Alpe d'Huez said:
...
• Cut defense spending by 20%, fast track withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan. Stop being the world's policeman. Take care of the US...
I have to admit, this one resonated as a somewhat bizarre. Because weren't we "taking care of the US" by setting the Middle East ablaze?
Then there is a catch 22 in the globalized world
such as it exists today: namely, the moment America ceases to be the world's policeman, as you say, is the moment its superpower status starts toward precipitous decline.
You see once you have vied for and then actually become the rulers of the world, through a whole series of more or less messy business, then you have to assume certain responsibilities to stay on top as they say. The moment you are no longer capable of bringing the necessary pressure to bear and play the strong hand that forces the most congenial agenda to your interests and pummels all opposition into submission, then the end is near as either everything becomes chaotic, or else someone rises up in your place.
It has been this way for every empire throughout history and not even America can escape this fate. One day we will no longer rule the world, there's just no getting around it, or, if there is a means to avoid the most destructive nature of this fate, then perhaps it is precisely by
not thinking only of ourselves.
On this account, however, I'm sure ChrisE has split his gut open with laughter at the utter ridiculousness and absurdity of such an idea, the
alternative way. Just imagine, we keep a canister sealed forever and which has never been opened, because we were afraid and told that it would emit a dire poison as soon as it was opened, a poison from which we would instantly flee, believing it to be lethal. Though what we believe to be and were told was a spiritual poisoning in the canister is in fact something new and never inhaled that allows us to catch a whiff of the free spirit, take it in and get high on it, not just the odor of nationalist imbecility; but the scent of liberation, which is
the essential nutriment of the mind.
For this reason if such a canister were to be opened the establishment would waste little time in re-confining it, whereas they would never forgive the ones who had poisoned the country by breaking the ancient seal imposed on the spirit by them.Their most pressing concern would be to recapture that evil spirit which has polluted the nation and confine it once more in the canister, which this time would not be double-sealed, but treble-sealed and they would obdurately refuse to let us reopen it, and come to think of it, most everyone would be too scared to insist.