Ensuring A New American Century

[Nakura Chambers]

We spent the first half of the 20th century mostly minding our own business, we didn't meddle too much except to stick up for France/UK and later for China/UK when things were really going downhill

Where does this myth come from? It's as if Ron Paul has personally white-washed all of America's foreign policy history prior to World War II. Why don't you try telling Spain or Central America how we didn't get involved in the world. Never mind World War I and the period of independent internationalism that followed. Tell me more about how the United States didn't actively work to contain the power of Japan through all means available, including effectively castrating our own Navy through the Naval Conferences.

[draynay]

Where does this myth come from? It's as if Ron Paul has personally white-washed all of America's foreign policy history prior to World War II. Why don't you try telling Spain or Central America how we didn't get involved in the world. Never mind World War I and the period of independent internationalism that followed. Tell me more about how the United States didn't actively work to contain the power of Japan through all means available, including effectively castrating our own Navy through the Naval Conferences.

Spain was the 19th century, I covered WWI and our pro-china anti-japan policies, I wouldn't leave tidbits like that out, I'm relatively thorough, and yet my hours upon hours without sleep are slightly exposed in that I neglected to make mention of Panama

but if you're done treating me as if I were an idiot, you could acknowledge that our foreign policy had a more isolationist bent at this time as opposed to the truman doctrine some years later? did I make some grand claim about our pure innocence and goodness? I don't know why you're trying to pick a fight with me

[Nakura Chambers]

Why do you then call yourself conservative and right-wing when you yourself said you basically want to turn the US internally to be like Sweden, which has policies that would be considered extremely left-wing, even communist in the US, with the state getting more invested in healthcare and education etc.

It's really hard to make out what you consider to be right or left wing yet you want to apply that label globally when sensible people generally think of those labels as varying within individual countries' politics.

And the ten million dollar question has finally been asked. It's conservative in that we still have free markets and all of my policies, barring socialist healthcare, are based around classical liberalism. Also, unlike liberals who feel they are entitled to everything simply because they exist, I am requiring they actually work and be willing to die for freedom in order to receive socialist healthcare and other such benefits. I think you'll find almost every conservative will agree with offering higher education and healthcare to veterans.

[Deleted]

USA intervention throughout the world only leads to more 'freedom' for USA companies to profit in ways that would otherwise be impossible.

i have at least a dozen of examples where USA provides political support to the one that is more willing to serve amecan interests rather than the one who is asking for justice(USA has supported many dictatorships throughout the world-especially latin america- as long as they were open for buisiness,regardless of the inhuman treatment of their subjects,which they often labeled as terrorists-fighting against a dictator makes you one?- in order to fit the USA rhetoric)

USA in deeds is no better than Russia or China it just claims to be,the others are at least honest about it.

[Itisamuh]

I don't have time to get into too much of a response at the moment, but I'll just say a couple things.

I'm pretty far right in most ways, but I still agree with the idea of socialized health care, with or without a private sector to go along with it. People shouldn't go broke over medical issues, ever, and it's probably the main thing causing people in our country (likely including my family soon) to go bankrupt.

Honestly though, some of the things you've suggested are more or less how I feel about things. Education should be competitive and rewarding to those who earn it, not to mention have more time spent on things that are actually important in life. I also think college needs to be much cheaper, but I'll leave that for another topic. I'd love to see a conservative alternative government, within the country and internationally, that can coexist with the liberal counterparts, but I don't see that realistically happening since they're too intolerant of each other. The foreign policy regarding the line between military power and peace is basically what I think needs to happen too.

However, I'm firmly against forcing military service. If circumstances were a bit different with me, I'd gladly join, so it's not that I'm opposed to military. But, I think it's a fundamentally bad idea to put something so important in the hands of people who don't want it. It can only cause problems, and the military needs to be as efficient and unified as possible.

Also, I seriously doubt we'll ever legitimately colonize other worlds. That's a gigantic waste of economy to try in my opinion, but whatever.

[Deleted]

Spain was the 19th century, I covered WWI and our pro-china anti-japan policies (…) you could acknowledge that our foreign policy had a more isolationist bent at this time (…)

So you suddenly had a change of heart at the turn of the century, and you went from expansionism to isolationism in less than two decades? Please… the US pursued world hegemony as much as any other imperialist nation, but jumped a little too late on that bandwagon.

[Austilias]

It's rather sad that Conservatism has been taken so far away from what it was a few hundred years ago by the contemporary politicians who call themselves 'Conservative' today.

Hell, go back a few decades and you have the likes of William F. Buckley Jr., who was certainly more educated than, hell, politicians in general these days. Still, that's why i don't tend to have political discussions beyond those of a technical nature these days; if argued in general terms, Conservatives are seen as Bible-brandishing wingnuts, and Liberals are seen as pot-smoking hippies.

As to the next century, it'll be fine. We will adapt and change if necessary, much as Hollywood Armageddon movies might have us think that this is impossible and that chaos is inevitable.

[Xeon8]

Arctic Daishi,

You try to sound like you are a Republican; but after reading your entire post, you come off as more of a moderate Democrat. Aside from your military view and those random "conservative" groups you want to create, the rest of what you wrote about is pretty much straight out of the Democrats handbook.

First, starting off with "how can we ensure unipolarity, or at the very least, American dominance well within into the 21st century and beyond?" on a forum that has a lot of people from other countries, is a good way to make people angry and not finish reading your post. It comes off as arrogant and people hate arrogance.

I consider myself a conservative libertarian. I believe our government has become too large and needs to be reduced in size, along with needing to be pulled back in line with the constitution. Why do we have to be the world police? Just because we reduce the size of our military doesn't mean that we will become a second rate country open for invading. There will still be military research & development going on along with saving millions/billions of dollars in military wages/operation costs. We have bases in countries around the world where they are no longer needed. The people staffed at these bases probably spend more time at the local brothel than on the base. Forcing more people into the military will put an even greater burden on our already sky-rocketing deficit. I would also argue that our intrusion into every country we feel needs our help is a good way to keep pissing off terrorist organizations and spur more hate toward our country.

On education, I think more competition in schools is a good thing. Too many kids these days are being coddled until they are adults and don't know how to cope with failure once they get out into the real world. Because I don't agree with forcing everyone into the military, I can't agree with everyone going to higher education (if it's state funded, they all will go). Let's be honest, not everyone is smart enough for higher education and if everyone has a 4 yr degree then that degree becomes meaningless and then everyone will go for their masters and so on. Bachelor degrees are already getting watered down in fields outside of the hard maths/sciences.

Healthcare: You can't have both private and public healthcare without one of them falling to the wayside. Any time the government steps in, the private sector version falls apart because they can't compete. The private sector actually has to pay attention to its budget and stay profitable. They are already claiming that millions of people are going to lose their private insurance thanks to the new healthcare law and be forced onto the government version. Millions of unexpected people on the government plan is going to balloon the estimated $1 trillion cost (yea right...) to $3+ trillion (probably low) in no time where it will be another huge deficit producer like the rest of the entitlements.

In ending, most of what you propose will come at an astronomical cost to our budget which we already cannot sustain. The quickest way to end a country is through its check book. If they don't have any money to defend themselves, it's over.