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Perhaps you don't understand what the word isolationist means. North Korea is an isolationist regime.
I understand perfectly what the word means. I use it because it is convenient short hand for me on the topic of what I think our nation should be doing. Similar to how lots and lots of people call themselves conservatives but not all of them subscribe to Glen Beck. Clearer?
In short, I believe if we can do it at home, we should, and that we take care of our own first.
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We don't keep army bases and provide aid to countries striclty because we're nice - we do it to maintain stability. If you want to debate the effectiveness of specific operations/programs, that's one thing, but your basic premise is "stop doing it and only worry about ourselves." The fallacies in that assertion are too numerous to account, I listed a few off the top of my head, which you basically said "I don't mean that".
Oh, I do mean I want all the military bases shut down. I could give a shit of the world goes tits up. This is more from a bitterness angle on my part, but honestly what has it bought us?
Our presence in the world has become a handy double edged sword where the rest of the world expects us to "do something" even while they talk shit about us doing exactly that. Our meddling in a single country alone has bought billions and billions of "reconstruction" so that we could take out a man we propped up....not even going into how it was done.
So yeah, I do want the military brought home. I want them working on our infrastructure, not Iraq's. Not Afganistan.
Will it ever happen? No. But I certainly wish it would. Let the world take care of itself for a change. We're not Batman and this isn't Gotham city. Let some of the other people step the fuck up.
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You say we should grow all our food domestically. Do you seriously not understand how problematic that would be? You act like there would be a couple days of problems and then boom - utopia. You realize there are crops we can't even grow in the US, right? I find it hard to believe that you are completely oblivious to the realities of the economy.
I'm the first person that will tell you I dont understand these things, which is probably why I struggle with them the way I do. What I know is my own life and some very basic rules I live by:
1) You take care of you and yours first. THEN help others when you can.
2) You don't take your rent money to the casino. Pay your bills first, save some, THEN decide what to do with the excess.
3) If you can do it yourself, do. I'm dabbling in gardening, for example. Just because I can't grow strawberries in my back yard doesn't mean I need to buy zucchini and tomatoes at the store. I can take care of the zucchini and tomatoes myself. Just buy the strawberries.
So to me, these translate directly to things that frustrate me. We borrow insane amounts of money, yet we're giving away huge chunks of change in foreign aid? I've already said how crazy I think that is. We can't pay our own fucking bills, yet we spend billions reconstructing Iraq? Insanity. The odds on that one ever paying off are probably worse than a roulette table.
So the idea that just because we can't grow X crop doesn't seem a valid argument to me for why that means we can't grow the crops we can and buy the ones we need.
Maybe this is all because I'm a moron about economics, but I fully admit that up front. I'm a UNIX systems administrator. I make the computers and the networks go and I play with art on the side. Math and accounting and all that other shit make my head hurt. But very basic laws I have about how to keep my home in order and the people I love cared for and tended to seem to be very basic things we could be doing on a national level and aren't. And it bugs me.
So by all means....call me a moron about the economy. As I said, I'll be the first one to tell you that you're right. But I know that a focus on local community and growth, as well as making sure we *remain* self sufficient in the areas that we can be...can't be a bad thing in the long run in my mind.
Venen wrote:
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People probably wouldn't tolerate isolationism due to the moral implications of completely ignoring people in need who have much more unfortunate circumstances.
Unless those people happen to be Americans.....then they are thrown to the wolves. The double standard on this one drives me absolutely ape shit. The recent health care debate is just the most recent example of this.