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On the matter of public health there aren't any strong arguments I've seen in support that those lies that benefited the public on the matters of public health. Maybe someone could steelman their position because I can't think of any. I was thinking more in terms of geopolitical conflicts between nations.
This better clarifies his position and I am in general agreement with that approach.
Honestly you don't have to mention this. I'm just asking questions to facilitate discussion and to better understand why governments behave the way they do, and if there is actually any value in doing so. You might not want to hear the reason, but I do, and I'm sure others do as well. Isn't that the point of this forum? To shed light and try to understand the opposition? Maybe there actually is some value in what they have to say. If not, then it better equips you (or anybody else reading) being able to point out the flaws in their reasoning.
I get your frustration, I really do. The government's fearmongering of and lies regarding Covid was an absolute disaster and I still feel the ramifications today. I feel like it robbed me of 4 years of my life, and that my life is worse today than it was at the start of 2020. But I still want to understand the line of reasoning and support of government lies (not necessarily of the response to Covid, but in general).
To fool your enemies, you must first fool your friends - this is a proverb for a reason. Now you may personally disagree with this as a matter of principle and refuse to engage with such an idea, but you cannot deny the utility it has. I think one could make a strong argument in support of such tactics in times of war. If one agrees with the argument, then it goes to reason there is some line where the cost to benefit justifies or denies it's usage. I don't think refusing to acknowledge its utility just because it can then lead to a discussion of where and when its justified is appropriate because most of the world is not black and white and most behavior of people isn't black and white.
I'm trying to recall who said it but the general idea is that the most dangerous type of people who believe they are doing something for the good of humanity. I think there are people who would vote for or be in support of governments lying to the population if they believed it was for the common good. We see people defending the government's response to Covid to this day. Getting mad at these people won't get them to change their minds. The ones that do are just as susceptible to shifting their feelings back with an equally emotional response from the other side. I seek to hone my arguments so that I can at least convince those who are willing to listen.
Sure, let's hold the government accountable for their past actions. But we live in the reality we live in. What would be the best approach to China now? Personally, I think the US could benefit from not playing world police for a decade and just focusing on solving our internal problems. But what are the potential consequences of that?
My belief is that the world can only be mostly peaceful if there is a significantly powerful force that is so powerful that it makes it not worth it for a foreign nation to cause war. In that case, I'd rather that force be the US and not China. The reason we don't have wide-scale World War 1 and 2 style conflicts anymore is because of mutually assured destruction and the fact that most of the world is now aligned with US and US interests and values. But if human history teaches us anything, it's that if someone can bully someone else out of their resources, they will do that. On a micro-scale, the only reason we don't have large portions of the population stealing from each other is because society (with the use of physical force such as police) keeps us in check. As soon as we started defunding police crime went up. I believe the same applies to larger scales. Remove the US-aligned hegemony and we will start to see more international conflicts. This is a belief I haven't really honed, so I'm open to criticism and a better alternative theory regarding minimizing international conflicts.
C. S. Lewis:
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What are you going to do about international conflicts on which the USA plays a role at causing? Surely, you would want USA to dissuade other countries from causing trouble but be critical when USA itself causes trouble?
Do you think, we should see all the warmongering USA is responsible both in wars and including coups, funding extremist rebels as in Syria, as something that shouldn't be challenged and an acceptable sacrifice for the greater good? Because this way of thinking is exploitable and will lead to more bad behavior by the warmongering, CIA coups parts of USA.
Including those who deliberately might want conflict with other great powers so that they can be defeated and there would be American hegemony over them. If MAD is part of world peace, then that MAD includes the existence of rival powers too. Now, I don't think the way is to turn a blind eye to China, etc, but neither is to treat the American foreign policy establishment as the good guys.
I think in your model of world peace, you should not neglect to consider how American imperialist deeds, which include funding their own color revolutions/rebels should be restrained, because they actually have been the more warmongering active player around the globe.
Of course, it is also legitimate to treat the warmongering and threat of more, by non American powers as a problem.
Some part of the previous peace, relates to a different more friendly attitute of American foreign policy towards countries like Russia and China. And moreover, the fact that China was weaker, growing and not perceived as a threat while China it self also became more brazen. The Ukraine issue has been constantly debated, but certainly the Russians did have their own aggressive moves in Ukraine, in addition to the oust of their guy there from a western backed coup (with people like McCain openly supporting it). It seems to me that both the USA and the Chinese and Russians became more aggressive.
An aggressive American world dominance hegemonist perspective that seeks to dismember rival powers like Russia and China and seeks their submission as countries is itself war causing, and possibly ww3 causing. If there weren't nukes, it might have lead us there already. But international peace would require a general deescalation, not just from the USA, of course.
Sure, these are good points you bring up to criticize America, but what is the better alternative? When we consider long periods of peace, it's accomplished under a hegemony of powerful nations aligned in goals/culture or a singular empire.
I'm not defending US in all of its actions and agree there is plenty to criticize in what they have done on the global scale. But I don't think any of these things really addresses the core of my argument. The mutually assured destruction is an alternative to relative peace without needing global hegemony and even then plenty of conflict was done via proxies AKA the Cold War. It prevented full-scale war between the US and the Soviet Union. Personally, I think peace achieved via MAD is worse than peace achieved via a global hegemony. For all the wars that have existed from 1945 to today, in comparison to eras throughout human history, we exist in a relatively peaceful era.
Indeed, we should strive to be vigilant and not use this line of argument to just absolve the USA of what it has done, especially when it has negative outcomes. At the same time, it doesn't mean we shouldn't aim to preserve a powerful global presence. The best argument against focusing on that currently is that America has enough domestic problems to deal with. But it doesn't mean we should abandon our position either.
When we look at US-caused international conflicts, we have to consider, whether the primary purpose is to maintain and grow the American hegemony in service of maintaining global peace, or if that is being used as an excuse with some other primary motive in mind (fund the military-industrial complex, drum up support for an upcoming election, etc.). If the former, I think that would warrant a legitimate criticism about the pitfalls of relative peace achieved through this method and find ways to account for it. But if the latter, that's not really a criticism of the model. People will always use existing values and models to justify whatever they want to do, but it doesn't mean that it's wrong.
What do you think would be a better path to a more peaceful world, and what can be done to maintain it?
Edit: Not a response to you directly, more of my thoughts concerning people who say the US spends too much on the military and then act like we would have world peace if America just drastically cut its military budget. I think there is legitimate criticism to be had of the military-industrial complex to take into consideration, but I also feel like many people with that sentiment take this era of relative peace for granted. Do they not read history? Do they not consider human nature?
Yes, America has instigated wars with little to no benefit and should be rightly criticized. But this does not mean the military is useless or that having a military presence globally is a strictly negative thing. I acknowledge that if I wasn't an American and a foreigner, I would have reason to want to break the American-led global hegemony, especially if I was for example Chinese. But I'm an American, and I am more favorable to a world under American values than a world under Russian values or a world under Chinese values. I'm not so naive to believe that you can have hundreds of relatively equally powerful countries acting independently peacefully. What would stop one country from just using force to take the resources of another? Sanctions? Their "image"? Propaganda on the citizens to make them not want to fight? You only need a few people to maintain an army that can suppress people. These things have to be backed up by military force otherwise it's futile.
I am for maximizing human potential and development, and the countries that aligned with American values post-WWII saw tremendous economic growth and development. Now one could make arguments about how countries that didn't had their growth artificially restricted by American policies against its adversaries or how the growth of America and its allies came by extracting value unfairly from its adversaries, but for the person that is born under a richer country, does that really matter? Countries that aligned with the US and adopted positions favorable to the US are far, far better off than those that didn't. Just look at North Korea versus South Korea. If I were born in a foreign nation, I would be extremely grateful if my country chose to lick the boots of the American imperialist ambitions some 50-60 years ago and benefited greatly from it, than if they didn't and my country ended up in poverty instead.
What use is my country's culture and tradition if the average GDP per capita is $1,000 and I have to live as a farmer when it could've had a GDP per capita of $30,000 and my quality of life is vastly superior? Why do so many people leave their countries to try to come to the US if culture should matter more than economic growth and prosperity? I don't particularly care for preserving the culture of every other people in the world, especially when said culture is an active detriment to the growth and development of those people. This doesn't mean I think we should just make all of the world America, just that we shouldn't go out of our way to preserve existing cultures. And just for good measure, I'm going to repeat myself that this doesn't mean America is absolved of all its wrongdoings, or that we should be careful in adopting this perspective without criticism, but I don't see a better alternative that would realistically work without fundamentally changing human nature. I'm going to make this claim - that the world today for the average person is far better due to America taking a global position than it would have been if America chose to stay neutral during WWII and take a far more isolationist approach.
The more America has tried to police the world as the hegemon the weaker America has become. I think prudence is a better path to ensure Pax Americana.
Yes, it seems America has dipped its toes in too many different things that had little benefit, how much of that was really due to the pursuit of expanding/maintaining the American Hegemon versus the selfish interests of actors with different goals?
America currently has enough domestic problems to deal with to be playing world police currently and could likely benefit from taking a step back from the world stage. But in terms of maintaining the Pax Americana, it leaves the question of how long and how likely a foreign bloc could form to dismantle it. I think at this point I made clear my stance is that large-scale conflict is more likely when there is no dominant force than when there is. Maybe some history buff could provide examples otherwise?
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I challenged you directly if you think you should excuse blatantly immoral and destructive conduct under the idea that US hegemony is good. It seems to me that you want to do that and are just trying to promote it based on arguing that US hegemony is good actually. But you also say you accept restraint and criticism. And it doesn't seem that you really do in a substantial manner. How should current policy change if it means you accept that there are areas it has acted wrongly.
There are a few problems with this. Which is that destroying other countries and causing civil wars to cause more US hegemony will result in far more devastation.
And part of the peace has been because of existence of other powers and not adopting fully culturally marxist agenda. When Japan open its borders and follows more the cultural marxist agenda the result wouldn't be good for the Japanese but worse. Moreover, the existence of an other, helps restrain predation by Americans against their allies, and now seems less so.
Anyway, a USA that is against the immoral conduct of other countries, and restraints it self from instigating more trouble, will work better. Part of my solution includes a push for general deescalation that includes non Americans also doing that through negotiations and attempts to diplomacy being part of the process. I am not suggesting that the USA should stop having a military, but I do think that the neocons being highly representative of what I am critical of a criminal conduct, as a faction are removed from any influence.
When people like Bret Stephens arguing to replace the white working, this isn't good because higher GDP, because this agenda also comes along with massive redistribution, and quotas at expense of targeted group. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-09-30/how-corporate-america-kept-its-diversity-promise-a-week-of-big-take
The package offered by the modern GAE is also unattractive to many African countries because it comes with prioritising submission to cultural far leftist agenda. Chinese investment with less lecturing is more attractive. So, one of my alternatives is to abadon that and ideology of woke/neocon types to be abadoned. However, I don't think ideology should be absent from global politics. There is a value in certain human rights, and want those genuine rights to be protected. But the general cultural marxist conception of rights should be thrown to the garbage. And we don't need people trying indirect justifications due to GDP. It is both bad in its own right, but also alienates people who would be otherwise more positive towards USA influence.
Oh, and having a modern economy, and not aligning with American warmongering are different things. I don't want a world that doesn't trade with the USA, but one that doesn't support belligerence. Some of your rhetoric leads us to a more reductive path and makes it harder to face specific issues. Moves us away from clarity and conflates things that shouldn't be conflated. And it is anachronistic, not taking into account the massive amounts of investment that a more pro chinese aligned block is seeing.
European countries benefited much more when they traded and had more positive relations with Russia, China and USA. Being overly aligned with a neocon aggressive, arrogant USA is not a move for better economy but one were you suffer consequences at your expense. Although some protectionism is also reasonable to protect their own industries, so I am not free trade but pro trade against against trying to strongly suppress and stop trade and enact new cold wars.
In regards to American interests, there is an issue of interests of foreign lobbies, of weapon manufacturers, and of people with ideological obsessions that don't fulfill even American interests. There is also an issue of higher cost than they are worth. Much of American warmongering, has reduced American prestige, and USA can be a more credible pusher for world peace, by avoiding doing such actions, and retaining influence as the most powerful member of an actual alliance, where America treats other countries part of its alliance as allies and respects their rights. So, I genuinely think that people whose agenda is ethnically destructive are immoral on their own rights, and ironically help damage Pax Americana. They are incentivizing non Americans to correctly resist on grounds of their human rights to exist and self determination So, I would suggest you compromise and abadon trying to excuse such agendas. The cultural marxist agendas are irredeemably extreme and destructive.
This idea that with rhetoric and excuses, anything will be tolerated and people are going to accept any and all arrangements that are destructive against them, is simply not true. Hubris doesn't solve decline but accelerates it. So, a pax americana is going to rightfully end for good, or as you think for ill, if modern USA is a cultural marxist very arrogant country that has moved to a much more radical path than its previous conduct towards its allies were it was willing to compromise with the existence of nation state democracies. Indeed peace, becomes impossible under such an extreme USSA, because it promotes aggressive policy.
So, to summarize:
There is nothing wrong with an influential USA in a pro USA alliance, provided this USA avoids its substantial own bad behavior, and respects the rights of its allies which includes not trying to impose ethnically destructive and other social agendas.
There is plenty of wrong with much of American warmongering which has been destructive both economically and otherwise and it is of a different nature than countries being part of NATO or having some ties with the USA.
There is something wrong with an attempt by the USA to make the entire world aligned with it, and to succeed in destroying rival powers, will come with enormous blood and destruction.
It is better to have a multipolar world that collaborates and tries to some extend to share some principles on issues of opposing say invasions. Where good faith behavior makes it easier for principles to be taken seriously and there is more win-win entanglement. A connected world order in such ways. Trade, negotiation are key aspects of this, and there is probably a value in different blocs aligning to oppose the worst deeds of other blocs and restraining each other. So, I am not arguing here in favor of the disapperance of USA as an influential player.
Although its modern moral decline and rising extremism, is an enormous problem that needs to be corrected and not something to just dismiss. It is a massive elephant to the room of how USA became a much more radical power with its embassies promoting very extreme and destructive agenda. Although I also don't think that Russia and China with their own third world nationalist elements are an adequate solution. Cultural marxist ideology is a gigantic problem, and not part of a healthy alliance and the only solution is to be suppressed, and those elements with such ideology to not be allowed to have influence. Including outside the USA, GAE being about more than just USA. Indeed, ironically cultural marxism with its own antiwestern, anti the peoples of the alliance propaganda, helps promote Russia and China and non western countries as alternatives. Why should people support self hating west over nonwestern blocks, if they buy into this ideology? Including those outside the west? The contradictions can't be sustained by just the same tired propaganda of ww2, pretending opposition are far left, far right, promoting only the threat of Russia, and China, or claiming it is economically superior path. My conclusion, in addition to suggesting that it would be a good path for our world and the USA too, to abandon this ideology, is to note an inability for the cultural marxist GAE types to compromise. This ideological purity spiral would serve them as poorly as it served other very ideological empires which refused to compromise.
No, you didn't. That's like asking someone if abortion is bad and then saying "I challenged you directly if you think murder is bad". You can't just assume that abortion is murder, even if you're going to argue it.
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I edited this in later so you may have missed it but I believe it addresses your point:
I don't believe I am excusing "blatantly immoral and destructive conduct under the idea that US hegemony is good". Are these international conflicts strictly the result of pursuing a US hegemony, or are there some other factors at play? I'm going to say that you can have US hegemony without needing to instigate wars left and right. Or are you saying hegemony is achieved solely through military might? If I gave off the impression that is my belief then I should've been more clear and that is my fault.
You hold the people who made those decisions accountable. The mechanics of how it's done is irrelevant for this conversation. I did not say we pardon our leaders for what they have done because it was in service of the US hegemony. Your challenge was not something that I really thought important to address when you initially posted it because my question was in regards to how global peace can be achieved and maintained and you didn't really provide any alternative solutions. You later expanded your post and provided more information, which I'm grateful for. I am now challenging you that these immoral and destructive conducts is not an inevitable outcome of a pursuit of a global hegemony and that the idea of the US hegemony is being used as an excuse for other purposes.
US-based hegemony does not necessarily have to be achieved strictly through military might, although it has to be enforced by its existence. Most of Europe did not become allies of the US because USA subjugated it via force.
It feels like a big part of your argument is that the US-based support is no longer attractive due to the prevalence of the condition that it involves adopting leftist cultural marxist values. I will acknowledge I wasn't considering this and thinking more in terms of concepts such as capitalism and democracy. Yes, if US support comes at the cost of having to adopt DIE woke style culture then I am against it, because I am against those ideas within America as well. Propositioning US support would be better accomplished without that baggage tied to it. At the same time, it doesn't mean America just gives away money for free with no strings attached. Why should America provide charity to the world with no benefits? Otherwise just invest that money domestically.
How does the USA enforce punishment regarding the immoral conduct of other countries without itself maintaining a dominant position relative to that other country? A dominant position maintained by superior military and economic might? Words alone mean nothing unless there is credible threat of action behind those words. What happens when negotiations and communication fails? Or if the other side refuses to de-escalate?
Do you think the only way to grow the US hegemony or bring more countries under the US sphere of influence is done by instigating "trouble"? Because I don't think that.
It honestly doesn't sound like you're against the idea of a US hegemony, just against how it is currently being accomplished, which I think we are both in agreement with? So what's the dispute here?Okay it looks like you provided more context with the additional text, which I address below.Edit: Since you added much more to your post after what I responded to, I think my general points above still stand. I think your greatest argument against the current US Hegemony is that the US currently is suffering from being ideologically possessed by leftist cultural marxist ideas, and because of this the US hegemony itself is no longer good or has serious issues. That's why in my earlier post I suggested perhaps the US take some time to work on its issues domestically for a decade or so. Realistically it'll take longer than that, which is why I asked what are the consequences of doing that? I think the biggest cause of the difference of opinion is I'm thinking more of a direct Post-WWII American set of ideals on capitalism and democracy and you point out I did not factor in the cultural Marxist element of America today playing a part in having an alliance with the US. How much of American support is actually dependent on adopting cultural-Marxist woke ideology though? I'm just taking your word for it here.
Frankly speaking, I don't believe significantly different cultures can exist peacefully for long periods of time especially when those cultures play into system of government that run the nation. Most countries are democracies now but these democracies just so happen to mostly align in the US sphere of influence. Are most countries better off or worse off with a democratic government? How likely are the undemocratic countries to serve as a threat to democratic ones? As you add more and more different types of values into the mix, it becomes increasingly more difficult for all of these values to exist peacefully.
The reason I can say US hegemony has resulted in a era of relative peace is because we literally live in an era of peace relative to human history, with actual war occurring in much smaller scales (proportionally) than they used to. Perhaps we are seeing the cracks of such a system today with Ukraine and other conflicts.
I still believe that a long era of world peace can most likely be achieved under a global hegemony with 1 dominant culture. It doesn't have to be the US, but it is currently the US most poised to maintain that. The League of Nations post WW1 had a pathetic ability to accomplish anything and the United Nations today similarly has very little influence (although much more successful than the LoN ever was).
I think you saying I am just excusing its behavior is an extremely uncharitable take on my position. If you still believe I am doing that then I don't know what else to say and will have to end the conversation here. I still appreciate your perspective and for giving some good points for me to consider.
I won't be able to fully address everything here. I do appreciate that your response wasn't as heated as it could had been.
I would like to focus on a minor point which is that those countries that are part of a western alliance, to remain in that isn't a bad thing necessarily if USA fixes its ideological issues and doesn't push destructive demands. Indeed, what I advocate still allows room for a saner than today USA as the strongest power. Chinese and Russian ambitions can also be destructive towards other countries, like their neighbors.
An attempt by the USA for worldwide full spectrum dominance or expanding spheres of influence has had too much a destructive path already, and will continue to do so in the future. So, when I argue for multipolarism is a different thing than when the Russians or Chinese do, for in their advocation includes them having a license to expand their sphere of influence.
When for me, is about trying to retain a status quo that avoids invasions, and avoids trying to coup and dismember countries like China, and Russia, or pushing too much propaganda about them being illegitimate regimes. There is a situation where such powers try to trade and seek more win-win diplomatic paths, and one where they try to undermine each other and prepare for hotter conflict.
Anyway, while you might believe that one country dominating will lead to global peace, the position of Europe since this conflict has been a worsening one, precisely as they became more dependent to USA. The reality is any power dominating gives it more opportunity for abuse. Including promoting extreme ideologies. Although, abuse of bigger powers in alliances or even among expected protectorates does result in them seeking to disentangle themselves. UK arrests far more people for their speech than Russia does, which matters when evaluating the current trajectory of western demcoracies. Most importantly, for USA to get global hegemony and the desirable peace, and to humiliate and keep down its rivals, far more war and conflict will have to ensue, including as in Syria possible civil war within Russia and China. I don't buy that an agenda that raises risk of WW3 and nuclear war is a good way to achieve peace. Nor did the conflicts that USA was involved in the middle east, did any good of the people there. It is in fact likely, that rather than peace, the attempt for worldwide hegemony will lead to similiar misfortune for those affected, and even not succeed at providing American hegemony, but waste blood and treasure. So avoiding both expanding moves like that, and what we already saw such as with the Iraq war, Syrian war and funding the rebels, etc, etc.
The arrangement of trying to deescalate tensions where the onus isn't just on the USA and the Chinese and Russians also have their own responsibility, seems like a much better bet.
Of course in practice, global powers are going to do their proxy conflicts, and part of that will include both influences of lobbies and the struggle relating to expanding spheres of influence, and at best this can be mitigated and reduced, but too idealsitic to expect it to stop. I do think that things have escalated and things can be put in a healthier equilibrium. And it really is completely unrealistic and putting lipstick to a process of great power competition, to talk of peace and the morality of continuous hegemony. It is a bit like the communists promoted this idea that it would be the defeat of capitalism, imperialism and great if they took over the world. Like colonialism had its white man's burden, we also now had in the case of pro american imperialism, narratives promising peace. Prior to the soviet utopian dream, the Russians promoted this idea of them as protectors of Christians against the Ottomans to jsutify expanding, and both Russia and USSR promoted this idea of them as protectors of slavs. Narratives are going always to exist to defend moves in the great chess game, which on the meantime can destabilize countries and can lead to the harm even of the involved great powers through conflict, and not just the destruction of the region that is fought.
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