5 ms·

Is casually conflating allied nations with “subordinates” some sort of signal of political orientation now?

kragen 2y ago
Usually it signals that the person is opposed to US foreign policy because they consider it imperialist, but in this case it seems to signal that the person favors an explicitly imperialist foreign policy for the US. Horseshoe theory, I suppose.
- dingnuts 2y ago
  no, the commentator is simply proposing actually responding to the imperialism of China by protecting US assets and national security instead of rolling over and taking it because of misguided principles about free trade and intellectual property that the CCP has undermined for forty years to arrive in a position where they can undercut us on price through human rights abuses. It is China that is imperialist and that has ruined the post cold war free trade world order. The US must respond or China will be the world hegemon. Would you prefer that?
  - RUnconcerned 2y ago
    Imperialism is when you take all the resources capitalists poured into your country because you had horrendously low labor costs and use them to develop yourself into an economic superpower rather than meekly continuing to be the factory for cheap crap for western nations. Got it.
  - colechristensen 2y ago
    Eh. Nixon helped bring China into the global community and the economic ties help bring (hundreds of?) millions out of extreme poverty and built up a major trade partner. Now with China's success the very free trade policy between our countries needs to be adjusted and slowly dialed back towards fairness. The problem being there are plenty of actors whose motivation isn't "balancing what's best for my country and the world" in a fair way but just "whatever is best for me right now", and the shortsighted selfishness (which in different actors both supports and opposed similar policies for different reasons) really gets in the way of arriving at an optimal outcome for everyone.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  - piva00 2y ago
    > It is China that is imperialist and that has ruined the post cold war free trade world order. The US must respond or China will be the world hegemon. The USA is the current imperial power, go ask us born in South America how it felt to listen to stories on dictatorships brought on by the imperialism of the USA; or societies having to bend for the spread of Reagan's economics cancer dismantling any semblance of social democracy to give into "The Third Way" which had to embrace the economic policies the USA wanted others to abide to. At this exact moment, with the current American situation with a sick society electing a sick individual into power: yeah, I think I'd like to give a chance to China if Xi is out of power and someone like Deng Xiaoping or Hu Jintao is in control. > intellectual property that the CCP has undermined for forty years to arrive in a position where they can undercut us on price through human rights abuses. You should check out the stuff the USA outright stole to become the hegemony it is: jet propulsion, radar, atomic bomb developments, the Brits had to see it all get blatantly taken by the USA after needing help in WW2. Edit: or even more relevant to contemporary times we live now, ask Canadians how they feel about the USA forcing their hand on Arrow Aviation, subsequently stealing their brains to build NASA Jet Propulsion Labs. Now they don't have a well developed Arrow to build jets when the USA turns over talking about annexation.
    - piva00 2y ago
      I meant Avro in my edit but can't edit the message anymore.
    - _bin_ 2y ago
      Every nation tries to influence her neighbors to be more accommodating of her wants and needs. We just happen to be bigger and better at doing it. Speaking historically, and relative to other past and present world powers, y'all are far better off living near America. It is completely reasonable that we wouldn't put up with leaders objectively hostile to our interests popping up in our backyard, not after the last one who did got within a hair's breadth of planting nuclear missiles a hundred miles off our coast. I actually wouldn't care nearly as much about China were Deng in power. I'd worry a bit given that we don't want to be economically eclipsed, sure, but my present concerns are directly tied to the current leadership and posture of china. Are you suggesting we were wrong to transfer technology out of Germany post-WWII? To me it seems like a hell of a lot better as some form of repayment than the onerous reparations regime we tried post-WWI. Vae victis; if all millions of American dead cost Germany were some scientists and patents, they should count themselves lucky. Saying America "stole" JPL from Avro is also a crazy interpretation. The Arrow was an incredibly expensive project: canada had about 20 million people at the time and was in terrible economic shape. Diefenbaker's decision remains controversial, and most people agree that destroying the project so thoroughly was just stupid, but you can't support the idea that we "stole" something from Canada or somehow compelled her to kill the project.
cornstalks 2y ago
I didn't read "allied/subordinate" to mean "allied = subordinate," but rather to mean differentiate between "willing alliances" and "unwilling or begrudgingly accepted alliances." Alternatively, one could interpret "subordinate" to be one of the COFA[1] nations, for example (not saying I read it that way, but if this were a debate class and I was assigned to make the argument that these states are subordinates of the US, I probably could). [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_of_Free_Association https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_of_Free_Association

Usually it signals that the person is opposed to US foreign policy because they consider it imperialist, but in this case it seems to signal that the person favors an explicitly imperialist foreign policy for the US. Horseshoe theory, I suppose.

dingnuts 2y ago
no, the commentator is simply proposing actually responding to the imperialism of China by protecting US assets and national security instead of rolling over and taking it because of misguided principles about free trade and intellectual property that the CCP has undermined for forty years to arrive in a position where they can undercut us on price through human rights abuses. It is China that is imperialist and that has ruined the post cold war free trade world order. The US must respond or China will be the world hegemon. Would you prefer that?
- RUnconcerned 2y ago
  Imperialism is when you take all the resources capitalists poured into your country because you had horrendously low labor costs and use them to develop yourself into an economic superpower rather than meekly continuing to be the factory for cheap crap for western nations. Got it.
- colechristensen 2y ago
  Eh. Nixon helped bring China into the global community and the economic ties help bring (hundreds of?) millions out of extreme poverty and built up a major trade partner. Now with China's success the very free trade policy between our countries needs to be adjusted and slowly dialed back towards fairness. The problem being there are plenty of actors whose motivation isn't "balancing what's best for my country and the world" in a fair way but just "whatever is best for me right now", and the shortsighted selfishness (which in different actors both supports and opposed similar policies for different reasons) really gets in the way of arriving at an optimal outcome for everyone.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- piva00 2y ago
  > It is China that is imperialist and that has ruined the post cold war free trade world order. The US must respond or China will be the world hegemon. The USA is the current imperial power, go ask us born in South America how it felt to listen to stories on dictatorships brought on by the imperialism of the USA; or societies having to bend for the spread of Reagan's economics cancer dismantling any semblance of social democracy to give into "The Third Way" which had to embrace the economic policies the USA wanted others to abide to. At this exact moment, with the current American situation with a sick society electing a sick individual into power: yeah, I think I'd like to give a chance to China if Xi is out of power and someone like Deng Xiaoping or Hu Jintao is in control. > intellectual property that the CCP has undermined for forty years to arrive in a position where they can undercut us on price through human rights abuses. You should check out the stuff the USA outright stole to become the hegemony it is: jet propulsion, radar, atomic bomb developments, the Brits had to see it all get blatantly taken by the USA after needing help in WW2. Edit: or even more relevant to contemporary times we live now, ask Canadians how they feel about the USA forcing their hand on Arrow Aviation, subsequently stealing their brains to build NASA Jet Propulsion Labs. Now they don't have a well developed Arrow to build jets when the USA turns over talking about annexation.
  - piva00 2y ago
    I meant Avro in my edit but can't edit the message anymore.
  - _bin_ 2y ago
    Every nation tries to influence her neighbors to be more accommodating of her wants and needs. We just happen to be bigger and better at doing it. Speaking historically, and relative to other past and present world powers, y'all are far better off living near America. It is completely reasonable that we wouldn't put up with leaders objectively hostile to our interests popping up in our backyard, not after the last one who did got within a hair's breadth of planting nuclear missiles a hundred miles off our coast. I actually wouldn't care nearly as much about China were Deng in power. I'd worry a bit given that we don't want to be economically eclipsed, sure, but my present concerns are directly tied to the current leadership and posture of china. Are you suggesting we were wrong to transfer technology out of Germany post-WWII? To me it seems like a hell of a lot better as some form of repayment than the onerous reparations regime we tried post-WWI. Vae victis; if all millions of American dead cost Germany were some scientists and patents, they should count themselves lucky. Saying America "stole" JPL from Avro is also a crazy interpretation. The Arrow was an incredibly expensive project: canada had about 20 million people at the time and was in terrible economic shape. Diefenbaker's decision remains controversial, and most people agree that destroying the project so thoroughly was just stupid, but you can't support the idea that we "stole" something from Canada or somehow compelled her to kill the project.

cornstalks 2y ago

I didn't read "allied/subordinate" to mean "allied = subordinate," but rather to mean differentiate between "willing alliances" and "unwilling or begrudgingly accepted alliances." Alternatively, one could interpret "subordinate" to be one of the COFA[1] nations, for example (not saying I read it that way, but if this were a debate class and I was assigned to make the argument that these states are subordinates of the US, I probably could). [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_of_Free_Association https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_of_Free_Association