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I think that both the U.S. and China do some pretty horrible things in the name of perpetuating their power. Big countries are bullies. My original reply in th

I think that both the U.S. and China do some pretty horrible things in the name of perpetuating their power. Big countries are bullies. My original reply in this thread was that I didn't think that the fear of China attacking the West was worthy justification for the U.S. to go to war with China over Taiwan. I never said that I support China invading Taiwan. That would mean I advocate sending troops to help China, which I don't. That would be like saying that I support the regime in Saudia Arabia because I don't want to go to war with them. Or that the U.S. supported communist China because we built them up through trade, knowing the whole time they wanted Taiwan back. Maybe these are bad examples, I don't mean to sidetrack things. I mentioned perspective because Taiwan used to be part of China and I'm sure they look at it differently than other countries which were never part of China. I say this beause I don't believe their desire to retake Taiwan is also a desire to attack the West. I assume they have something comparable to "American Exceptionalism" and psychologically don't want to permanently loose Taiwan, so they bide their time. Just like the Reconquista - lots of Mexicans want Texas back. That doesn't mean they want to attack Europe! Also I do believe that understanding a country's perspective, China, Taiwan, and the U.S. in this case, allows for better outcomes and less possibility of costly mistakes. On the other hand, in regards to your opinion of this matter, I wonder what would you have thought of Spain attacking the U.S. during the civil war in support of the Confederacy because a re-united U.S. was more of a threat to Spanish control over South and Central America? We eventually went on to treat a lot of those countries like shit, making banana republics of many, etc. Would this Spanish attack have been justified according to the original posters logic, because the U.S. would be an eventual threat to other countries? There's a variety of nuances to this stuff, if one can get past the "we are good, they are evil" version of things. Maybe that's not always possible.

stale2002 5y ago
> I never said that I support China invading Taiwan. That would mean I advocate No, stop. I said nothing about you supporting troops. I am talking about support of the moral argument, about how we can, from a moral perspective, disregard their "perspective", when thinking about what is right or wrong, or to get moral advice. If their perspective is that they want to invade that other country, in a moral discussion, I don't care about their perspective, when determining if that is right or wrong. So then, you would agree with me that if they invaded that you would absolutely condemn them, morally, and say that they are wrong and that you don't care about their moral opinion on the matter, as you disagree with it. > I don't believe their desire to retake Taiwan is also a desire to attack the West. Them wanting to invade Taiwan is a good enough reason, in and of itself, to arm Taiwan, and engage in severe economic or political actions against China, if they ever follow through with that. Ideally, they wouldn't do that through, due to our actions in arming the opposition though. Obviously, it would be way better if China simply never invaded, due to our actions, and if we could avoid war, and could avoid anyone being invaded. The best action, is not to give in to their perspective, instead it is to make it so if they ever invaded, they would take a lot of damage, so that they then decide to not do it in the first place, and there is neither any war or invasion.
- mikem170 5y ago
  Do you really think geopolitics is based on morals? A much better case could be made that wars are really started over greed and fear. And that's what I was talking about originally. This thread started with me objecting to the assertion that a justification for militarily defending Taiwan was to prevent China from attacking the West. I don't think they plan on attacking the West. What do they plan on doing? To know that requires thinking from their perspective. This is what the state department does. This is the level I was talking on. I personally think that the world would be a better place if citizens everywhere better understood the reasons for problems between nations. I don't think that this has anything to do with morality. I didn't bring morality up. I've studies a lot of history, and that doesn't appear to be how these things work. That's why the U.S. does many immoral things, supports many regimes that do immoral things, ignores many others, and changes their mind sometimes. Same as every other country. The bigger and more powerful a country is the more immoral they tend to become. Given all that it hardly makes sense to single out Taiwan for special treatment based on morals. If you want to go on discussing morality in relation to Taiwan you have a lot of contradictions to deal with, our support of Saudi Arabia for example, our abandonment of the Kurds, Afghanistan, etc. Morality is not why wars are fought. Morality is how wars are sold to the masses that have to suffer and pay for them. I apologize if you already know this and we are otherwise miscommunicating. So where do you want to go from here?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - stale2002 5y ago
    Look, if you just want to retreat entirely to a "might makes right" ideology, you can go ahead and do that. Just be aware, that if you do that, you can't complain about anything at all, regarding any moral issue, what so ever. And you cannot complain, when people, who actually do care about right or wrong, treat you equivalently to the worst of any political ideology that you can think of, and call you horrible political slurs, regarding the obvious bad ideologies that should immediately come to mind. If you want to bite the bullet on that, and say "yes, I dismiss any arguments at all, relating to morality, and the people who do care about that stuff, should definitely treat me like the obvious trope evil ideologies that come to mind", then fine. Just say that. But that is your position. Own it, and say it to the world, so that others can treat you, how they treat other such proponents of such ideologies.
CRConrad 5y ago
> I mentioned perspective because Taiwan used to be part of China But again you are viewing things with a twisted perspective. The legitimate Chinese government is the one that had to flee the evil usurpers, and ended up on the island of Formosa. It's actually kind of the other way around: Mainland China "used to be part of" what is now Taiwan. So, sure, reunite them: Give China back to Taiwan.

stale2002 5y ago

> I never said that I support China invading Taiwan. That would mean I advocate No, stop. I said nothing about you supporting troops. I am talking about support of the moral argument, about how we can, from a moral perspective, disregard their "perspective", when thinking about what is right or wrong, or to get moral advice. If their perspective is that they want to invade that other country, in a moral discussion, I don't care about their perspective, when determining if that is right or wrong. So then, you would agree with me that if they invaded that you would absolutely condemn them, morally, and say that they are wrong and that you don't care about their moral opinion on the matter, as you disagree with it. > I don't believe their desire to retake Taiwan is also a desire to attack the West. Them wanting to invade Taiwan is a good enough reason, in and of itself, to arm Taiwan, and engage in severe economic or political actions against China, if they ever follow through with that. Ideally, they wouldn't do that through, due to our actions in arming the opposition though. Obviously, it would be way better if China simply never invaded, due to our actions, and if we could avoid war, and could avoid anyone being invaded. The best action, is not to give in to their perspective, instead it is to make it so if they ever invaded, they would take a lot of damage, so that they then decide to not do it in the first place, and there is neither any war or invasion.

mikem170 5y ago
Do you really think geopolitics is based on morals? A much better case could be made that wars are really started over greed and fear. And that's what I was talking about originally. This thread started with me objecting to the assertion that a justification for militarily defending Taiwan was to prevent China from attacking the West. I don't think they plan on attacking the West. What do they plan on doing? To know that requires thinking from their perspective. This is what the state department does. This is the level I was talking on. I personally think that the world would be a better place if citizens everywhere better understood the reasons for problems between nations. I don't think that this has anything to do with morality. I didn't bring morality up. I've studies a lot of history, and that doesn't appear to be how these things work. That's why the U.S. does many immoral things, supports many regimes that do immoral things, ignores many others, and changes their mind sometimes. Same as every other country. The bigger and more powerful a country is the more immoral they tend to become. Given all that it hardly makes sense to single out Taiwan for special treatment based on morals. If you want to go on discussing morality in relation to Taiwan you have a lot of contradictions to deal with, our support of Saudi Arabia for example, our abandonment of the Kurds, Afghanistan, etc. Morality is not why wars are fought. Morality is how wars are sold to the masses that have to suffer and pay for them. I apologize if you already know this and we are otherwise miscommunicating. So where do you want to go from here?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- stale2002 5y ago
  Look, if you just want to retreat entirely to a "might makes right" ideology, you can go ahead and do that. Just be aware, that if you do that, you can't complain about anything at all, regarding any moral issue, what so ever. And you cannot complain, when people, who actually do care about right or wrong, treat you equivalently to the worst of any political ideology that you can think of, and call you horrible political slurs, regarding the obvious bad ideologies that should immediately come to mind. If you want to bite the bullet on that, and say "yes, I dismiss any arguments at all, relating to morality, and the people who do care about that stuff, should definitely treat me like the obvious trope evil ideologies that come to mind", then fine. Just say that. But that is your position. Own it, and say it to the world, so that others can treat you, how they treat other such proponents of such ideologies.

CRConrad 5y ago

> I mentioned perspective because Taiwan used to be part of China But again you are viewing things with a twisted perspective. The legitimate Chinese government is the one that had to flee the evil usurpers, and ended up on the island of Formosa. It's actually kind of the other way around: Mainland China "used to be part of" what is now Taiwan. So, sure, reunite them: Give China back to Taiwan.