Jubbergun wrote:
Human history may be political history, but political history has been less about cooperation and more about conquest. It's no small wonder that when societies "cooperate" in the directions some of you endorse they collapse.
But that just isn't true.
Give me an example of a society that "collapsed" due to "cooperation".
You can't, because it doesn't exist.
Societies that rely on conquest have no future. Societies that define their identity and strategy in liberal terms tend to survive and remain resilient through conquests, they tend to be the real long-term winners of history.
Look at the Spartans. They relied on conquest to get by. Their reliance on slavery and military conquest as a way of life meant they had no cultural cohesion, no social or technological progress, and were paralyzed into inaction by fear of slave revolts. They won a few battles, lost a few more, then faded forever from history. Athens lost the war against Sparta, and the war against Macedon, and the war against Rome, but somehow, they kept going, retained their identity as a people, their way of life, their physical survival.
Or take the Mongols. Same story. Relied on conquest. Built the biggest land empire in history. Then simply faded away because they had no cohesion, no identity, no viable social model other than conquest and no way of resolving their internal differences other than clan violence.
The British or Spanish or Portuguese empires, same deal. Conquered a bunch of militarily weaker cultures, only to fade away due to their inability to progress and to turn conquest into rule. Their reliance on plunder and conquest corrupted them from within, caused them to stagnate and drew them into unwinnable conflicts with better-organized powers.
The Romans are interesting and worth studying not because they were amazing at war (they weren't) but because they were amazing at peace. The Romans were no better fighters than the other cultures they encountered, in fact by most accounts they were far inferior. They were shorter and physically weaker than Gauls. They were less skilled than Numidians or Macedonians, and less orderly than Greeks.
What the Romans were amazing at was political organization. They had laws, courts, a well-developed political system, a way of thinking and a way of life that gave them cohesion and purpose, that enabled them to rally other groups of people to their banner. Many times in their history, the Romans were able to turn the tables when at a grave military disadvantage by means of their political genius - making political arrangments, compromises, power-sharing. Appealing to a shared sense of purpose and identity that was about more than just blood and gold.
It was military conquest that undid Rome. Sucked the economy dry, led to decadence, savagery and ruthless self-interest as wealth that was not earned flowed into Rome from the conquests, as the people grew cynical and disaffected watching their overpaid armies become a national parasite and wage wars for the benefit of the wealthy. Julius Caesar once observed, "
inter arma silent leges". Well, when war becomes perpetual, the laws are always silent, and the result is lawlessness and brutality as a way of life.
Look at some of the "losers" of history. China. Japan. France. Germany. You could even put the Jews in this category. All cultures that have faltered due to military weakness and domination by more powerful outsiders. All were eventually able to overcome their disadvantages though vision, purpose, identity. Laws, governments, national policies.
And what about those that also "faltered", but didn't have that strength? Yugoslavia, Poland, Russia, the African tribes (both here in America and in Africa)? They just went on being losers, being kicked around by any great power that came by, blaming unpopular minorities and "softies" for all their problems.
The country that has solved its problems through "individuality" and "self-reliance" does not exist.Sadly, it is the latter future that awaits America. Americans like you don't understand what makes a great power, you think like every loser people think, you identify with the same misguided reliance on sheer force and indulgence of the rich and powerful that characterizes every loser country.
Jubbergun wrote:
It's not surprising that you fail to recognize that every evil plaguing society, from crony-capitalist corporatism
That isn't true either.
Go read about, or look at cartoons from, 50 or 100 or 150 years ago. Go read
The Jungle, or any book by Charles Dickens (who visited America to talk about the same issues and left angry, convinced these people would never learn). Go read
The Grapes of Wrath.
What about the Teapot Dome scandal? What about America being bullied into entering WWI by corporations that wanted to sell the British weapons and profit off a continental war that didn't concern the US? Why was the 17th Amendment passed? Why did people fear and hate the Trusts? How were they brought down?
What "principles" was it that legitimized Jim Crow, slavery, blockbusting, the "Gentlemen's Agreement", the genocide of the Native Americans, or the wars of wanton aggression and bullying against Spain and Mexico? What moral system said those misdeeds were morally acceptable?
Quote:
The Cliff Notes
For the first 200 years of its history, the United States was successful because:
1. it had seemingly limitless land and natural resources (making production cheap and enabling rapid population growth from immigration and huge families)
2. no major military commitments or continental rivals
3. Europe was embroiled in continental wars and political upheaval
4. The Third World was just plain poor and backward (and therefore relied on the US for manufactured goods)
The United States ceased to be successful when:
1. All land was claimed and natural resources were exhausted (at which point it lost its inherent productivity advantage and immigration and normal population growth became serious problems)
2. The US committed a major portion of its economic output to a massive military establishment
3. Europe gave up war, and the Europeans adopted socialist democracy and began working as a team
4. The Third World became industrialized and capable of being economically and politically assertive (and became net exporters)
These aren't new problems. These are the same problems that bring down most empires. Go read Gibbons'
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. He blames Rome's downfall on the same basic factors - war, poverty and competition.
Again, you are talking in vague generalizations and the things you are saying are just not true.
You say that the country was principled, or whatever, back then, and it's just not so. What it was, was that the lack of long-term political, social and economic answers could be ignored because the world was a much friendlier place, because there were abundant resources and wealth flowing into the country. When the wind began to blow the other way, the house of cards collapsed.
Jubbergun wrote:
to nutters going rampages in response to a society they feel has abandoned them, is the direct result of abandoning the principles we all once shared that built us into a great society.
How is this different than the arguments of Marie Antoinette or Cato the Younger or Nicholas II - everything would be okay, if everyone would just settle down and be content with their lousy lives? Would you pull this same argument to explain the French or Russian or Roman revolutions?
In what other historical context would you consider this reasoning, "people just
happen to feel society has abandoned them" as valid?
Jubbergun wrote:
You're little more than another mule pulling the cart along the road to hell that's paved with your good intentions, and the insults--especially the ones based on your imagining how the rest of us live--from a fool of your caliber carry no sting. Save your breath for the next unnecessarily melodramatic conflict you start with unsuspecting bystanders.
What good intentions? What intentions make me strive to read about and understand the world, and make you content to believe it is what you think it is based on the "intentions" of those who create the few media sources that are your whole field of vision? Is it that I am naive, or is it that I am willing to look outside and accept whatever I may see? Is it that you're informed, or that you prefer to think you are, rather than broadening your horizons?
How do you live? Did you never get a dime from the government? Did you "deliver yourself in a log cabin" then pay for your own education by turning in cans and bottles or working for $8/hr? Or did you get your education paid for by taxpayers, and to this day qualify for VA benefits? If your life had never been lived, would the national balance sheet have more black or red?
.......
So you see, you have nothing but empty generalizations and bitching about things just not being how they never really were in the first place.
Nothing you say makes any kind of sense in a wider historical context. You never make specific references to history because you don't actually know anything about it, so you talk in vague generalizations. And the only reason you have these ideas, is that you get all you believe from the extremely narrow font of contemporary right-wing American media.
Yours is an ideology of ignorance.
