My arguments are better than yours. I'm telling you. Believe me. If you don't, you're just stupid.

Not very convincing is it?

Even if I said what you think I said with that paraphrase above, which I didn't, it's still crap.

No, I'm suggesting comments like "basket of deplorables" are common. The fact Democrats play tunes for "woke intellectuals" and "salon socialists" does not resonate with blue collar workers at all. Combined with the "you're too stupid to vote what's good for you", which I've been hearing for at least 12 years now, doesn't make the Democratic Party attractive at all for regular Joe.

EDIT: Even during this election what Democrats tried was shaming people into voting against Trump. I mean, Jesus, how weak and snobby can it get?

I think the idea that 73 million people are too stupid to know what's good for them is precisely the kind of elitism why about 70 million people refuse to vote for the Democratic Party. So you're part of the problem Tim.

If you'd ask me, I think party affiliation is an important factor in US group identity. For people in a multiparty system it's quite common to shift from one party to the next depending on what you think is important during a specific election. Years ago, when I first could vote, I voted like my parents did: our centre-right political party. That has lurched right over the years (but surprisingly recently, it went left, yay!) but I've voted the Party for Animals last time, because they were the only one pushing a fully circular economy. Can't get much lefter than that except for the actual communist party.

That swing isn't even possible in the US because they don't offer such a wide variety of political options. Let alone that they perceive the gap between Democrats and Republicans as huge when in fact it's a tiny crack in the political pavement.

I do think the Democrats were more "left", or let's say, they used to be social Democrats now they are just liberal Democrats that are socially progressive but economically nearly indistinguishable from Republicans. Sure, they'll raise a few taxes and tweak a social program but in essence they still pander to corporate interests through deregulations and low taxes (if not as low as the Republicans).

Fairness in advertising would require the Democrats to rename to the "Plutocratic Party (but we'll let you have your gay marriage and abortion)" and the Republicans to the "More Plutocratic Party (and, no you can't have gay marriage or abortion)". Both items which won't matter to 90% of US citizens soon any way because they won't be able to afford either.

I've always understood it as reciprocity. If you believe you have a right and wish to have that respected, you have a dirty to respect another's same right. My right to property implies a duty to respect yours, if I don't I can't expect you to respect mine and the system collapses.

Look at the original music: singing. What was the original context of singing? Religious and community rituals. — hypericin

How do you know this? Why not percussion first? Could we have sung before we gave meaning? If not, why not?

It's a story so you can go either way.

God forbid that normal rules apply to billionaires. The ease with which you assume all this is unfortunately true for too many people.

Looks like a fly with diarrhoe took a shit.

Black Lives Matter evokes emotional resistance in those who don't really think everybody is equal. I don't think those people are going to be swayed by something more nuanced. The cognitive dissonance of seeing widespread support might cause some change. So I think the slogan is fine. I don't think these considerations apply to "defund the police" though.

Uncalled for. Jesus. Can we discuss tactics without morally condemning others? There's more roads to Rome, not everybody approaches problems the same way and most problems have several solutions.

The Greeks cooked the books, which was partly caused by bad accounting rules applying to off-market swaps but it was the Greek government (advised by Goldman Sachs) that chose to use that accounting "mistake". Basically, entering into an off-market swap, where your counterparty pays you an amount in return for a mark up on the variable or fixed leg of the swap compared to an at market swap, wasn't accounted as debt.

I know everything about sovereign bonds. I issued them for 5 years at the Dutch State Treasury Agency. So fire away. There are still bonds out there that will perform even if interest rates start rising again and the market value will lower but there's Ukrainian collateralised bonds offering 6% or so, which given current interest rates is a good return and relatively safe.

Another I've always found interesting but never tried is investing via crowd funding. There are platforms that allow you to evaluate the underlying business case and pick something you know something about so you can make a real assessment.

This might be interesting : http://the-eye.eu/public/WorldTracker.org/World%20History/Roman%20Empire/Human%20Rights%20in%20Ancient%20Rome.pdf

Historically speaking the US has not been anywhere near the level of imperialism when compared to the European powers. We briefly experimented with it as a matter of national policy in the Phillipines in the 1890s but I just don't recall America having the desire or stomach to maintain these colonies. Just to be clear when we're talking about imperialism in the traditional sense we're talking about colonies. — BitconnectCarlos

Define imperialism. Some political science theories look at the ability to project power over territory which doesn't necessarily mean it has to be part of the sovereign territory of a country.

I've read everything you wrote Paul. It's crap. Liberal democracies are sliding into plutocracies and autocracies as we speak. Your view of the US role in international politics seems to be based on the movie Independence Day instead of history, belies any substantive knowledge of its current cultural and social problems and let's not get started on your total lack of knowledge on war (as pointed out by @ssu) or the just war theory.

OK. Hubris. Nice.

Right. So you refuse to read research handed to you on a plate because...?

recognize the greatest force for freedom in the world since Pearl Harbor, even on a per-capita basis, as a democracy. — Paul Edwards

:rofl:

Read the Princeton study.

This will be my last reply to you because I don't think you are actually here for debate. Whenever you're confronted with counter arguments to your incorrect representations of history, politics and war you just yell "WHAT? ARE YOU IN FAVOUR OF DICTATORS AND MASS MURDERERS?" or something similar. Which doesn't engage the arguments raised at all and doesn't follow from those arguments either.

Have you considered that corporate capitalism is actually the problem? Resulting, quite recently, in shifts to authoritarian leaders in "democracies" like Bolsonara, Trump, Victor Orban, Mateusz Morawiecki and the destruction of the Hong Kong democracy. This has only been possible with monied interests being either complicit (HK, Trump, Bolsonara) or acquiescing to it. In HK all the parliamentary seats appointed by "business" are pro-China, because that's where the money is. And granted the US stopped being a democracy some time ago and is already a full-blown plutocracy. Reagan was probably the nail in that coffin.

As Daniel Kelemen described:

Elected autocrats tend to follow six steps: win elections; capture referees, such as courts and other independent bodies; attack or seize control of the media; demonize and undermine the opposition; change the rules of the game; and win new elections that are no longer free. — Kelemen

Each one of those "leaders" of "democratic" countries are following this playbook and are in essence autocratic. They are not qualified to spread democracy to begin with. The more important point though, is that democracies don't seem to be able to survive under the pressures of corporate capitalism. So you are willing to murder millions of people - there are after all only 72 democracies in the world - to implement a system that will destroy itself as long as we continue to pursue corporate capitalism.

The democracy index only measures the following though:

"Whether national elections are free and fair";
"The security of voters";
"The influence of foreign powers on government";
"The capability of the civil servants to implement policies". — Democracy Index

The first thing to note is that the countries higher on the list are welfare States with strong social and governmental institutions and strong socialist political movements. And although all of them have their share of populist, authoritarian political players, those don't garner more than 20% support. If we want democracies to survive, they should be non-capitalist, social democracies.

The influence of big business is obvious. In HK 90% of voters voted for pro-democracy MPs. A clear majority over the Chinese appointed MPs but because the business appointed MPs voted pro-China, voters got shafted.

The US it's obvious for local influence by aflluent Americans on policies (see why the US is a plutocracy). And here's some conclusion with regard to influence by big corporations on foreign policy.

We can say that they have greater means and seem to use them to exert more influence than other firms, even big domestic ones. But are they more able to convert these means into success politically? Again our data cannot give a direct answer. But the direction of US foreign economic policy in the past decades suggests they have been very powerful. The lowering of trade barriers via the GATT/WTO and various preferential trade agreements, the opening of capital markets and signing of bilateral investment treaties and economic agreements with investment protections, and the harmonization of regulations in many areas in preferential trade agreements are all policies that the US government has pursued actively and ones that MNCs have championed. MNC preferences, versus those of purely domestic firms, seem to be very congruent with much of recent American foreign economic policy. Rodrik (2018) claims, for example, that preferential trade agreements are tools for MNCs: “Trade agreements are shaped largely by rent-seeking, self-interested behavior on the export side. Rather than rein in protectionists, they empower another set of special interests and politically well-connected firms, such as international banks, pharmaceutical companies, and multinational corporations” (as cited in Blanga-Gubbay, Conconi, and Parenti 2019, p. 4). — Kim Milner

Once this is fixed we can start thinking about spreading democracy.

I'm not sure. I suspect Putin is personally the most powerful man in the world even if Russia isn't the world power it used to be. Will he be that patriotic that this bothers him? While the country has a limited desire to project power within a "smaller" sphere of influence, I think it's more sustainable than the Pax Americana certain morons think is a good idea and that the neo-liberal/neo-con warhawks desire.

Perhaps in the long run the Chinese and Russian foreign policy is the smarter move; they are not investing much in military capabilities to project power across the globe. tTe USSR has recently experienced imperial overreach so Russia understands better what and how it got there. Possibly Russia and China are just waiting for the (inevitable?) decline of the US Empire.

I'd expect a forceful demand from China for Taiwan to rejoin and for the Japanese to handover the Senkaku Island followed by a full scale attack by China on Taiwan and occupation of the Senkaku Islands, the day the US is no longer the dominant super power. I don't think they'll go further than that. Could we do something about that and should we? How many deaths would a war cause compared to letting it just happen? Who would be involved? What's the risk this escalating into WWIII?

BLM was doing fine until "defund the police", I think, which as a slogan is terrible.

thanks. I didn't know that.

Well, I'd still diversify.

Yeah, until it doesn't. Problem that ssu is pointing at is you can't time the market or know who the winners are going to be.

My take away from that was that my arguments apparently confuse you, which is probably why you never actually engage them.

I understand that the US and Germany had legitimate POW agreements that were by and large followed, but this was not the case in the Pacific. — BitconnectCarlos

How is a treaty with a Chapter "Prisoners of War" not a "legitimate POW agreement"? Or the 1929 Geneva Convention III titled "relative to the treatment of prisoners of war"?

The failure of so many members of this philosophy forum to grasp the overwhelmingly obvious difference between such good guys and bad guys is truly pathetic. — Hippyhead

Seeing the world in good and bad is the actual philosophical failure here, allowing for no nuance or reflection.

Yeah, the wonders of supply-side economics. "...water trickles down. Put it uphill and let it go and it will reach the driest little spot. But ... money trickles up. Give it to the people at the bottom and the people at the top will have it before night."

Federal tax cuts also increase after tax inequality and a deficit that's the envy of the world.

In a response I was writing in another thread I was going to compare Stalin, Churchill, Hitler, and Roosevelt, drawing the conclusion that Hitler was categorically worse than Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt. I changed my mind because I figured that someone like you would say they were all guilty. Which, of course, they were -- just not of the same crimes and not under the same circumstances. I've read about Stalin's various crimes, and can think of several things for which FDR could be found guilty. But Churchill? I'd appreciate your pointing out his crimes. The books I've read and the films I've seen about Churchill were all pretty positive. I admit a bias from insufficient study. — Bitter Crank

All guilty but that doesn't make them equally bad. I'm not sure Hitler was categorically worse than Stalin. But that has more to do with the sheer number of deaths Stalin caused and how to weigh that against attempted genocide. Also, as far as I know (and I just googled it) it was Truman who ordered the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which are clear cases of war crimes. Roosevelt was President until april 1945. Roosevelt can join the list though considering his involvement in the Dresden bombing.

The best example of Churchill's war crimes is the Dresden bombing. The internal RAF memo:

“Dresden, the seventh largest city in Germany and not much smaller than Manchester, is also far the largest unbombed built-up the enemy has got. In the midst of winter with refugees pouring westwards and troops to be rested, roofs are at a premium. The intentions of the attack are to hit the enemy where he will feel it most, behind an already partially collapsed front, to prevent the use of the city in the way of further advance, and incidentally to show the Russians when they arrive what Bomber Command can do. — RAF

While Dresden had a few weapons factories, there was no attempt at precision bombing but instead they purposefully and indiscriminately attacked civilians. Moreover, the industrial sites and military barracks were outside the city centre. Those and important bridges weren't even targeted (not missed, really not targeted), which gives the lie to the ex post facto defenses of Dresden being a military target. It was already clear the Germans were losing against the Russian advance so the bombing was also unnecessary. Churchill and Roosevelt had already concluded that Stalin would become a problem and this is what informed the "show the Russians" what we can do. Based on The Hague and Geneva conventions the US and UK had signed up to, this was a war crime.

we've seen with Trump it's not just a money game. That's a hopeful fact actually.

You do not distinguish between attacker and defender, and the respective truth and lies they told. Can you really not tell the difference between the persons and situations of FDR, Truman, Churchill, v. Hitler and Stalin? — tim wood

This is a misrepresentation obviously but requires you to read carefully. I'm not going through the motions again, it's all in my previous posts.

And how does that work? You border here on the disgusting. — tim wood

Exactly. I made my case and you continue to hero worship a war criminal. Just like neo-nazis do with Hitler.

But the "modern" standards of treating POWs existed already in treaties from 1907 and 1929. I'm judging it by the standards of that time. Japan never ratified 1929 Geneva Convention in the treatment of POWs but did say in 1942 it would follow the 1907 Hague rules.

Americans are clamouring for change. The so-called centre doesn't do well - and is a recipe for Trumpism. The 'right' is occupied territory. That leaves one option, which at every turn shows up to be successful. Conclusion: I do not buy - and no one should buy - into the idea that progressive politics are a dead-end for the democratic party. In exact opposite holds true: not engaging in that policy direction is a royal road to more Trump. — StreetlightX

This I totally agree with. If after 4 years of Trump and a centre candidate being forwarded and almost nobody switched camps then moving further right is just going to alienate whatever base you have and you'll still be painted a leftist commy by those who you think you're courting.

I think the Dems need to move back to their roots representing working class people and deal with their problems and recognise class warfare is alive and well and show the GOP is selling them out at every turn they can.

The Nazis - so far as I know - were not prosecuted for war, but for war crimes and crimes against humanity. — tim wood

Also, lest I forget, a war of aggression is also a war crime. So in fact they were prosecuted for war.

I don't know enough about that part of the war to tell you. I have to look up the rules for POWs again to see if there's any exceptions possible. I can't imagine that you're obligated to take prisoners in the middle of an assault.

Morally I think it would depend if the Japanese fake surrendered first and "take no prisoners" was a reaction to that. I don't see a moral imperative in that scenario to take prisoners if that means seriously risking the lives of US soldiers. If fake surrendering was a reaction to take no prisoners, then I don't see any fault with the Japanese. It also depends on what he knew and what he ordered to do.

My motive is that nobody is above the law and that includes Churchill, therefore he's a war criminal. The UK freely submitted itself to the Hague and Geneva Conventions. Pacta sunt servanda. And yes, Truman and Churchill should be thrown in exactly the same pile as Hitler and Stalin - the pile of war criminals. That Hitler and Stalin were worse is no defense of Churchill's action.

And the "details" I was referring to was how bombing worked in WWII, which is irrelevant if we have documented evidence that the decision to bomb Dresden was to attack civilians in hopes of weakening morale and causing an uprising against Hitler.

But you've made it abundantly clear you think he's a hero, which is the same type of moral blindspot neo-nazi's have with regards to Hitler. Hitler was just defending a down trodden nation and people who were unjustly extorted by their neighbours after WWI. Poland had stolen land, the French had stolen land and the reparation pays were devastating. Hitler was a hero! Never mind he gassed millions of Jews because he stood up for his people!

A different interpretation: their voluntary lock down did quite well up to a point only now requiring mandatory lockdowns. Which is much later than other European countries, most of which have gone in their second round of strict lockdowns. While the number of deaths is higher than surrounding countries, it's not extreme.

Assuming international law is not an authority on morality and assuming retribution is a valid militaristic response to an unprovoked attacked, do you agree that Churchill was justified in bombing Dresden? — Hanover

Retribution on civilian populations, or to make it morally clear - innocent people - is never a valid response. So no. I don't think the bombing of Dresden das justified in any way, shape or form especially when you dive into the reasoning of Bomber Command (which wasn't retribution to begin with).

that at least Hitler kept his attacks within the purview of international law, — Hanover

Specifically with respect to the Battle of Britain this was true. And this only concerns the way war was waged, Hitler was still the aggressor which means everything that followed was unjust.

In the end, I can't refer to someone like Churchill or Truman as heroes. They only have the moral high ground because "well, at least they weren't as bad as Hitler". That's like saying the murderer wasn't so bad because at least he didn't rape his victim.

Don't think I'm making a case for you to attack - although there is always the possibility of education. But rather that I think you do not have one. And if I may - you can disqualify this if you like- this encompasses the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Both unspeakable. Both arguably justifiable. And both outside the bounds of ordinary moral discourse - although that does not stop the attempt. Nor does it prevent individuals from making their own moral choices - a different topic. But I find and hold, until better informed, that in this instance you're estopped from making the war-criminal charge stick, Because you cannot make the case. Because there is no case to make. — tim wood

This is confused on various levels. If war is amoral, what were the Nazis guilty of? An argument for convenience.

The 1907 The Hague Convention stipulates clearly civilian targets were off limits. The bombing of Dresden concerned a city the size of Manchester, that had no military value and was more or less undefended and crammed with refugees fleeing the Russians.

Nagasaki and Hiroshima is the same story but also includes the brutal consequences of radiation poisoning. Those were even worse.

The laws at the time were clear. The morality is even clearer.

And your actor is not an individual, but the state - in this case acting for its survival. — tim wood

Oh? So weird. Was Germany on trial in Nuremberg then?

based on your taste in whiskey you might as well. :razz:

Yup. Which every country did of course.