I see, so millions of Americans starved to death in the 60's and 70's until trade with China at last made Snickers bars affordable for the common peasant.
No, that didn't happen. Back then we had a different culture and different methods of planting, harvesting and managing farms.
Americans didn't just have cars before they learned about the joys of sweatshoppery. They also made planes and *gasp* even computers, nearly all for domestic consumption.
Yes, they did. (Emphasis on "did.") You might as well claim we don't need oil because we once used horses.
My proposal is to eliminate all support for governments that don't protect democracy and human rights or implement drastic reforms on the way to compliance.
That's great! Stopping government aid to other countries who treat their citizens poorly is something I'd support. And quite different from what you proposed earlier - which was to stop all imports of oil, most imports of rare earths, and stop selling food to most of the world.
Why do you want to eliminate aid for legitimate fledgling democracies alongside aid to the jihadists and sweatshops?
I don't. I am in favor of eliminating aid to GOVERNMENTS - not PEOPLE.
Once again, are you talking about pulling the US military out of democracies who've asked for its assistance, or just the countries where it props up unelected dictators? If it's the former, again I ask you what we gain by handing South Korea to fat Hitlerian narcicists, let alone sacrificing any other pawns to people who hate America because it won't let them rape and plunder.
Democracy imposed from without is the severest form of tyranny. Let the people of the world choose their own governments.
That would put unprecedented sums of cash in the hands of authoritarians and jihadists.
It would put large sums of cash in EVERYONE'S hands. And that tends to destroy dictators.
Sounds like something right out of a cheesy sci-fi B-movie. What exactly do you plan to do with all the unknown criminals?
Same thing we do with them now. We have a justice system here that actually works pretty well at finding unknown criminals. Indeed, it is part of their job.
Doesn't seem like you've given this one very much thought, to be honest.
I'll close with a quote from someone who said it better than I could:
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And now, friends and countrymen, if the wise and learned philosophers of the elder world, the first observers of nutation and aberration, the discoverers of maddening ether and invisible planets, the inventors of Congreve rockets and Shrapnel shells, should find their hearts disposed to enquire what has America done for the benefit of mankind? Let our answer be this: America, with the same voice which spoke herself into existence as a nation, proclaimed to mankind the inextinguishable rights of human nature, and the only lawful foundations of government. America, in the assembly of nations, since her admission among them, has invariably, though often fruitlessly, held forth to them the hand of honest friendship, of equal freedom, of generous reciprocity. She has uniformly spoken among them, though often to heedless and often to disdainful ears, the language of equal liberty, of equal justice, and of equal rights. She has, in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a single exception, respected the independence of other nations while asserting and maintaining her own. She has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when conflict has been for principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart. She has seen that probably for centuries to come, all the contests of that Aceldama the European world, will be contests of inveterate power, and emerging right. Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from
liberty to
force.... She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.
America's glory is not
dominion, but
liberty. Her march is the march of the mind. She has a spear and a shield: but the motto upon her shield is,
Freedom, Independence, Peace. This has been her Declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit, her practice.
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