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I agree that colonialism was a net-positive for most nations it occurred in (probably China being the big exception here), it's just not a point that I feel is too relevant here. Our fundamental point of disagreement is this : > I have made the point that military interventionism is something that breeds instability. I don't agree, at all, with this. Interventionism (well, mostly threats, not actual intervention) is what has kept the world stable the last 30 or so years. Stable, of course, relative to what came before and what will come after. > I do not want globalisation, which seems to be your main problem with what I said. I simply made the point that one nation cannot lead all. It not only can, IF it's the right nation, but I would say that one nation's leadership has lead to by far the stablest period of the last 4-5 centuries. Sure that period is ending, and very few people are likely to find that a positive, but it's ending because the power of that singular nation is waning. I'm not saying the US is the only nation that would actually use it's military in a somewhat moral fashion, but given what other nations did when they had their go at it, I certainly would not trust any European nation, Russia, China, Turkey (or generally any islamic nation, even Morocco has proven what it's made of) or Japan to use their military right. Because the period is ending, the name of the game is now finding blame for the wars that result from the power vacuum. The reality is that the military superiority of America is no longer absolute (it probably is, actually, but Obama is not willing to bet 100% on it. Then again, Obama has a better view than I do, maybe he's right that the US could not easily win a conflict against Russia, or maybe Putin is just a really tough poker player) Of course nobody sees fault with the nations that are mostly guilty of not protecting themselves, guilty of "neutrality", chiefly the European nations, because they're not doing anything, and nobody ever gets blamed for not arming themselves. But the reality is that they are responsible for the escalation. The problem is the hiding behind "neutrality". As the recent weeks have very clearly illustrated : "neutrality" boils down to supporting the most aggressive party in a conflict, from a strategic point of view. It should be a crime. There's one other point I strongly disagree with : > Christianity, as I am sure you know, is in the same religious family as Islam and Judaism. I think the ideas of Christianity, Judaism and islam are very, very, very dissimilar. They have some of the same figures of legend, except of course the most central figures, which differ. In practice this creates a difference that is as wide as an ocean. Christianity and Judaism are basically concerned with creating a society of mostly farmers, a few traders. The goal : expansion, mostly through population growth. Islam creates a society based on constant warfare, with trade taking the place of supply lines (similar to the mongol society, for example). The goal : conquest, conversion through military means and the installation of a legally superior muslim society on top of whatever they found (like e.g. it happened in Northern Africa or India). You may call this "same family", then I would probably say that Nazism, Stalinism, Communism, European socialism and the democrats are all the same family too. I think you'll agree that rather large differences are possible "within" ideological families. Hell, even European socialists differ far more from the Democrats than the Republicans differ with the American Communist party. And that islam doesn't match the ideals of modern society is no more surprising than the observation that neither does Roman law. There's just nobody stupid enough to attempt to bring back Roman law. |