Comment by wildmusings | Hacker News Reader

Comment by wildmusings | Hacker News Reader

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Believe what you want, but the Pax Americana is real and is empirically the most peaceful time in world history. It is partly due to nuclear deterrents and partly due to the US maintaining a massive military presence in hot spots (Korea, South China Sea, Taiwan, Persian/Arab Gulf, Eastern Europe).

Yes, it is often coercive and we have certainly supported unsavory regimes. It is worth considering what the alternatives to those regimes are. In Saudi Arabia, for instance, the House of Saud is actually a moderating force keeping the Wahhabist mullahs from taking over completely. Liberal democracy will not work everywhere today, as our horribly misguided experiment in Iraq has demonstrated. I recommend Fareed Zakaria's The Future of Freedom for a discussion of the problem, but a very short summary is that you cannot have a functioning democracy without substantial economic development (natural resource money does NOT count for many reasons) and a middle class that feels highly invested in stability, growth, and trade.

The US government never supported Hitler. America is a free country so of course there were many private individuals and companies who did. No different than how Western academia was extremely fond of the Soviets until the 1950s. The US actually provided massive aid to the allies before entering the war, through the lend lease program among others. The fact is that it wasn't clear at the time that it was in the United State's interests to oppose Hitler. It was a far away problem, there was a strong isolationist mood in the US, and even the Brits were trying their hand at coexisting with him.

> The US government never supported Hitler.

Breckinridge Long is the very first name to prove that wrong. He was the US Secretary of State at the time Hitler was in power and gave Henry Ford permission to buy Nazi tanks while purposely preventing Jewish refugees from entering the US. He and Roosevelt also gave permission to the US companies I mentioned above to continue trading with Nazi Germany during war times.

For them, it wasn't so much about liberty and human rights as it was about business. That's still the case today. The US #1 trade partner is China, who happens to have a pathetic human rights record and is also still occupying Tibet. But opposing them in any way would be bad for business, so it gets shoved under the rug.

Out of sight, out of mind.

The US was neutral and did business with both allied and axis powers at that point. We nevertheless tipped the scales strongly in favor of the allies with the lend lease act, for example. And the historical record is pretty clear that from the beginning of the war, Roosevelt was itching for a reason to jump in on the allied side. Your anti-American historical revisionism is contrary to the facts.

The idea that the US should stop doing business with China is ridiculous. As a major nuclear power with an economy that within in a decade or two could surpass ours in total output, America is in no position to do anything about China's internal affairs. Ending trade with China would cause extreme economic damage and internal unrest in the United States. It would be a phenomenally stupid sword for America to fall on.

You're right in general though. America's main interest after the security of ourselves and our allies is open and peaceful commerce between nations.

You stated that the US government never supported Hitler and I disproved that by mentioning but a single name.

You got me with Roosevelt, though. I merely mentioned him for completeness sake, not to single him out. That was badly worded on my part.

Fine and dandy, if you live and work in the US.

If you live just about anywhere. If you could pick a time to be a human but not know where you'd be born, the Pax Americana is your best choice by far.

Whenever I way variations of this meme (I wouldn't call it a thought) I weigh it and find it way too light.

For starters you're comparing different times, which is not even wrong, as they say. But actually the alternative to behaving as an aggressor is to behave "more decently" according to various standards, certainly differently; and that would not deter from any actual peacekeeping intentions and actions, to the contrary.

Compare to the hypothetical present times without sociopaths in power and conformists making excuses for them. And explain how "Pax Americana" and the foolhardy meddling in the Middle East go together. More like "peaceful munching sounds made by the wallets of some peeps, called FELLOW AMERICANS!!1 when convenient or cute, as an extraction device, not one one of them ever considering themselves as such".

There is no peace. There are people holding their ears, and there are people who will not unsee, ever. There's people who made their beds but pretend they will never have to sleep in them. But we cannot hide our own crimes behind those of others, ignorance does not protect from the consequences, lack of empathy does not protect from punishment. There is not a single history that is being written, what is swept under the rug today will be uncovered tomorrow, if there's ever going to be a day deserving the name.

> you're comparing different times

> Compare to the hypothetical

It's invalid to compare the present with the past, but valid to compare the present with a present that never was?

The past isn't a possible present (it is still fine to compare if there are enough analogs).

If I just said "it would be better to behave more honestly", what would the response be? More often than not, something along the lines of "I know why it would seem that way, of course honesty should be used whenever possible, but diplomacy being so complicated and humans so mean, what actually would happen when you're too honest (or don't have double standards, etc.) is blah blah blah".

If you disagree, make an argument against it without any such invalid comparisons [It doesn't matter if you say the word "compare", if you don't want to see the woods for all the trees you'll always find excuses anyway and I for one don't need to hear them] because otherwise, there isn't even anything there I need to argue against, and anything beyond pointing that out is just a bonus for someone who doesn't get or doesn't like the point to get hung up on, if you will. On HN it's usually silence or responses like that, bleh, look for the least generous reading, squirt out a one liner. Oh well, you do you.

So you'd be happier with an empire honest about its behavior than one which seeks to dissemble about it? I mean I'm having kind of a hard time figuring out what you're getting at here, is what I'm trying to say. Can you explain it in a way that involves less vague inveighing against ill-characterized malfeasance, and a more coherent statement of what you're actually about?

Iran? East Timor?

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