the case and one in which I repeatedly stated that of course a country like Canada would try and exploit current conditions for its own benefit.

Edit: It is also laughable that U.S. military forces are protecting trade routes to South Korea just to be nice guys, or upon request from Canadian businesses to let the Canadians trade with them. Although I'm not saying that the current trade routes aren't super awesome or whatever.

I have no doubt that countries like Canada encourage US military spending and strategic engagement. I don't have any evidence that they do, but I am pretty certain that it happens.

chaos_sl said:

I have no doubt that countries like Canada encourage US military spending and strategic engagement. I don't have any evidence that they do, but I am pretty certain that it happens.

Click to expand...

If anything is true, it is that American security concerns have overwhelmed any talk between Canada and the U.S., not the other way around.

Numbers_sl said:

Edit: It is also laughable that U.S. military forces are protecting trade routes to South Korea just to be nice guys, or upon request from Canadian businesses to let the Canadians trade with them. Although I'm not saying that the current trade routes aren't super awesome or whatever.

Click to expand...

Numbers, where did anyone say anything about "being nice"--it's all profit motivated. We do it to protect our interests, you trade in our currency to protect yours and continue the gravy train. The only difference is you get to by a hypocrite and say you don't like it, while indulging yourself in the excesses of Western Life that said misery allows. That's it.

I mean, seriously, you're naive enough to believe the only thing Canada is responsible for is what your government openly endorses--I'm never going to get through that kind of myopic vision, no matter how carefully I do a paint by numbers for you. The world is more interconnected than you believe, and more people profit from one states actions than the people within that state (Recent example, how Germany uses the ECB to fuck the southern members). The quicker you accept that fact, the more you will really how fucking useless a statement like this is...

Canada has openly criticized American military operations in the past as well as the militarization of space.

Click to expand...

lol..Guess that clears everything up! God damn, I want to live in such a simple world, I do. But I'll be over here in reality, where I have to sit and look over some Canadian (And bank CEO that profits from the Canadian using our financial infrastructure) asshole's books, who wants to divert money into a joint lobbyist account, so said lobbyist can hire whores and fill the campaign coffers for a congressmen on the oversight committee to make sure the regional military, intelligence and political influence in some backwards shit hole doesn't get drawn down in this round of budget cuts.--all while listening to some fucking Canadian talking about how Canada is squeaky clean is because their leader said a few hollow words against our actions. Go real life!

Edit: The biggest thing you need to realize is "the state" is not the defining agent of the world--in fact, every year it's power weakens due to globalization. What your governmentsaysit likes, and what theCanadian peopledo, and what the government allows and enjoins itself to (NATO), are completely and utterly different things.

I can only repeat what I have been saying as you're clearly upset by things outside of the scope of my criticism of your earlier position, simply that American militarization is not the result of countries like Canada lobbying for you to generously secure our trade routes. I agree with Chaos when he said that we have a partnership but if history is any guide, American concerns over security has dominated talks between Canada and the U.S.

Canada/Canadian companies were paid at one point to scuttle the Avro Arrow plane because American firms didn't want competition.

Numbers_sl said:

I can only repeat what I have been saying as you're clearly upset by things outside of the scope of my criticism of your earlier position, simply that American militarization is not the result of countries like Canada lobbying for you to generously secure our trade routes. .

Click to expand...

I'm not upset because it's "outside the scope"...I'm simply trying to show that you can't see the forest through the trees. (Sorry, I wasn't going to reply but I have actually never in my life found an more appropriate place to say this idiom--it's really the only reason for this post.)

Lithose/Numbers I think what we have here is a failure to communicate. I don't think Number's is disagreeing with you that it happens Lithose, I think he's just saying its not the root cause of American militarism. Its a result not a cause. Basically as the US secures its trade routes, Canada and others got on the bandwagon. They didn't drive the militarization effort, they just went, "Hey thanks Yanks!".

"Contributing factor" is probably a more accurate term than "result."

chaos_sl said:

"Contributing factor" is probably a more accurate term than "result."

Click to expand...

Agreed. Better wording right there

Tanoomba_sl said:

This may actually be the most complicated sentence I've ever read in my life.

Click to expand...

This is actually kind of straight forward.

Lithose, do you work for or with someone's state department attache? Most people have no fucking clue things get this deep. You getting frustrated about the communication aspect of it with Numbers is no surprise. We had a college professor kick a kid out of class because it wouldn't sink in. The professor actually said for him not to come back to class until he had read all of the Jack Ryan books, because if the kid couldn't understand the global dynamic in a fictional universe then he should change majors. Kid wanted to go into politics. Fucking figures right?

He's actually kept his examples really simple using Canada as the reference too, probably because it's the Canadians so active in the thread. If he wanted to be a douche about this topic he could explain the power vacuum left in the Middle East when the police force leaves and what the EU will do about it when what's left of their money goes bust. I've read a few outlines of this type of thing, and if you think the US has problems you haven't seen nothin yet.

Great thread though. Especially if we can keep deflecting it.

So if I want to cite a Lithose post, how does that work? I'm not able to find that in my Chicago Manual of Style, 15th ed.

TheBeagle_sl said:

So if I want to cite a Lithose post, how does that work? I'm not able to find that in my Chicago Manual of Style, 15th ed.

Click to expand...

If you cited his posts from the lat couple of days you would get an F on your essay.