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Do you deny she has the right to do it? Or do I misunderstand your position? We both probably agree it’s politically risky, perhaps even stupid. I understood

Do you deny she has the right to do it? Or do I misunderstand your position? We both probably agree it’s politically risky, perhaps even stupid. I understood your original comment to be a denial of her right to freely travel there. From my perspective she has the right to do it. Do you disagree? Additionally I don’t believe you have shown that she is undermining U.S. policy, merely that she disagrees with the executive. Why is that a problem? We have a separation of powers and she is part of the legislative body, not the executive. By design these branches can and should disagree when there is disagreement. This is a basic check and balance issue. By the way, Congress has the exclusive power to declare war and controls the power of the purse as well. So if anything is a bit silly, it’s a bit silly to pretend that she isn’t allowed to see the situation on the ground before discussing and perhaps even voting on going or not going to war. She is doing this legally and entirely within her authorities. She is not in the hierarchy of the State Department, and I think it is clear that she has voting constituents in Taiwan that are overseas voters. I know several California voters who live there and she is their duly elected representative. Your position appears to be simply suggesting that the separation of powers doesn’t exist and that she is out of line. I encourage you to cite the line you believe she has crossed. Party affiliation doesn’t mean iron clad agreement. Dissent against the U.S. President’s policy is a right of all Americans. If it’s a problem in her role, censure her and sanction her in the U.S. House of Representatives. This won’t happen but I do encourage you to work for it politically if you disagree with my analysis. My understanding is that Biden seems to personally agree with her about supporting Taiwan. I don’t know but it seems reasonable to suspect he may even privately be happy she can do what he can’t. It’s too bad American policy with regard to supporting democracy abroad is only widely supported when it’s an imperial, illegal invasion. Here is a chance to do it peacefully and to ignore the Saber rattling of the Chinese dictatorship. I understand some people are too afraid to do this now, or they don’t care about people outside of America. As someone with (American) friends in Taiwan, that isn’t my position. As someone proud of the good things about American democracy, defending and supporting nascent democracy around the world is a good thing. I understand this is going out of fashion. As someone who has lived in and traveled frequently to less than free societies, I implore others to not give up the support for democracy, especially when it is peaceful political discourse under violent threats from illiberal bullies.

hackinthebochs 4y ago
>Do you deny she has the right to do it? Or do I misunderstand your position? I'm getting thoroughly fed up with analyses of geopolitics that begin and end with talks of rights and justifications. It's just the wrong framework to analyze international relations if your goal is to predict behavior at the scale of nation-states and maximize ones own interests. Of course she has a legal right to travel to Taiwan as a US citizen. The question is whether in doing so she is flouting her responsibility as a representative of the US to not undermine US foreign policy. It seems plainly obvious to me that she is and it carries the potential to damage US interests. >Additionally I don’t believe you have shown that she is undermining U.S. policy, merely that she disagrees with the executive. It is US policy to maintain a stalemate over encroachment on Taiwan sovereignty. This policy is maintained by careful adherence to time-tested conventions and behavioral constraints as well as calculated actions to maintain the stability of this equilibrium. As a representative of the US government, her actions abroad can and will be interpreted as a reflection of US policy, therefore she should be bound to not interfere with explicit US policy, except through legislative actions available to her. Willfully undermining US's strategy (of an equilibrium with China over Taiwan) by unilateral action is treasonous (for lack of a better word). You said it yourself, her actions could plausibly kick off world war three. The fact that people are cheering her on is absolutely insane to me. Signalling has completely overwhelmed our collective ability to think rationally on complicated issues, to the detriment of the world. If WW3 does happen, I expect social media will play a non-trivial role in bringing it about.
- throwaway654329 4y ago
  > I'm getting thoroughly fed up with analyses of geopolitics that begin and end with talks of rights and justifications. No doubt. It’s a challenging frame for a discourse. Part of the challenge might be related to the fact that it sometimes completely dismantles other arguments that are willing to ignore human rights as enshrined in the U.S. constitution? If we don’t live up to those goals and indeed if they aren’t shared goals, we might need to rethink the entire American government. Personally, those are still very important goals for me and I am glad to see that elected officials try to use soft power to spread idealistic, but basic human rights. The right to self determination is important, as is the right to vote (e.g.: without party membership such as in a one party state). You’re using your free speech rights on this social media website to argue that someone who is an elected representative shouldn’t exercise her rights. This is perplexing but also understandable. > It's just the wrong framework to analyze international relations if your goal is to predict behavior at the scale of nation-states and maximize ones own interests. My sense is that we need more than one framework, I also think game theory and expected value analysis is also probably useful here. However I don’t think we agree about the notion of self interest. The world is slipping, perhaps running, into authoritarian rule in several areas. If we do not hold the line, and in fact try to expand it peacefully through, we will find it shrinks for us as well. Probably in the short term, the damage to the economy if Taiwan was unavailable for semiconductor manufacturing would probably seriously harm us in an economically measurable manner. In this way, human rights, the economy, and game theory all seem like reasonable frames for discourse - the balance of the results is then a political question. That political question is best answered with democracy. It’s not perfect, it seems unclear what is better though. > Of course she has a legal right to travel to Taiwan as a US citizen. Thanks for conceding that as it was unclear - when you said “Nancy Pelosi wasn't elected to engage in foreign policy” I was unsure. That’s the reason several persons I know voted for her (I know; the plural of anecdote isn’t data…), I didn’t but hey, how can we evaluate that statement except by a legal or rights based analysis? In terms of power delegated to her, it’s certainly part of the job. If not, there is a specific legal process to impeach her. Personally I think she should probably be impeached for insider trading but that’s also because it looks clearly like corruption, and that really harms American interests in a measured way.

hackinthebochs 4y ago

>Do you deny she has the right to do it? Or do I misunderstand your position? I'm getting thoroughly fed up with analyses of geopolitics that begin and end with talks of rights and justifications. It's just the wrong framework to analyze international relations if your goal is to predict behavior at the scale of nation-states and maximize ones own interests. Of course she has a legal right to travel to Taiwan as a US citizen. The question is whether in doing so she is flouting her responsibility as a representative of the US to not undermine US foreign policy. It seems plainly obvious to me that she is and it carries the potential to damage US interests. >Additionally I don’t believe you have shown that she is undermining U.S. policy, merely that she disagrees with the executive. It is US policy to maintain a stalemate over encroachment on Taiwan sovereignty. This policy is maintained by careful adherence to time-tested conventions and behavioral constraints as well as calculated actions to maintain the stability of this equilibrium. As a representative of the US government, her actions abroad can and will be interpreted as a reflection of US policy, therefore she should be bound to not interfere with explicit US policy, except through legislative actions available to her. Willfully undermining US's strategy (of an equilibrium with China over Taiwan) by unilateral action is treasonous (for lack of a better word). You said it yourself, her actions could plausibly kick off world war three. The fact that people are cheering her on is absolutely insane to me. Signalling has completely overwhelmed our collective ability to think rationally on complicated issues, to the detriment of the world. If WW3 does happen, I expect social media will play a non-trivial role in bringing it about.

throwaway654329 4y ago
> I'm getting thoroughly fed up with analyses of geopolitics that begin and end with talks of rights and justifications. No doubt. It’s a challenging frame for a discourse. Part of the challenge might be related to the fact that it sometimes completely dismantles other arguments that are willing to ignore human rights as enshrined in the U.S. constitution? If we don’t live up to those goals and indeed if they aren’t shared goals, we might need to rethink the entire American government. Personally, those are still very important goals for me and I am glad to see that elected officials try to use soft power to spread idealistic, but basic human rights. The right to self determination is important, as is the right to vote (e.g.: without party membership such as in a one party state). You’re using your free speech rights on this social media website to argue that someone who is an elected representative shouldn’t exercise her rights. This is perplexing but also understandable. > It's just the wrong framework to analyze international relations if your goal is to predict behavior at the scale of nation-states and maximize ones own interests. My sense is that we need more than one framework, I also think game theory and expected value analysis is also probably useful here. However I don’t think we agree about the notion of self interest. The world is slipping, perhaps running, into authoritarian rule in several areas. If we do not hold the line, and in fact try to expand it peacefully through, we will find it shrinks for us as well. Probably in the short term, the damage to the economy if Taiwan was unavailable for semiconductor manufacturing would probably seriously harm us in an economically measurable manner. In this way, human rights, the economy, and game theory all seem like reasonable frames for discourse - the balance of the results is then a political question. That political question is best answered with democracy. It’s not perfect, it seems unclear what is better though. > Of course she has a legal right to travel to Taiwan as a US citizen. Thanks for conceding that as it was unclear - when you said “Nancy Pelosi wasn't elected to engage in foreign policy” I was unsure. That’s the reason several persons I know voted for her (I know; the plural of anecdote isn’t data…), I didn’t but hey, how can we evaluate that statement except by a legal or rights based analysis? In terms of power delegated to her, it’s certainly part of the job. If not, there is a specific legal process to impeach her. Personally I think she should probably be impeached for insider trading but that’s also because it looks clearly like corruption, and that really harms American interests in a measured way.