Duke Nukem
Hail to the king baby
FTFY
Is/Was America and/or ShipmasterSane a Bully?
- Thread starter Lanmandragon
- Start date
LordsFire
Internet Wizard
Why is it obligatory?
Arch Dornan
Oh, lovely. They've sent me a mo-ron.
America's definitely a bully but when you're a superpower you have to be one or the masses start plotting because they want to be one.
I cannot say if the US is a bully, as it is entirely dependant on what POTUS/timeframe/situation the accusation is in reference to.
However, I can say with certainty that Ship is.
Dude is such an petty asshole that he repeatedly got told to knock this shit off in the old SB PM. He was constantly shitting up the PMs by picking pedantic, often pointless fights, just for the sake of it. He cares not for anyone but himself, his own entertainment, and thinks he's so 'manly' for acting this way.
However, I can say with certainty that Ship is.
Dude is such an petty asshole that he repeatedly got told to knock this shit off in the old SB PM. He was constantly shitting up the PMs by picking pedantic, often pointless fights, just for the sake of it. He cares not for anyone but himself, his own entertainment, and thinks he's so 'manly' for acting this way.
ShieldWife
Marchioness
My general opinion on war is this: avoid it if at all possible but if attacked the goal should be retaliation and not "liberation" or "regime change" or other such nonsense.
So we should only attack nations who have attacked us, and should not provoke any nations to aggression with the various shenanigans we've been doing since forever. I we're attacked, we respond with Chicago Way* retaliation. One thing that has addled the brains of Americans when it comes to war is that our goal should somehow be to help the countries we are fighting, bring them democracy, liberate them, or remove a despotic leader who is singlehandedly preventing that country from being the USA. This insanity has has given us an insane foreign policy, where a high percentage of Americans actually wonder why a country like Iraq isn't grateful after we bombed the fuck out of them. The preposterous notion that we fight countries to help them has lead us into both unnecessary wars and caused us to fight less effectively in those rare cases when aggressive action was needed.
So, we should leave other countries alone, only attacking them if they attack us first. In that case, we kick their butts, doing so with the knowledge that our actions are meant to hurt them and serve as a future deterrent rather than a method of helping them. After that, no rebuilding, regime change, improved infrastructure, forced Democracy or anything of the sort should follow unless there is a pressing national interest to do so and reasonable expectation that our actions will have a positive outcome.
As for the question of America being a bully? Very often it is and that is unfortunate.
* Chicago Way
So we should only attack nations who have attacked us, and should not provoke any nations to aggression with the various shenanigans we've been doing since forever. I we're attacked, we respond with Chicago Way* retaliation. One thing that has addled the brains of Americans when it comes to war is that our goal should somehow be to help the countries we are fighting, bring them democracy, liberate them, or remove a despotic leader who is singlehandedly preventing that country from being the USA. This insanity has has given us an insane foreign policy, where a high percentage of Americans actually wonder why a country like Iraq isn't grateful after we bombed the fuck out of them. The preposterous notion that we fight countries to help them has lead us into both unnecessary wars and caused us to fight less effectively in those rare cases when aggressive action was needed.
So, we should leave other countries alone, only attacking them if they attack us first. In that case, we kick their butts, doing so with the knowledge that our actions are meant to hurt them and serve as a future deterrent rather than a method of helping them. After that, no rebuilding, regime change, improved infrastructure, forced Democracy or anything of the sort should follow unless there is a pressing national interest to do so and reasonable expectation that our actions will have a positive outcome.
As for the question of America being a bully? Very often it is and that is unfortunate.
* Chicago Way
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Or you just need the capacity to kick shit in to keep them at bay...and if your empire has moral concerns to be able to act on them. Both the American and British Empires went on moral crusades after all.
Because he believes it is, that kind of makes that obligatory to him. He can obviously explain his reasons, but I figure I should defend him, because I think that is enough. Even if you disagree with his stated reason, he does have grounds on personal belief. And I do think he should defend people even if we have mixed feelings about them.
Terthna
Professional Lurker
He's not defending people though; just the opposite, in fact, and for his own personal gratification. Because he enjoys being an asshole. Or did you mean that "we" should defend people, and "he" was a typo?
Arch Dornan
Oh, lovely. They've sent me a mo-ron.
Regardless of the justification when the moral crusade is conducted the ones affected can feel bullied. There's no way around it.
Tough shit but there you have it when you get leaders who decide to get the boys to stick their dicks in a blender for some cause.
Shipmaster Sane
You have been weighed
I'm still living in your head rent free then, huh? Glad to see the nightmares haven't stopped.
No I am defending him in a limited way. Yeah a typo then, we should.
Indeed. And something I left out is that the moral crusade shouldn't be wasteful and pointless. Stopping the Atlantic Slave Trade worked, but was costly. But America's regime building campaigns are very limited in success, and costly. One was worth it.
Sometimes it is worth it, but really, it usually isn't. You actually want something your nation can walk away proud from.
Shipmaster Sane
You have been weighed
Thats what we needed, Bacle in stereo.
Shouldn't you have scurried away screaming by now?
I don't think ship is a bully.
As I said in California people talk like him all of the time, and its not meant to cause offense. Debating with him is a lot like living in LA again, only like I said he's actually nicer and more polite then a lot of the people I knew in LA. By my cultural standards he's actually pretty polite and urbane.
There's a reason why so much of the US despises Californians and LA in particular.
Shipmaster Sane
You have been weighed
It's because of the democrats and homeless. Everyone loved California before they took over.
Terthna
Professional Lurker
No offense, but all that tells me is that California is filled with assholes; which isn't exactly news.
Shipmaster Sane
You have been weighed
The world is filled with people you'd be afraid of. Better stay in the cave where it's safe.
Terthna
Professional Lurker
What are you; twelve? Seriously, there comes a point where it stops being aggravating, and just becomes sad; and you reached that point quite a while ago. You're like some schoolyard bully trying to establish dominance in the one part of his life that he can, before he has to go home to his abusive parents. Or maybe you're just a sociopath; regardless, you clearly need some sort of psychological help.
There's an enormous difference between winning a war, and subjecting a country to utter annihilation so that they are "unable to function at any level" as you said. That level of extreme overkill is very much functional genocide even if civilians are not directly targeted, since it advocates not stopping until they all are in a position of starving to death.
We do get quite a bit from it, it's just indirect and takes decades to happen. We invested enormous amounts in reconstructing Germany and Japan post-WWII; the dividend for that totally undeserved mercy and generosity is every bit of business we now do with those nations, every bit of cooperation, every bit of technology and engineering they've had a hand in since, every time they've been our ally.
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Shipmaster Sane
You have been weighed
I believe I have already mentioned that it is specifically those who have thrown our generosity in our face (so everyone but... Japan and SK, essentially) that no longer deserve it, if that wasn't clear from that one paragraph in isolation.
Europe does not even come within a thousand miles of paying us back for all the free Naval service we give the world, much everything else.
-Opens with insults
-Refuses to respond directly to posts
-Endless sniping in every thread
-Gets insulted back
-"WHY DO YOU ONLY HAVE INSULTS!?!"
You're a masterclass in ineffective hypocrisy.
It took many years for Japan and Germany to even begin returning dividends, so to speak.
The rest of Europe, well, that's a different scenario to begin with, as they weren't our enemies in war. Well, France sort of, given the Vichy, but that ship long sailed. Europe makes for a poor and rather parasitic ally, I don't disagree, but letting the Nazis or the Soviets conquer it all and entrench themselves would not have been in our best interest either. That's fundamentally why we put up with their behavior, when push comes to shove.