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Roosevelt saw the war coming because he wanted it to come and engineered a way for the US to be attacked (the US way of war has alway been to provoke and goad t

Roosevelt saw the war coming because he wanted it to come and engineered a way for the US to be attacked (the US way of war has alway been to provoke and goad the other side into firing first [or outright faking such a provocation] then feigning moral outrage) and overcome these (sensible) sentiments. The "isolationist" strain of US diplomacy was part of its founding ethos and WW2 was responsible for obliterating it from the American identity. Was this really a good thing?

philwelch 8y ago
You’re right, we should have just let Germany, Japan, and maybe Stalinist Russia split up the rest of the world between themselves. That definitely would have worked out fine and they never would have bothered us. Hitler’s not so bad once you get to know him...
- maoistinquisitr 8y ago
  Well look how communism in Asia played out over the ensuing 40 years. Would it have been such a horrible idea to let Japanese boys die fighting off communists? And why are 50+K American lives still at stake (and billions of dollars in defense spending) policing the region? We should have worked with the Japanese and had them mostly run the place. > Hitler’s not so bad once you get to know him Agreed.
  - philwelch 8y ago
    I feel compelled to point out that I was being sarcastic about Hitler.
    - Andre_Wanglin 8y ago
      Would there have been a "Holocaust" without the war? What would the fate of the interned Japanese in the US have been should the mainland have come under massive bombardment and firebombing that left the populace barely able to eat?
travmatt 8y ago
Seeing as those same America First party people are the same strains of America trying to sell the upside of neo-nazism, I’m going to go with yes? Sorry I’m not edgy enough to sell myself on the upsides of racial and ethnic cleansing...
- Andre_Wanglin 8y ago
  Seeing as how those America First people are the ones who came around to fighting and defeating the Nazis, that's quite a disgusting and loaded remark. It is a shibboleth among the alt-right that they are called Nazis by people like you for sharing beliefs of their grandfathers who fought Nazis and you are reinforcing that perception.
  - threepipeproblm 8y ago
    But not a disgusting remark like when you stated that 'the "genocide" of native Americans was a result of European diseases, not barbarism' in another thread and argued that evidence of deliberate killing was more like a "rounding error". https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17023220 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17023220 Not disgusting like that, right?
    - Andre_Wanglin 8y ago
      Yes, that's right.

philwelch 8y ago

You’re right, we should have just let Germany, Japan, and maybe Stalinist Russia split up the rest of the world between themselves. That definitely would have worked out fine and they never would have bothered us. Hitler’s not so bad once you get to know him...

maoistinquisitr 8y ago
Well look how communism in Asia played out over the ensuing 40 years. Would it have been such a horrible idea to let Japanese boys die fighting off communists? And why are 50+K American lives still at stake (and billions of dollars in defense spending) policing the region? We should have worked with the Japanese and had them mostly run the place. > Hitler’s not so bad once you get to know him Agreed.
- philwelch 8y ago
  I feel compelled to point out that I was being sarcastic about Hitler.
  - Andre_Wanglin 8y ago
    Would there have been a "Holocaust" without the war? What would the fate of the interned Japanese in the US have been should the mainland have come under massive bombardment and firebombing that left the populace barely able to eat?

travmatt 8y ago

Seeing as those same America First party people are the same strains of America trying to sell the upside of neo-nazism, I’m going to go with yes? Sorry I’m not edgy enough to sell myself on the upsides of racial and ethnic cleansing...

Andre_Wanglin 8y ago
Seeing as how those America First people are the ones who came around to fighting and defeating the Nazis, that's quite a disgusting and loaded remark. It is a shibboleth among the alt-right that they are called Nazis by people like you for sharing beliefs of their grandfathers who fought Nazis and you are reinforcing that perception.
- threepipeproblm 8y ago
  But not a disgusting remark like when you stated that 'the "genocide" of native Americans was a result of European diseases, not barbarism' in another thread and argued that evidence of deliberate killing was more like a "rounding error". https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17023220 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17023220 Not disgusting like that, right?
  - Andre_Wanglin 8y ago
    Yes, that's right.