Re your concerns about US global domination

Come on now, enough with the hyperbole. The US has been a superpower for 60 years, the beginning of which was marked with rebuilding Europe and Japan insead of enjoying the spoils of war, then turned to creating international organizations like NATO and the UN as a response to Soviet expansion, and then worked to clean up hotspots like Yugoslavia, Kuwait, and Bosnia.

I can't say I approve every US action in that span of time (particularly in South America and Southeast Asia), but the basis of comparison is the Europeans. This is a group of people who, when they had the power to, raped and pillaged the rest of the planet for 500 years, before just about destroying themselves in two wars. Now suddenly they're the moral compass for the rest of the planet?

>>26
LOL

Let us assume that centralised power is bad (bad = does more harm than good). The result of centralised power is civilisation. The best way of making sense of any cumulative effect of history is to look at the present, since the present is the combined effect of the past. So civilisation now as we know it must be bad.

If you agree with this, you can kil yourself now.

>>34

I don't follow how colonialism could have not encouraged civil wars in Africa. Most of the time, colonialism will at some point end and leave a vacuum of power.

>>40

No. I don't know how to argue with this other than to point you to the wikipedia articles on satisficing, pareto optimality, and kaldor-hicks efficiency. Those represent some of the jewels of modern socio-economic analysis, and they're all based around the idea that you can give without taking. There are indeed some schools of economic theory that believe what you say... but they're predominantly pre-modern. Everyone else accepts the ideology of compensation.

>>39

I find your point compelling. Are you suggesting that a few brief decades of war in which tens of millions die is preferable to the continuation of a pattern of hundreds of thousands dying in infancy since time immemorial? Perhaps!

I'm tempted to say "but notice that the African unrest has led to tens of millions more dying of AIDS; fundamental issues of social behavior are the cause for disease, and you can't cure them all", but that's a bit of a low-blow. There are only a limited number of plagues, and curing one doesn't necessitate the creation of another.

Yet if you gave me the choice of killing 40% of my children in the first year of their life, or subjecting my ethnic group to something like the Biafra genocide, where 80% of people were killed or had an immediate family member killed, I think I'd choose the former. But a hell of a choice it is! I suppose it comes down to personal preference... and I suppose you'd choose the genocide, hmm?

As an aside, while your point is clever, you are misusing the word "logic". My point is logical because it is a series of premises followed by a conclusion, what you mean is that it isn't "rational", or "well-thought out".

>>41

I have no opposition to civilization, and I don't know where you got that idea. I wish you'd have quoted which part of my comments you thought were anti-civilization, so I'd know where you got that idea!

I'm against compulsive systems of organization. If that's how you define civilization I suggest you read the Wikipedia articles on the history of anarchy. Perhaps the reason why you can't imagine another way is because someone doesn't want you to be able to imagine it.

>>42

Basically you're saying "shit sux? colonialism was probably involved!". It's an inane point of view. Yet in point of fact, you're blaming colonialism for *leaving*... if everything was fine, then colonialism "at some point end"ed, and there was a "vacuum of power", which caused shit to sux0r, then I would be inclined to say that the rational conclusion to your argument is "don't let colonialism leave!".

Where is the point where colonialism's presence causes shit to sux0r?

>>44

Where is the point where colonialism's presence causes shit to sux0r?

The point at which it destroys local government.

Well can't say it's that bad thing that US is basically the sole superpower of the western world. Just think of few alternatives we could have. What comes to my mind is Soviets or Nazis.
Now US is LOT of gooder choice than those. US in it's whole world dominating time has never done anything "bad"(atleast not directly) affecting to me or my family. That's quite an achievement considering that Soviets and new "superpower" EU have already done such things.

>>45

Local government is a relative term. The Japanese displaced the Ainu to form their nation, yet the American occupation of Japan after WW2 is often called colonialism. Most inhabitants of North Africa are ethnically Middle-Eastern, yet it's often called colonialism when Europeans have occupied those countries.

The truth is, if you go back far enough, all land was taken from someone. The epithet of colonialism presupposes something obviously false to any rational person: eternal nationhood.

Everything had a beginning. Objecting to colonialism is silly; object to acquiring land through war if you like. There's an argument in that somewhere... but colonialism is just a meaningless buzz-word like terrorism or extremist.

>>34
Well, all the most educated countries in the world have low birthrates.  I'd say stupidity figures into it.  It's still shortsighted, I wasn't deriding them for having kids or being stupid, I only meant that stupid people have high birthrates when not controlled by food scarcity.  I believe that education plays a part in that, not just our technology.

>>47

That's idiotic. You seem to be arguing that colonialism is a word without meaning when that is plainly not the case. >>45 didn't say aboriginal government, he said local.

Whenever you can describe the government as "occupation", red flags should be going off.

>>43
"Are you suggesting that a few brief decades of war in which tens of millions die is preferable to the continuation of a pattern of hundreds of thousands dying in infancy since time immemorial? Perhaps!"

Yes, perhaps. I am saying it's difficult to make a judgment like that because:
1) Hindsight is 20/20, but it didn't have to turn out the way it did. Your logic is flawed. You failed to address that lack of food causes starvation as well as having many, many people. It's only half the story. It's like saying the Treaty of Versailles was solely or even mostly responsible for the holocaust.
2) If you asked everyone who died in the genocide whether they would have preferred to be murdered or never have been born at all (or died at birth), well... yeah it IS an issue of principle.

>>44
I believe you mean Anarchism. Okay. Tell me one civilisation that has been anarchistic.

>>43
So there is no such thing as "makes no one less happy".

I should amend my statement. No REAL such thing.

>>49

Colonialism is a word without objective meaning.

But you're saying that "any occupying government" is an example of colonialism? So then, in the case of the North African countries occupied by European powers in the recent centuries...

Napoleon occupied Egypt; is that colonialism? Yet the people who were running Egypt before Napoleon conquered it were the descendants of the Muslim empire which stormed across North Africa in earlier centuries. Were they colonialists?

So, in your wildest dreams, who should Egypt be governed by? Who is the non-colonial hereditary owners of Egypt?

>>53
Heshepsut, of course. 

>>54

Even Heshepsut was a wicked "colonialist". The dynastic Egyptians were originally two kingdoms. Lower Egypt conquered Upper Egypt giving rise to the Pharaonic dynasties, which then governed other's lands as if they were their own for thousands of years.

The only non-colonial nations in this world are pre-historic. If they even had names they never survived long enough to be written down.

To clarify, I do believe that colonialism means something; there's no way to argue with that, it's a simple fact. The problem is, it is unfairly applied to some things which fit its description, but not others... and that is because when it is fairly applied to every nation who rules over people and place's that they have not ruled over since the first system of social coordination arose in that place, then it applies to everyone and every nation now living.

Hence, it is a worthless concept.

First a definition:

The colonial system of political government or extension
of territory, by which one nation exerts political control
over another nation, territory, or people, maintaining the
colony in a state of dependence, its inhabitants not
having the same full rights as those of the colonial
power. The controlling power is typically extended thus by
military force or the threat of force.
[Webster 1913 Suppl. +PJC]


This means that Heshepesut was probably not a colonialist because Lower Egypt annexed Upper Egypt and in the treated it's citizens equally. Upper Egypt was not meant to be like a gold mine for Lower Egypt but more of a territorial expansion. Upper Egypt was considered part of Lower Egypt.

With Arabs, I think they killed most of the Egyptions (i dunno lol). If they did, it would not be colonialism either.

Concerning France in Algeria, the French were using Arabs as slaves or servants. The Arabs did not have the same rights as the French. If the French had driven out the Arabs or something, would that be colonialism?

What the hell; my ramblings are too vague and so is the currently accepted meaning for colonialism.

>>56

...I *must* have misunderstood you.

I feel like I'm getting the impression that you're saying that the Lower Egyptians didn't use Upper Egyptians as slaves? Also, are you suggesting that when the Muslim empire conquered the pagan sun-worshipping Pharaonic Egypt they treated the denizens they didn't slaughter as equal citizens?

I must be confused... there's no way you could be making those assertions... what *are* you saying?

>>53

You are an idiot. >>49 dude did not say "any occupying government". Your response ignores >>49's only point, which is that no one is demanding an aboriginal government for Egypt.

Who should govern Egypt? The people who live there. What's your problem?

>>49 only mentioned occupation in response to >>47, which acted as if every military action was indistinguishable from colonialism. >>47's own language gave away a distinction.

>>55

Go reread that posted definition. Your post completely ignores it. The provided definition clearly does not apply to the way France rules France, the US rules the US, or the way Germany rules Germany. No, the people in those governments did not evolve from apes in those places. They are not the first form of government that those places knew. Still doesn't fit the definition of colonialism.

| it is fairly applied to every nation who rules over people and place's that they have not ruled over since the first system of social coordination arose in that place

That's plain bullshit.

>>58

The people who live there do govern Egypt, and always have.

When Napoleon governed it he lived there for several years.

p.s., why am I an idiot when you've obviously never read a single book on the subject of modern Egyptian history?

>>59

I didn't ignore the definition; I've been aware of it the entire period I've been writing in this thread. It's just so broad as to be useless.

"one nation exerts political control over another nation, territory, or people" describes every nation I can think of. Syria and Lebanon, Greece and Macedonia, Turkey and Greece, Russia and its client states, China and its client states, China and Taiwan and Hong Kong, the US and most everything, Canada and the inuits, Mexico and the Zapatistas, India and the indigenous Muslims, Pakistan and the indigenous non-Muslims, Israel and the Palestinians, Jordan and the Palestinians, Iraq and the Palestinians... every nation in Africa has its own little minority which it is constantly torturing.

How am I misunderstanding the definition? Do they not maintain these peoples, territories, and nations in a state of dependence? Do these peoples, territories, and nations not suffer and survive at the whim of these nations? So then, is not every nation on Earth a colonial power?

So then, what is the purpose of the term? If one decries colonialism, isn't one simply decrying government?

>>60

I don't understand how the three things you say about >>58 relate to the actual contents of >>58. I will grant that they are all true. >>53 asked who should govern Egypt, and >>58 answered. If Egyptians govern Egypt, than whatever bad shit their government pulls, it probably can't be called a colony.

Fortunately, whether one has read books on Egyptian history does not determine idiocy.

>>60

Well fortunately, "one nation exerts political control over another nation, territory, or people" wasn't the whole definition. I'm glad you ask: YES, YOU MISUNDERSTAND THE DEFINITION.

1) I do not grant that every nation on Earth is a colonial power. If it's locally run government that is independent of a foreign power doing the dirt to some minority, then it's just plain human cruelty. Not a colony. You acting like that distinction does not exist.

2) If it were granted that every nation on Earth were a colonial power, one could still decry colonialism without decrying government. Obviously that is neither the only purpose of government, nor is it a necessary purpose. If every government provided the enforcement of legal slavery, protesting slavery would not be protesting the existence of government. Agreed?

I wish I knew names for the kind of hand waving you're doing. This feels like arguing with a three year old. I'm done.