7 ms·

Yeah, you'll understand. But it's not understandable, that the hundreds of thousands of engineers in the defense industry can sleep well at night.

rayiner 12y ago
I used to do software for the defense industry. I sleep great at night. I was happy contributing to the military superiority that allows the U.S. to stay on top, and yields to us the benefits of that position. That doesn't mean that there aren't limits to what I think is okay, but overall I think the U.S. military is still a net positive for the world, especially because of the security we provide for Europe that has enabled that continent to break its historical cycle of bloodshed and live in relative peace the last half-century. And as a practical matter--I don't think there is any other major country that would be as benevolent as the U.S. has been were it to be on top. Many have proven so (Germany, the U.K., etc).
- insuffi 12y ago
  Hah! Benevolent! I'm glad you get to sleep well at night, while U.S. military terrorizes the world, and creates wars in order to finance itself. You're either ignorant or amoral. edit: eh. I feel like it needs reminding - I realize that in terms of geopolitics there needs to be a superpower. Every century has had a superpower that in all likelihood abused the weaker countries. My issue is with the way OP describes the issue: US being benevolent and great, bringing in fruits to US economy, completely ignoring repercussions worldwide, and OP has absolutely no problem with it.
  - EC1 12y ago
    You can't generalize the entirety of the military. He could have easily been working on software for the military that doesn't actually have anything to do with killing people. Did you think of that?
    - detcader 12y ago
      You can generalize about the incentives of the politicians who control the military. I'd be interested in discussing parts of the military that aren't related to U.S. imperialism. Care to bring one up?
      - coldtea 12y ago
        Sure: some PR work they do to cover the former. E.g helping out in some crisis situations et cetera.
  - rayiner 12y ago
    See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pax_Americana http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pax_Americana.
    - insuffi 12y ago
      My comment still stands. As long as America has peace, you're in total agreement with the practice of terrorizing other countries.
      - rayiner 12y ago
        It's not just peace in America. It's peace in Europe and Asia too. What do you think the political situation would be vis-a-vis U.K. versus Germany versus France or Japan versus China if the U.S. military didn't have supremacy over everyone? History suggests it would be a lot less peaceful than it is now.
        insuffi 12y ago
        History suggests the U.S. generally does whatever it wants in order to get richer, ever since WW2. Selling weapons to both sides of the war(e.g. both nazi germany and USSR) and helping out whichever side is winning. So, no, history doesn't suggest that. Neither does recent history with 20+ regime changes. edit: I feel like it needs reminding - I realize that in terms of geopolitics there needs to be a superpower. Every century has had a superpower that in all likelihood abused the weaker countries. My issue is with the way OP describes the issue: US being benevolent and great, bringing in fruits to US economy, completely ignoring repercussions worldwide.
        rayiner 12y ago
        In the grand scheme of things, knocking over a dictatorship and trying to build a democracy friendly to us, even if self-serving and ill-advised, is quite a different thing than just cynically conquering a country and harvesting its resources, the way the European countries used to before America came along. People use the phrase "American Empire" as a metaphor. They use "British Empire" literally.
  - oblio 12y ago
    I'm not American and not really an US fan. But I think he's at least partially right. Many of the previous wannabe #1s (as the US is now), were motivated by ideology ("we're better than you, culturally, religiously, racially, etc"): Spain, Portugal, England, France, Germany, by a power trip (Russia) or by what I could only call sheer insanity (Nazi Germany, USSR). The US is a bit different in this regard since it was always basically a trading nation and this what drove it forward: we don't (usually) want your land or want to convert your people to whatever crazy idea we have, we just want to get (worst case) / buy (best case) your stuff. That is an entirely different message and as long as it is not abused to much (see Iraq especially), it is a much better approach for the smaller guys. Ideally I'd want all the countries to be open, democratic, tolerant, free market economies AND equal partners. In practice I'd just want the big guy to not abuse me too much and give me a chance to grow myself. That's why as a Romanian I'm kind of horrified, for example, by Russia's resurgence. They fail 3 out of 5 those "ideal" criteria completely (open, tolerant, equal). The US fails basically just "equal", the rest might not be awesome but they have passing grades.
    - pizza234 12y ago
      I have sympathy for pacific remarks, but you have to keep in mind that warmongering in foreign countries doesn't exactly fit as, let's say, one star a half on a five star ethics scale. Iraq is not an abuse, becasue the abuse is mass murder; and it's not the only one. There are a few interesting conceptual problems. It's arguable that this approach favours the smaller guys. Who are the smaller guys? The ones surrounding Russia, because they're important for strategic reasons? Well, true. But we have to exclude the smaller guys who sit on oil reserves, because if they don't agree with giving their oil at a more than fair price, they get the bombs. Also, we have to exclude various smaller guys which have been supported when it was convenient for various economical reasons, and then have been abandoned to self-implosion after they've been exploited. So, who's really the smaller guys? There are several other problems. One that I find very dangerous is that it's not just a matter of getting/buying "somebody else's" stuff. It's also a matter of exporting corporatocracy, which is an alarming direction.
      - dragontamer 12y ago
  - happyscrappy 12y ago
    The narrative you want is that the problem is only that America is evil, but the fact is the entire West is working together on intel. But that is a bit of rage deflator, and consequently conveniently ignored.
    - insuffi 12y ago
      That's not true. What I do have a problem is how OP described U.S. as some sort of exceptionally(see what I did there) benevolent leader.
    - Zigurd 12y ago
      > but the fact is the entire West is working together on intel Do you think that represents the will of the people in most of Europe, Australia, New Zealand?
      - happyscrappy 12y ago
        Well it is not like they are responsible for their own country.
        Zigurd 12y ago
        Eventually they will catch up to that responsibility. I'm sure that will work out well for us.
        coldtea 12y ago
        Well, it's not like a huge player with tons of resources and bad-will can't buy out politicians in high places even in large Western European countries. Or sponsor the campaigns of people they favor (lackeys). Or, if the above don't work sometime, straight-out help install military dictatorships -- e.g even in the heart of Europe, in the late sixties: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_military_junta_of_1967%E2%80%9374#American_influence_in_Greece http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_military_junta_of_1967%E2...
        happyscrappy 12y ago
  - carrotleads 12y ago
    amazing right. thats why they invests so much in soft diplomacy and hollywood. so that lots of people sleep well at night.
  - ataggart 12y ago
    >You're either ignorant or amoral. Unfortunately rayiner is neither, as a look at his comment history makes clear. His morality is just antithetical to yours and mine. To paraphrase and invert an H.L. Mencken quote, it seems in any dispute between a citizen and the government, it is his instinct to side with the government; he is for all efforts to make men virtuous by law.
    - stuaxo 12y ago
      One doesn't have to be libertarian to disagree with him !
    - lawnchair_larry 12y ago
      Nah, I've seen his comments, and I agree that he is both of those things. I've found many of his "corrections" to be minimally researched and false. This usually goes unchallenged, so readers probably assume he knows what he is talking about. But really, he's a bit too quick to be contrarian.
  - reitanqild 12y ago
    Don't forget that there are a lot of countries around the world that borders to former USSR that are very happy with American military superiority. My home country is one of them. USSR at some point had stamps where half of our contry was painted in as part of the empire, and rich in resources and strategic as it was there is a fair chance they had invaded us hadn't it been for the Americans. Most of us prefer different degrees of rich as in USA versus everybody equal(ly poor) as in USSR so we are mostly happy. Understand that I cannot defend everything every American has ever done but on average I'd feel much safer with an American soldier pointing a gun at me than about anyone else.
    - insuffi 12y ago
      We're in agreement. I myself hail from a former soviet satellite country. My point is that it's insulting to call the US benevolent. The difference between US and USSR is that the US prefers a more subtle way of conquering a country, namely, by causing turmoil and overthrowing the government, letting rebel groups run rampant and financing them. It's always easier to overtake strategic resources during anarchy. Why do you think all the Iran, Ukraine etc civil wars are happening. Because the BRICS countries want to move away from the dollar. Would you feel the same, on average, if you were a citizen of a South American country, or how about the middle east?
      - anigbrowl 12y ago
        I think you mean Syria, to Iran. suggesting that their civil war is occurring just because they want to move off the dollar standard is rather absurd. That may be a factor, but you have to weigh it against other factors like long-standing repressive autocratic rulers, demographic pressures with large numbers of unemployed youth, the relatively sudden availability of real-time digital communications and information access. The 'US as malefactor' viewpoint depends on attributing enormous competency to the CIA and similar agencies to start revolutions, but simultaneously ignoring other factors - like the lack of concrete support for the rebels in Syria, notwithstanding the brutality of the Assad regime or widely-accepted evidence of chemical attacks. If the US were actually intent on toppling that regime it has had ample opportunity to advance that goal, but has chosen not to do so. In a larger context, the idea of moving away from the dollar as the reserve currency is often advanced because that would supposedly make it more difficult for the US to import the oil it needs. But there's no record of the US having adjusted its monetary policy in response to swings in oil price, which you would expect if that were the issue; and in any case domestic US oil and gas production is at a historic high and we've started expanding our nuclear fleet again after a 30 year hiatus. I'm not American either, and I don't see the US as benevolent so much as driven by enlightened self-interest. Where I differ from you is in thinking that US interests aren't dependent on or even advanced by destabilizing other countries, notwithstanding historical US reliance on that strategy.
  - john_b 12y ago
    > "You're either ignorant or amoral." No need for character sniping. He's a self-described statist, and many here (myself included) have a lot of disagreements with his views, but at least he can justify them better than the average statist (of the "Without a powerful government who will protect the children!" variety).
    - lawnchair_larry 12y ago
      If anything, that's why his comment is more warranted. Most of the aforementioned lack the facilities to inform their position, which can be forgiven. Someone who knowingly and proudly endorses what can only be described as evil should not be given a pass.
- things 12y ago
  They may not be pushing a particular ideology, but to call it benevolent is a stretch. Business is often the main interest. Read "War is a racket" [1] by General Smedley Butler to see how far back this goes. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racket https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racket
- detcader 12y ago
  Until Guantanamo is closed the U.S. military will will always "be a net negative" from a human rights perspective.
- ionised 12y ago
  In no way is the US benevolent. It acts in it's own best interests as any other country does or has done. Sometimes those interests align and countries work together, as it is now in most of the western world. It's also in US interests to maintain military bases in Europe and the Middle East and Asia since two of the worst wars the world has ever seen utterly annihilated those regions and led to the countries there being in no fit state to do it themselves. It also gives them footholds all over the world for the purposes of expanding territory. Other countries have done this, the US does this, other countries will do it in the future. The US is far from the worst country out there but let's not start throwing around the word 'benevolent' because it's profoundly untrue. Being the best of a bad bunch does not make you somehow good.
- dodders 12y ago
  Stating that the US military has... "enabled that continent to break its historical cycle of bloodshed and live in relative peace the last half-century" is a huge oversimplification. Undoubtedly the US military is one, if not a major force in the post WWII security, but many other factors have contributed to this, such as Khrouchtchev's policies of co-existence; the emergence of China as a nuclear power that forced Russia to side with the US and the European Union that bound France and Germany economically, making future pan-European wars much less likely. Lets not also forget the European conflicts since 1945 despite all of the above - Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia; Turkey invading Cyprus; Bosnian war; the Chechen crisis; Kosovo; Russia-Georgia and the Crimea.
  - rayiner 12y ago
    I concede it's a huge oversimplification.
    - lawnchair_larry 12y ago
      Did you not realize that when you said it, or were you being intentionally manipulative?

rayiner 12y ago

I used to do software for the defense industry. I sleep great at night. I was happy contributing to the military superiority that allows the U.S. to stay on top, and yields to us the benefits of that position. That doesn't mean that there aren't limits to what I think is okay, but overall I think the U.S. military is still a net positive for the world, especially because of the security we provide for Europe that has enabled that continent to break its historical cycle of bloodshed and live in relative peace the last half-century. And as a practical matter--I don't think there is any other major country that would be as benevolent as the U.S. has been were it to be on top. Many have proven so (Germany, the U.K., etc).

insuffi 12y ago
Hah! Benevolent! I'm glad you get to sleep well at night, while U.S. military terrorizes the world, and creates wars in order to finance itself. You're either ignorant or amoral. edit: eh. I feel like it needs reminding - I realize that in terms of geopolitics there needs to be a superpower. Every century has had a superpower that in all likelihood abused the weaker countries. My issue is with the way OP describes the issue: US being benevolent and great, bringing in fruits to US economy, completely ignoring repercussions worldwide, and OP has absolutely no problem with it.
- EC1 12y ago
  You can't generalize the entirety of the military. He could have easily been working on software for the military that doesn't actually have anything to do with killing people. Did you think of that?
  - detcader 12y ago
    You can generalize about the incentives of the politicians who control the military. I'd be interested in discussing parts of the military that aren't related to U.S. imperialism. Care to bring one up?
    - coldtea 12y ago
      Sure: some PR work they do to cover the former. E.g helping out in some crisis situations et cetera.
- rayiner 12y ago
  See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pax_Americana http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pax_Americana.
  - insuffi 12y ago
    My comment still stands. As long as America has peace, you're in total agreement with the practice of terrorizing other countries.
    - rayiner 12y ago
      It's not just peace in America. It's peace in Europe and Asia too. What do you think the political situation would be vis-a-vis U.K. versus Germany versus France or Japan versus China if the U.S. military didn't have supremacy over everyone? History suggests it would be a lot less peaceful than it is now.
      - insuffi 12y ago
        History suggests the U.S. generally does whatever it wants in order to get richer, ever since WW2. Selling weapons to both sides of the war(e.g. both nazi germany and USSR) and helping out whichever side is winning. So, no, history doesn't suggest that. Neither does recent history with 20+ regime changes. edit: I feel like it needs reminding - I realize that in terms of geopolitics there needs to be a superpower. Every century has had a superpower that in all likelihood abused the weaker countries. My issue is with the way OP describes the issue: US being benevolent and great, bringing in fruits to US economy, completely ignoring repercussions worldwide.
        rayiner 12y ago
        In the grand scheme of things, knocking over a dictatorship and trying to build a democracy friendly to us, even if self-serving and ill-advised, is quite a different thing than just cynically conquering a country and harvesting its resources, the way the European countries used to before America came along. People use the phrase "American Empire" as a metaphor. They use "British Empire" literally.
- oblio 12y ago
  I'm not American and not really an US fan. But I think he's at least partially right. Many of the previous wannabe #1s (as the US is now), were motivated by ideology ("we're better than you, culturally, religiously, racially, etc"): Spain, Portugal, England, France, Germany, by a power trip (Russia) or by what I could only call sheer insanity (Nazi Germany, USSR). The US is a bit different in this regard since it was always basically a trading nation and this what drove it forward: we don't (usually) want your land or want to convert your people to whatever crazy idea we have, we just want to get (worst case) / buy (best case) your stuff. That is an entirely different message and as long as it is not abused to much (see Iraq especially), it is a much better approach for the smaller guys. Ideally I'd want all the countries to be open, democratic, tolerant, free market economies AND equal partners. In practice I'd just want the big guy to not abuse me too much and give me a chance to grow myself. That's why as a Romanian I'm kind of horrified, for example, by Russia's resurgence. They fail 3 out of 5 those "ideal" criteria completely (open, tolerant, equal). The US fails basically just "equal", the rest might not be awesome but they have passing grades.
  - pizza234 12y ago
    I have sympathy for pacific remarks, but you have to keep in mind that warmongering in foreign countries doesn't exactly fit as, let's say, one star a half on a five star ethics scale. Iraq is not an abuse, becasue the abuse is mass murder; and it's not the only one. There are a few interesting conceptual problems. It's arguable that this approach favours the smaller guys. Who are the smaller guys? The ones surrounding Russia, because they're important for strategic reasons? Well, true. But we have to exclude the smaller guys who sit on oil reserves, because if they don't agree with giving their oil at a more than fair price, they get the bombs. Also, we have to exclude various smaller guys which have been supported when it was convenient for various economical reasons, and then have been abandoned to self-implosion after they've been exploited. So, who's really the smaller guys? There are several other problems. One that I find very dangerous is that it's not just a matter of getting/buying "somebody else's" stuff. It's also a matter of exporting corporatocracy, which is an alarming direction.
    - dragontamer 12y ago
- happyscrappy 12y ago
  The narrative you want is that the problem is only that America is evil, but the fact is the entire West is working together on intel. But that is a bit of rage deflator, and consequently conveniently ignored.
  - insuffi 12y ago
    That's not true. What I do have a problem is how OP described U.S. as some sort of exceptionally(see what I did there) benevolent leader.
  - Zigurd 12y ago
    > but the fact is the entire West is working together on intel Do you think that represents the will of the people in most of Europe, Australia, New Zealand?
    - happyscrappy 12y ago
      Well it is not like they are responsible for their own country.
      - Zigurd 12y ago
        Eventually they will catch up to that responsibility. I'm sure that will work out well for us.
      - coldtea 12y ago
        Well, it's not like a huge player with tons of resources and bad-will can't buy out politicians in high places even in large Western European countries. Or sponsor the campaigns of people they favor (lackeys). Or, if the above don't work sometime, straight-out help install military dictatorships -- e.g even in the heart of Europe, in the late sixties: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_military_junta_of_1967%E2%80%9374#American_influence_in_Greece http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_military_junta_of_1967%E2...
        happyscrappy 12y ago
- carrotleads 12y ago
  amazing right. thats why they invests so much in soft diplomacy and hollywood. so that lots of people sleep well at night.
- ataggart 12y ago
  >You're either ignorant or amoral. Unfortunately rayiner is neither, as a look at his comment history makes clear. His morality is just antithetical to yours and mine. To paraphrase and invert an H.L. Mencken quote, it seems in any dispute between a citizen and the government, it is his instinct to side with the government; he is for all efforts to make men virtuous by law.
  - stuaxo 12y ago
    One doesn't have to be libertarian to disagree with him !
  - lawnchair_larry 12y ago
    Nah, I've seen his comments, and I agree that he is both of those things. I've found many of his "corrections" to be minimally researched and false. This usually goes unchallenged, so readers probably assume he knows what he is talking about. But really, he's a bit too quick to be contrarian.
- reitanqild 12y ago
  Don't forget that there are a lot of countries around the world that borders to former USSR that are very happy with American military superiority. My home country is one of them. USSR at some point had stamps where half of our contry was painted in as part of the empire, and rich in resources and strategic as it was there is a fair chance they had invaded us hadn't it been for the Americans. Most of us prefer different degrees of rich as in USA versus everybody equal(ly poor) as in USSR so we are mostly happy. Understand that I cannot defend everything every American has ever done but on average I'd feel much safer with an American soldier pointing a gun at me than about anyone else.
  - insuffi 12y ago
    We're in agreement. I myself hail from a former soviet satellite country. My point is that it's insulting to call the US benevolent. The difference between US and USSR is that the US prefers a more subtle way of conquering a country, namely, by causing turmoil and overthrowing the government, letting rebel groups run rampant and financing them. It's always easier to overtake strategic resources during anarchy. Why do you think all the Iran, Ukraine etc civil wars are happening. Because the BRICS countries want to move away from the dollar. Would you feel the same, on average, if you were a citizen of a South American country, or how about the middle east?
    - anigbrowl 12y ago
      I think you mean Syria, to Iran. suggesting that their civil war is occurring just because they want to move off the dollar standard is rather absurd. That may be a factor, but you have to weigh it against other factors like long-standing repressive autocratic rulers, demographic pressures with large numbers of unemployed youth, the relatively sudden availability of real-time digital communications and information access. The 'US as malefactor' viewpoint depends on attributing enormous competency to the CIA and similar agencies to start revolutions, but simultaneously ignoring other factors - like the lack of concrete support for the rebels in Syria, notwithstanding the brutality of the Assad regime or widely-accepted evidence of chemical attacks. If the US were actually intent on toppling that regime it has had ample opportunity to advance that goal, but has chosen not to do so. In a larger context, the idea of moving away from the dollar as the reserve currency is often advanced because that would supposedly make it more difficult for the US to import the oil it needs. But there's no record of the US having adjusted its monetary policy in response to swings in oil price, which you would expect if that were the issue; and in any case domestic US oil and gas production is at a historic high and we've started expanding our nuclear fleet again after a 30 year hiatus. I'm not American either, and I don't see the US as benevolent so much as driven by enlightened self-interest. Where I differ from you is in thinking that US interests aren't dependent on or even advanced by destabilizing other countries, notwithstanding historical US reliance on that strategy.
- john_b 12y ago
  > "You're either ignorant or amoral." No need for character sniping. He's a self-described statist, and many here (myself included) have a lot of disagreements with his views, but at least he can justify them better than the average statist (of the "Without a powerful government who will protect the children!" variety).
  - lawnchair_larry 12y ago
    If anything, that's why his comment is more warranted. Most of the aforementioned lack the facilities to inform their position, which can be forgiven. Someone who knowingly and proudly endorses what can only be described as evil should not be given a pass.
things 12y ago
They may not be pushing a particular ideology, but to call it benevolent is a stretch. Business is often the main interest. Read "War is a racket" [1] by General Smedley Butler to see how far back this goes. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racket https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racket
detcader 12y ago
Until Guantanamo is closed the U.S. military will will always "be a net negative" from a human rights perspective.
ionised 12y ago
In no way is the US benevolent. It acts in it's own best interests as any other country does or has done. Sometimes those interests align and countries work together, as it is now in most of the western world. It's also in US interests to maintain military bases in Europe and the Middle East and Asia since two of the worst wars the world has ever seen utterly annihilated those regions and led to the countries there being in no fit state to do it themselves. It also gives them footholds all over the world for the purposes of expanding territory. Other countries have done this, the US does this, other countries will do it in the future. The US is far from the worst country out there but let's not start throwing around the word 'benevolent' because it's profoundly untrue. Being the best of a bad bunch does not make you somehow good.
dodders 12y ago
Stating that the US military has... "enabled that continent to break its historical cycle of bloodshed and live in relative peace the last half-century" is a huge oversimplification. Undoubtedly the US military is one, if not a major force in the post WWII security, but many other factors have contributed to this, such as Khrouchtchev's policies of co-existence; the emergence of China as a nuclear power that forced Russia to side with the US and the European Union that bound France and Germany economically, making future pan-European wars much less likely. Lets not also forget the European conflicts since 1945 despite all of the above - Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia; Turkey invading Cyprus; Bosnian war; the Chechen crisis; Kosovo; Russia-Georgia and the Crimea.
- rayiner 12y ago
  I concede it's a huge oversimplification.
  - lawnchair_larry 12y ago
    Did you not realize that when you said it, or were you being intentionally manipulative?